Artist's Statement

When I was teenager my dad introduced me to the idea of developing and printing at home. After a couple of years, I got a summer job with a seaside photographer on the Weymouth promenade in the hope of meeting girls. However to my chagrin I was assigned to the task of processing photos in the basement darkroom after my boss discovered I was studying chemistry at school. There I perfected my developing and printing skills over 3 summers at the expense of my amorous desires.

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie. Eventually I graduated to succession of 35mm single lens reflex cameras. When my children were young I started making pinhole cameras from old cardboard boxes. This led to idea of playing with toy cameras. Later I realized that I prefer to see photos on paper rather than on a digital display. Another reason for preferring old-fashioned techniques is that I think technology should take second place to creativity. We all spend too much time looking at screens. Digital photography seems to me to take away from the simple joy of image making.

Urban and seaside vernacular architecture fascinate me because they remind me of holidays snapshots. I love the unexpected compositions to be discovered with the inevitable passers-by adding human interest. Basically, I am interested in a kind of street photography.

I am intrigued by image capture techniques such as pinhole, zone-plate, and infrared photography, often in combination with alternative printing processes such as cyanotype, platinum and/or gum printing. I enjoy the process of brushing non-silver photographic emulsions directly onto watercolor paper. I love the texture of archival nineteenth-century photographic processes, because they require a slower, more deliberate appreciation of the image being printed. In our modern fast-paced age of instant internet access, I savor the tactile pleasure of making art by hand on paper.

When I was learning about photography, the established tradition was Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Straight photography, as exemplified by the Group f/64. They were the rule... and they were a good rule too... but rules are meant to be broken!

These days I prefer photographers such as Susan Derges, Adam Fuss, Betty Hahn, Duane Michals, Bea Nettles, Jerry Uelsman, Abelardo Morell, Sarah Van Keuren, and Jerry Spagnoli.