I started experimenting with an old film camera as a teenager, but my eyes were first opened to the real magic of photography when I was shown how to develop and print electron micrographs in the darkroom during my school work experience at Bangor University. As a student, I was fortunate to have access to a darkroom at Durham University, and again during my PhD studies at Glasgow University, where I was able to learn the wet chemical process and to experience the satisfaction of watching a printed image slowly appear under the safelight.
Fast forward quite a few years and like so many other photographers I have moved to a digital workflow. Although this provides seemingly endless creative possibilities, I still like to get as much right ‘in camera’ as I can, and to use editing software to fine-tune the image to create the end result that I visualised when I took the photograph in the first place. I think this reflects my experience of working with film, where the opportunities for post-capture processing and editing are more limited. At the recent assessment of my Associate distinction submission at the Royal Photographic Society, two of the assessors mentioned that the images in my portfolio reminded them of old hand-tinted black and white prints, which I took as a compliment!
In my creative photography I seek artistic interpretations of unnoticed details and movement. This might involve using a different viewpoint, lighting, close-up techniques, or the use of shutter speeds to freeze or blur motion. Based near Aviemore in the spectacular Cairngorms National Park, I am surrounded by a wealth of subject matter!
The documentary and commercial photographic work I do has included photographing over 150 sculptures across the Scottish Highlands for ArtUK, as well as creating marketing material for a range of different businesses. A selection of my work is also available on the Shutterstock and Alamy image libraries, and my ARPS Distinction portfolio is on the Royal Photographic Society (Scotland) website.
