My Flickr stream has evolved as I have as a photographer. I'm currently trying to make a serious attempt at becoming a credible street photographer. As a result, I've decided to pare back considerably my stream here, so that it represents if not all the very best work I've done - I'm keeping some project stuff to one side, as well as some images around which trying to construct a worthwhile portfolio with a view to exhibiting - at least a representative selection of pictures which I believe have some value.

Some say I'm a harsh critic of myself, but I believe that over time it becomes clear whether a picture works or not, and when I come to the realisation that an image doesn't work, I delete it. So don't be surprised if photographs disappear from time to time. I'm also less and less tolerant of the typical street photography tropes and clichés - to be honest, I find a lot of what is posted on Flickr and elsewhere under the heading of street photography incredibly dull. But I'm human, and I know that I'm frequently tempted by those clichés too. I'm trying to eliminate them from my stream, unless I genuinely believe that the examples I've posted have something special about them.

Ultimately, my aim is to take pictures which represent genuinely unique moments - ones where, if I had not been in the right place at the right time, the moment would have been lost for ever.

Shots posted here have been taken with a variety of cameras : early ones with an Olympus, a Lumix Panasonic DMC-FX100 or a Leica D-LUX 4; later ones with a Leica M9 (which, to my eternal chagrin, I managed to lose) and my current weapon of choice, a Fujifilm X100T. I have never been technically inclined - to me, it's always been always about the image - and I didn't really leaner anything about processing until around 2012. For most of the early photographs posted here, I don't even have the original JPG, let alone a RAW file, so sometimes the image quality is far from optimal.

What else is worth knowing about me ?

Well, at heart I'm a writer, so don't be surprised if sometimes there are essays or stories beneath my photographs. I don't always have the confidence to allow my images to speak for themselves, though I'm getting better.

I'm not the kind of person who's going to fave a hundred pictures a day. If I've faved one of your pictures, it's because I've totally fallen in love with it.

Which leads me on to one last thing : I read on another contact's profile something along the lines of "And check out my Favourites - that's where the best stuff is to be found." I can't claim to have seen more than a tiny percentage of what's on Flickr, but I can say that I've been blown away by some of what I've seen. If you want to discover something new and magical - check out my Favourites. And if that seems like a daunting prospect, why not start with one of my galleries :

Hidden Treasures : a selection of some of my very favourite photographs that deserve a wider audience.