Retired national newspaper journalist, born in North Yorkshire, (semi) educated all over the place, living in North London; amateur photographer, off and on, from the age of about seven, digital for the past several years; introduced to Flickr by my talented brother MereHound and talented son Tom Clapping (q.v.) endlessly amazed by what I find here, dismayed by the mostly senseless changes made by yahoo (an imaginary race of brutish creatures invented by my old school fellow (several generations intervening) Jonathan Swift.

My major interests apart from photography (and what my pictures reveal) are good writing, (mainly) figurative (and some abstract) art, (mainly) early and (some) modern music, and climate change and its part in evolution, history and our speculative future.

I'm male, and overtaken by age.

I like looking at life through a glass, of one sort or another.

Most of my photographs are best seen in the large or original size (though some originals are a bit too noisy).

I know it is sometimes unavoidable, but I dislike photographs posted only in a small size – it's like a retreat to the days of direct printing from 120 or 620 film, or en-prints from 35mm, when poor amateurs reliant on professional processing couldn't expect anything better. Usually, most of the potential impact is lost.

Small is beautiful, but if it's beautiful it's worth seeing properly.

I appreciate genuine comments and discussion, but please don't send blinking gifs or invitations to compulsory back-patting and gong-hunting groups - I will delete them.

I automatically block anyone who scoops up favourites by the sackful, regardless of the quality of any work he - it's usually a he - may be showing and with little prospect that they will ever be looked at again, if they were even looked at in the first place. A mindless craving for numbers seems to be a growing ! tendency.