About me...

I have taken photos all my adult life, from when I was seventeen. Mostly this is photography for its own sake: I go to places, or simply wander the streets, in order to photograph. I hardly photograph my own life (family events and stuff) at all, unless it's travel. I guess there's something wrong with me; but it's a bit late to change it now.

Mostly my photographs say 'look at this'; there is rarely any very deep intent beyond that. It has been noted more than once that even in town, I often wait for the people to get out of the way, and so produce a record of an oddly empty scene (just look at the 'showcase' photos below). I do also sometimes wait for cyclists, pedestrians, concrete mixers or other charismatic traffic to get into frame, to fill spaces, as anonymous scenic elements. But many of my photos are 'of' an arrangement of empty space and things. This used to bother me a bit; now it's what I do, and you can like it or not.

Until a few years ago I used to take pictures almost exclusively on film, though I'd nothing against digital; it's just that I had the stuff for film, and enjoyed doing it. I have always developed my own black-and-white, and started doing most of my own colour negative stuff too. Then I scanned the negatives with an Epson 4870, with Silverfast to drive the scanner and Elements for any other adjustments and spotting for dust. This works well enough, but I find scanning a chore. Anyhow, I built up a backlog of shot film waiting to be developed, and another of developed film waiting to be scanned. By the time I saw the scanned photos they were old news. So I got a little mirrorless digital, and I do most of my photography with that now. I mean to keep using my film cameras; but I already have a developing-queue again..

I have quite a lot of oldish cameras, many of which are fully mechanical, in sizes between half-frame 35 mm and 4x5 inch. I resist the idea that I'm a collector, but at times the pleasure of using these cameras is as important to me as the photographs.

I struggle to make the time for photography, or to get started on developing or scanning film. With a backlog of shot film, shooting more seemed to be making a rod for my own back. After a period of not doing much at all, I got a little Canon mirrorless, the EOS M50, a couple of years ago, and I'm photographing again. Though it doesn't give me everything that film used to, it has its own unique things too, and I have come to love it. In the last year I have started shooting a bit of film again.

I have done some basic maintenance on some of my cameras - cleaning and greasing - and occasionally more adventurous repairs, like replacing the shutter cloth on my Foth Derby. I have done some useful camera-related DIY too; a device to cut 120 film to 127 size, home-made lens boards to mount new lenses on my Ensign Reflex, a grip for my Century Graphic; that sort of thing.

I'm delighted that anyone looks at my pictures, and really interested in any comments. Please don't add 'award' logos or other big bright stuff though - it distracts from the photo.

Don't steal my pictures, please!

If you want to use any of my photos, you really must contact me beforehand. Seriously, I have hunted people down in the past for stealing my pictures. By default, they're listed here with 'all rights reserved', but depending on what you want to use a picture for, I may change the licence to allow your use. Better, I may even send you a higher-quality version of the picture. I'll probably expect a fee for any commercial use - only fair, if you're using my photo to make money - but I have made exceptions in the past for uses I liked. I won't licence photos at all for uses I don't approve of (so... no decorating nuclear weapons with them, or else).

In particular, some of my pictures are photos of my cameras; I explicitly forbid the use of my pictures in auction listings (use a picture of the camera you're trying to sell; duh!). I have used some of these in posts on other fora like photo.net, and for most of them I state in my tags that I permit their use in the excellent Camera-wiki.org but even for other non-commercial camera sites, you need my permission to use my pictures, and you won't have that unless you ask.