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).
A photo roughly every fifty paces of this morning’s walk to the supermarket. This photo story is a visual record of my walk from the edge of Keswick, through Fitz Park passing the cycle track, across the River Greta and in to the heart of Keswick. From the idyllic calm of Brundholme Road, and over the brow of Stanger Street; suddenly there are people and the frantic bustle of the busy tourist town as it gets going for this fine day in August. I usually allow a quarter of an hour each way for the walking part of the shopping trip.
This is a fairly standard exercise on photography courses. Students mostly need to work find a worthwhile set of images and that’s the point of the exercise: images are there to be made, anywhere. But here in lovely Keswick in the Lake District National Park (where every view is potentially a picture postcard) there are so many visual delights that this exercise becomes one of deciding which images to exclude and which to feature and why, according to the story you wish to tell. Nonetheless, it’s always a good idea to keep on looking round as the most interesting story may be happening behind you.
More photos: Walk to the supermarket - Keswick, Lake District National Park
Unredeemingly urban, a renowned traffic bottle-neck and home to many thousands of Londoners; the built environment around the Elephant and Castle roundabouts in south-east London must be one of the weirdest urban settings around, the diversity of the architecture reflecting or promoting the heterogeneity of the area.
In this weird world, neither Metropolis nor Le Corbusier (though there are elements of each), the pigeons are on the ground and the humans in the sky. You can no longer distinguish between a work or a living space nor differentiate low cost housing and high value private ownership.
Dramatic sunset for the last night of High Summer in Cumbria. We’ve enjoyed a week of clear blue sky and full sun with air temperatures up to 30°C; now change is in the air, though happily it’s not yet autumn.
From hay bales in the golden fields to heaps of black plastic rolls, the traditional farming work of gathering hay now brings a menacing visual image to the contemporary summer landscape.
These journeys we do hundreds or thousands of times imprint images in our minds. We avoid eye contact so inevitably one looks down or upwards. These patterns plus the infrastructure are all shouting at us in primary colours and harsh patterns, compared to which us travellers are but pale things who pass through this underworld.
These are some images from today’s journey from Barons Court to Victoria on the District Line in London.
