I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. I've found out there aren't any.
I wanted to be stopped but no one will stop me..
Damien Hirst
I live and work between our house in the Apuane mountains (above Lucca) in Tuscany, where I have a studio...and our house in the West of Scotland, (Ayrshire) where it seems to rain most of the time !!
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Historically...................
I trained in Photography at Bournemouth Art school along with Nick Knight, Richard Croft and the Andy Bettles 'output' well over 20 years ago and on leaving there, I assisted
"McGee" in the Farringdon Rd. studio, city of London.
From the city after leaving McGee I moved on and won several quite nice awards one of which was the prestigious "L'Oreal Gold Award" (...but curiously enough though it was judged by Anthony Mascolo and
John Swannell, whom I had worked with for a short while (and learned a lot in that short time) .....strange eh ;-) .....anyway... slowly I became very disenchanted with the whole industry and left my Nikons, the lenses, my girl and all the work I did in the house that I left behind & walked away from......and so it goes :-( we learn by what we think are mistakes, but it is all about learning from decisions
Sometime later I met my wife Fiona - She has been the greatest support mechanism for me and I decided to go back to University again ....taking post graduate study at Strathclyde University.....from there I worked in Education and then finally in HE for 10 years developing online learning with 'Ultralab' as it emerged at the millenium.
Present
In July 2009 I decided to leave Higher Education and return to my love of photography and my native training ..and so on August 1st 2009 took my first few steps again out of education (18 years is a long time to be teaching) and back into art, photography and the unknown
I am to complete my MA (Photography) in November this year..once done I'm embarking on a whole new direction.......back to photography 24/7 ....out go the university assesment criteria documents, the senate codes of practice, undergraduate module delivery guides and Python and SQL server manuals......
Styles of work ?........................
I still am inspired by the work I loved 20 years ago : Horst P Horst, Sieff, Hiroshi Nonami, Witkin, Paolo Roversi, Nick Knight, Erwin Olaff, Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, Steichen.
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I do not pay models' travel expenses for tests. I invest considerably in all of my work, both in time and finance. Each project is a team effort and if my pictures aren't worth your bus fare then they're certainly not worth your time. Those who appreciate the position all aspiring creatives are in will understand and be willing to invest in the project too.
I will not hand over RAW files on the day of the shoot under any circumstances. Post processing is an essential part of my photographic workflow, film or digital. It demands some patience, but all good things do.
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FLAKING......
This is
very important.....and so....if you do flake on me, or any arrangements that we make, then we won't ever work together again. That means of course that I am 110% reliable. If you can't be....then please don't contact me.
Currently .....
Where : (UK)
Eating : mince :-)
Drinking : crap coffee now for the next 5 weeks
Reading : the bank statement !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Listening to : my neighbour cutting his grass :-)
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“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs”. - Ansel Adams
