I spent the weekend shooting at a small photo festival close to where I live in the South of France. It was in the middle of a heatwave which is not ideal conditions for Wet Plate and the temperature outside was about 35c and inside the portable darkroom it must have been 45c. This throws up interesting reactions with the chemicals but I was prepared for this and adjusted accordingly. The results are far from perfect but considering the heat and the fact that I was in a dusty field but I shot a few plates that I really like. Above an image of Marie Samantha Salvy a wonderful poet. There are also a couple of other new pictures in the people section of the website.
Read More
![The Story Behind the Photograph.]()
This is a photograph taken in Mexico City for a book on Mexican architecture for Conran Octopus. It was taken at Las Capilla des Capucins which was designed by the great Mexican architect Luis Barragan. I love this shot, it is simple but there is so much going on within it in terms of composition, mood and light and it has an air of calm and meditation to it. The story behind the picture is somewhat different. I was in the middle of two books one in Mexico and a second in the USA. We had arranged permission and a fee with the sisters a couple of weeks before and a date was set. I flew in from LA and went straight to the Capilla with my friend Leo. The shoot was simple and went well and after taking four or five rolls of film we packed up and went to find the Mother Superior to hand over the agreed sum. She counted the money and then turned round and announced that in fact the fee would be ten times the agreed price which was a bit of a shock and demanded that we hand over the film and collect the cash and then she would give it back to us at a later date. It was clear that this was not open to discussion so we handed over a box of film and retreated quickly. We never went back and there is probably a box of five rolls of unprocessed Kodak film sitting in the fridge today.
Read MoreAnd here is a link to some more of my work on ImageBrief.
Read MoreAnd this is another shot in the same apartment showing a great mix of art and colour.
Read MoreA friend who I asked to review my website just wrote to say that my new blog looks a bit gloomy so I thought it might be time to add a bit of color. This is an old shot in a tiny London apartment belonging to a friend and very talented interior designer Hubert Zandberg. Hubert was born if Africa and when he moved to the UK he bought a bit colour with him. Over the years I have photographed many of his projects and they all combine a wonderful use of colour and fantastic art.
Read MoreI am working a lot with Collodion at the moment, the UV is strong, the sky is blue and it is not to hot. The more I learn about Collodion the harder it gets. When I first started out with the process I loved all of the swirls and whirls and in a way I still do but I want to master the process, not have the process master me. Here is a perfect example, a strong image but there is heavy fog on the right in the shadow area and now I have to go off and try and work out what is causing this and once I work that out I then have to learn how to correct it. Collodion is a fickle mistress but as is the way with mistresses there is never a dull moment.
Read More
![India]()
India is another of my great passions and I will be sharing many pictures of my travels here. I first visited in my twenties and as soon as I got off the plane I felt at home, it was as if I had already been there. Over the next ten years I traveled back and forth and at one point was spending more time in India than in the UK. I knew that my father had been born there and that my grandfather had died in India after the second world war. It was only many years later that I discovered that my ancestors had been living here for centuries so in some way India is in my blood.
Below is an old image taken at the Maha Kumb Mela in 2001. On arrival all of my cameras were stolen and it was only through the great kindness of a couple of people that I managed to get new cameras purchased and sent to me within 5 days. As I took this image I was standing knee deep in the Ganges with two brand new Canon's and a Hasselblad around my neck that and seconds before it had occurred to me that I had forgotten to insure the cameras.
Read More
