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).
Photos exploring the textures of landscape and buildings around Wasdale Head in the Western Lake District. Wasdale Head (85 m.) is overlooked by some of the highest peaks: Kirk Fell (802 m.), Great Gable (899 m.) and Scafell Pike (977 m.).
Colourful and poignant memorial to the tragedy of the HIV/Aids pandemic, which took so many people in the Eighties and Nineties, many of them my closest friends and fondest playmates. I liked the panel with the motto “For those we dare not name” which encapsulates the ethic of gay promiscuity before HIV/Aids. Most of my friends requested that mourners wear white or colourful clothes for their funerals. Several times I played out one last time a deceased’s favourite HiNRG music and gay anthems like “I am what I am”. The diversity of styles and the colours of the Quilt community art project reflect that mentality of life lived to the max then snatched by disease.
More photos: Smell the flowers while you can... UK AIDS Memorial Quilt at Tate Modern
Spring flowers on the South Downs Way around Ditchling Beacon (248 m.). The abundance of colour is striking on the green of the grassland, a surge of spring after the bleak straw of winter. No particularly rare species, the orchids aren’t flowering here yet.
More photos: South Downs flowers - South Downs National Park
Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons.
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!
(traditional Nursery Rhyme)
Fresh and spicy: hot cross buns still warm from Ravens Bakers in Preston Park, Brighton. Traditionally, hot cross buns were only baked as treats on Good Friday. We now get ours the day before - Maundy Thursday - as there’s usually a long queue on Good Friday for these because they’re hand-made and scrumptious!
