photography

My main areas of interest are in prod uct photography for advertising and travel and reportage, but it would be far too limiting never to venture beyond these areas.
For me photography is similar to music or food in so far as different flavours suit different moods. A large proportion of my work focuses on expressive colour. Raoul Dufy, the French painter is a great inspiration for me. His simplification of a scene to almost abstract shapes and bold, daring colour is something I aim to recreate in some of my photography. This process of reduction transforms almost any environment into a potential photographic subject.

At other times the complete opposite of this style is refreshing. The dark, sombre, sinister epics produced by painters such as Friedrich epitomised this style. He transformed the naked, desolation of a winter scene into an object of unconventional beauty. It is these dark and evocative feelings that I try to bring into my work when the mood calls for it.

In both of these genres, the play of light is crucial and this is something that I love to experiment with. Whether it is the sun, a professional studio lighting system or the flame of a match, any light source can be the winning element in a photograph. In fact Two of the books I have written were based solely on the subject of light within photography.

So, with such diverse leanings on photographic style, one might say there is plenty of evidence present for a diagnosis of a serious split personality syndrome. But in my own defence, I prefer to think of it as simply flowing with the seasons of mood.