Welcome to my photography website!
I won't label myself as any particular type of photographer - I'm yet to find a niche that feels right and the learning continues every day, but that is perhaps the most enjoyable part of the process! Like many kids of the 80's I played around with my father's film cameras as a child and got into digital photography later - around 2009 - with an Olympus E-410, then 'upgrading' a couple of years later to a Canon 60D. But switching to the Fuji mirrorless system with the X-T1 in 2014 probably brought the biggest change and most progress to my personal development as a photographer. It was a joy to shoot with and the portability over the Canon system meant that I shot more with it, so coupled with a desire to learn and improve it served me well. 2017 saw a change again, back to the DSLR world with the Nikon D850, and in 2019 I reached a stage where I found photographic peace with a 2 camera set-up consisting of the Fuji GFX 50S and the Fuji X-T3. In 2022 the X-T3 gave way to a Leica SL2-S, and the files I am able to capture now can fulfil any vision I am able to dream up. So no excuses!
Over the past few years I have also rediscovered film, and what a discovery! With so many people shooting digital these days it is hard not to feel crowded out, but going back to film is like stepping out into an open landscape from the middle of Piccadilly circus on a Friday evening! The sense of peace, being able to breathe again and just take things slowly is... profound. And just like how slowing down in life makes you appreciate it more, so I find using film actually makes you a significantly better digital photographer! Funny how these things work - or maybe just funny to us because we have run so far and so quickly that we have lost touch with what came before.
The website itself is divided broadly into digital and film content. I feel this is a natural separation because both the process of shooting and the output are tangibly different between the two media. Film is then categorised into colour, black and white, and pinhole, all of which have their distinct characteristics. As for digital, I struggled a bit to settle on a satisfactory categorisation. Ultimately I went for location, because I felt that is usually the common thread that holds disparate images together, particularly when they are not originally shot as part of a specific series or project. Where I have shot projects I have given them the requisite gallery space, of course. I don't tend to shoot a great deal of portraiture or wildlife, but I'm not averse to dabbling, so they have their space too. Travel is a funny one, because I have been fortunate enough to do a fair bit of travelling, but the photography during trips that have another primary focus can often be very challenging. I therefore class my travel images very deliberately, not just clubbing together anything that includes a journey away from home.
The 'Interact' section hold contact details, a blog (that I infrequently update), details on ordering prints and books in the 'Shop', and details of camera club talks that I deliver in the 'Talks' section.
I hope you enjoy perusing the site, but I will add a disclaimer that colours on a monitor may not be as I intended (more on that below). The uploaded files are also optimised for the web and so not always the highest quality. The printed image is often the finest output for a photograph, and I would always recommend a physical print when it comes to artistic fidelity and faithful reproduction. But at least this gives you an idea!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A note on colour space: All the images displayed on this website are JPEGs in the sRGB colour space. I think this is currently the most optimal for web-based viewing, but it does mean the colour palette is limited and sometimes some of the images may not be displayed exactly the way I want, with the colours as I intended them. This will also vary greatly depending on your viewing device. There is no way around this currently so we'll just have to make do, but I wanted to mention it because it raises the point that even with today's technology the only real way to fully appreciate a photograph or piece of art is to see it in print. Or, in the case of a photograph, at least on a display the photographer has set up themselves. For those of you who would like to know more about colour spaces and why this makes such a big difference, check out this useful article from Cambridge in colour.
