Intro to the journey

93 ‘til infinity…

This here is a space to muse. It’s nice to be away from the chaos of social media so take a moment to breathe. If you’ve found your way here it means you’ve actively clicked on a few links and made the conscious, curious decision to find something new. That’s exactly what I want this to be, a place to explore an artistic journey and thoughts. Let it be noted that I practically know nothing, have achieved nothing, and you’re among a small crowd consisting of my cat and my mother paying any attention (and let’s face it, the cat doesn’t care). But that’s okay. That’s not what this is about. In the past I have found the best way to improve my photography is to put it out to the world. From there I receive criticism in all its forms. Most of it valid, some of it constructive.

Consider me somewhere in between a Joel Meyerowitz and a two year old smashing a Fisher-Price camera against the wall. I’m certainly closer to the short-trouser end of that scale but every once in a while I will produce something passable. For the past five or six years I’ve wandered the streets of London with my camera and slowly entered the world of street, live performance and, recently, sports photography. My immediate future lies here along with a few personal projects that I hope to develop.

My start in photography may have been slightly later than most. In fact, my interest in any sort of artistic pursuit was virtually non-existent before my mid-twenties. I guess I had always been slightly jealous when I saw people draw a great picture, but other than that I figured if you didn’t have it, you never would. It wasn’t until I happened to watch a television program about photography with my uncle. He’s been passionate about photography since his teens and helped to explain the techniques and compositions on the show. Not long after I was on a trip to the US and took a more mindful approach to my holiday snaps. When I got back I showed him my shots. Surely, I thought, he’s never seen anything like it – he’d recognise a natural in his midst on a fast-track to Magnum. Of course that wasn’t to be and I look back now at those clumsy shots with one question, why the hell did I carry on? I can’t give a decent answer to that other than I feel compelled to create. It didn’t matter to me whether those images were good or bad, it was that I had made them at all. Ever since I have grown a further appreciation for others that create and hopefully, together, we can make the world look, sound and feel like a more familiar and truer place than that which we see on the news each day.

So to further test myself I will occasionally write a short piece on my experiences and personal insights. By not only sharing the final images, but the process itself, I hope to push myself as a photographer and maybe one day my cat will give a fuck about photography.

Five tunes to shoot to:

’93 til infinity – Souls of Mischief

Undaground connexion – Assassin, Supernatural

Float on – Modest Mouse

I’ve never met anyone I thought I could really love (until I net you) – Westside Cowboy

TREES – Big Special