Photography
My photography
I use photography to show something about where I’ve been or people whom I’ve met. As well as trying to see the beauty in a scene or situation, I’m also trying to convey ideas and feelings. My photography is about me and what I do, who I meet and where I go. All my photography tries to be contemporary and creative. I’m resistant to being fitted in to a taxonomy by categorisation such as “travel” or “conceptual” or “nature”. All image-making is political simply by the act of selection and hence exclusion but I am not campaigning for any particular point of view, except to try to see the positives and to live life to the full.
I use 645, 35mm and DX formats plus a handy little digital compact that shoots RAW files. I’ve experimented with non-lens photography - do ask!
I first worked in a monochrome/silver wet darkroom at age 7, helping my Father with scientific prints; I’ve used colour negative materials since age 21 and digital since 2005. I use Photoshop (Adobe) and Photopaint (Corel).
Fine view of one of England’s highest mountains, Skiddaw (931 m.), over Bassenthwaite Lake, one of Cumbria’s largest lakes. St. Bega’s church, Bassenthwaite is on the lakeside opposite.
Dramatic dawn over Skiddaw (931 m.) and Latrigg (268 m.), seen from Keswick. A thunderstorm developed very soon afterwards so truly “Red sky in the morning, shepherds’ warning”.
BR Standard Class 7 70000 Britannia at Platform 1, Victoria station, London
Hot, steaming and still running on coal, the 4-6-2 steam locomotive pulling the excursion train in to Platform 1 is Britannia, back running on the mainline rails after replacement of a connecting rod which failed during one of last year’s rides. Quite a contrast to the sleek electric commuter trains usually at this London terminus.
Photography note: one of those subjects where my camera’s exposure suggestion was wrong by more than two stops. Those old-time railway photographers had some quite specific skills to get the shots they did.
Not what you expect to see at your local station: neither the Piccadilly Line nor the District Line were running trains this weekend through Barons Court, my local Underground station. Usually the lines are busy with the rattle of passenger trains every couple of minutes, instead there’s a busy flock of hi-viz suits and a couple of engineering trains stationary on the tracks.
Patterns, shapes and textures at low tide at Drigg Beach, Cumbria; there’s a suggestion of the infinite revealed here in the space between the land and the sea and the clouds.
