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).
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.
Sunrise towards the Pennines as seen from above Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswick on the day after Midsummer Day 2021. Blencathra (868 m.) on the left and Clough Head (726 m.) on the right.
Also my photo of the party in progress around the Neolithic stones - but you don’t see the sun rise over the stones, you need to go a bit higher up.
