Photography started as a hobby, then became my living for a few years as a commercial and industrial photographer. This almost put me off it altogether - long hours, deadlines, often tedious subjects, but it did have it's exciting moments! Now it has become a very useful tool in my work as an illustrator/painter and it has once again become an enjoyable hobby.
I keep coming back to certain subjects and like to photograph trees, branches, seed pods etc - ie. the natural world, but they often come out more like patterns or abstracts. For some reason I also like to photograph statues, shop windows and mannequins. When I studied photography many years ago I loved to take candid black and white photographs of people, particularly the local punks.
Recently I've enjoyed taking photos in half light or low artificial light experimenting with exposure to create dream-like, blurred, smudgy images and experimenting with early, or alternative, photographic processes such as cyanotypes. I've also recently bought a Leica Sofort camera to experiment with instant photograhy. The images have a somewhat nostalgic quality and I'm hoping I can produce something to add to my 'Memory' series.
