April 2025: I have now retired from my "day job" and over the next year I am planning to arrange short photo courses in Cornwall and France. They will cover aspects of taking photos – concepts, creating the scene, composition and competence in technique – and using the raw photo to make a picture that tells the story by digital processing which does not detract from te reality of the image. If any photographers would be interested in taking part, either individually or in small groups, please get in touch via Flickr message initially to discuss the options...

I am an art photographer* in South West England and the Charente region of France. My subject is an exploration of beauty and dreams. As many philosophers have said: Life is full of woe. but there are moments when our experience rises above that to feel peace, contentment, exhilaration and the appreciation of beauty. When we have lived those moments they can sustain us and give us hope through the difficult times – and photography, by capturing and saving them, helps to keep the feeling fresh. And not only for us: because we naturally have empathy we can gain these positive emotions through other people's moments of joy and visions of beauty as represented in their photographs. The news media are constantly bombarding us with images of death and destruction and the social media are dominated by pressure to consume things we dont need. So we do need to be reminded of what is truly important – both for our mental / spiritual health and even our determination to survive."

My work covers over 50 years starting with B&W bleak landscapes through abstract nudes, portraits, dance & theatre to the added dimension of colour and emphasis on personal experience and subconscious mythology. I am always improvising, trying to learn from the images and people's reactions to them.

I count myself amazingly fortunate to have those friends and relations who have freely given their time and beauty as models to make many of my photographic ideas a reality, especially Marie who has shared the artistic journey from the beginning. I am also very grateful to my friends on Flickr who have made invaluable suggestions encouraging comments and engaged in deeply satisfying discussions on the philosophy and practice of photography and art in general.

Having started in the B&W darkroom printing era I have been an enthusiastic PhotoShop user for 25 years using mainly just the basic adjustments available in the early versions which have allowed me to "bring back to life" many negs and slides from the 60s onwards and re-compose pictures from spontaneous snaps – I continue to scan and edit these old photos as time allows. I have also had great pleasure in making re-edits of other Flickr photographer friends' work that I admire and posting them with their permission, including Rich "Summaron", Barry Carlton, Suzanne Reis / Johnny Wechs, Fred Dolam, Ken Mines and many others.

My own website is temporarily offline. I have a longstanding photo.net gallery which includes a lot of background information about the images. I also have a blog which I have just re-activated. I plan to add the stories behind many of my photo series, old and new. They include art nude images so please do not enter the sites if you are under 18 or are likely to be offended..

Some of my photos which have been posted on Flickr for years and have been seen by over 200,000 people are now archived and visible only as thumbnails. They will be displayed in my Patrons' galleries on a rotating basis and may be re-posted here by popular request. Otherwise only a few images are not visible on my public portfolio, mostly because I have found them stolen and posted on random sites; some have been removed from public view at the request of the subjects/models who are mostly friends and relations and inevitably may move into life/work situations where public nude photos, recognisably of them could cause problems.

For those with none of your own photos ... don't worry, you're welcome! We don't have to be painters to appreciate paintings and we don't have to be photographers to appreciate photos. It would be nice if you could leave a comment on what you like or dislike about the pics - but remember that the nudes are mostly intended to be artistic rather than glamorous or erotic and so may intentionally be too distant / dark / even blurred to see all the details.

* this doesn't just mean pretentious photographer, it means "not documentary photographer" ie my pictures do not necessarily record objective reality (whatever that is) but my reaction to the subject. They do start in a camera and mostly end up in the style of a photograph but quite a lot of "artistic licence" may be taken in between.

Flickr suggests that visitors should be advised that this site includes nude images so if you are not comfortabe with the natural beauty of the naked human body you should not enter (but you may find that you change your mind if you do look at them).

My Patreon site was launched on 29 July 2019 and displays Flickr viewers' favourites and new, never previously published images. I plan to publish 2-3 images per week and as they are not publicly visible they can be at higher resolution than ever before. I am very excited about creating a community of enthusiasts to share my vision of beauty and have stimulating discussions about photography, technique and art, and enjoy interacting on a more personal basis than is possible on a fully public site.

For continuity I have tried to integrate it with my Flickr photostream so that favourite photos that have been archived will become visible to members in a special Patrons' Album, complete with all the individual comments (not standardised 'awards') that have previously been posted over the years.

Please give feedback on suggestions for improvements or any problems requiring a fix.

But first → follow this link ← to see what it is all about...

You can also view my Flickr portfolio in a more elegant format on FLUIDR...

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A note on technique: there has been a lot of discussion on the differences between analog (chemical) and digital photography. I have a long experience of both and I believe the differences now are mainly in the attitude of the photographer rather than the technology itself.

So the unsurprising conclusion is that we should use the best features of each approach - combining some traditional knowledge of optics with modern methods of digital processing to make the most effective photograph under the widest range of circumstances.