Canada Water

On Sunday evening I visited Canada Water to grab some images during the golden hour. I would never describe myself as a wildlife photographer, the wildest thing I usually shoot are ferrel kids in Brixton.

Situated near Rotherhithe, Canada Water is a fresh water lake with a small canal leading to Surrey Water. It’s all that’s left of Surrey Water docks and is now surrounded by flats.

I’m interested in London wildlife and how it co-exists with us in such a large city. With so much park land it seems odd that anything would choose such a scrappy bit of water. Admittedly there weren’t a great deal of birds there but the ones that were had nested in unbelievably close proximity to human life. I could have reached from the edge and taken a Coots chick quite easily.

The image I am most happy with is the Pigeon, with the city background and the pigeon looking straight at me. Unlike most London Pigeons this one looks relatively healthy and provides a nice juxtaposition with the old 60’s tower block on the left and the new development being build on the waterside to the right.

Photography Portfolio Review

Start a sentence with ‘I remember...’ see where that takes you. I recently went to show Gina Glover ( www.ginaglover.com & www.artinhospitals.co.uk ) my photographs from the past 3 years at Photofusion (http://www.photofusion.org/) in Brixton.I’ve been shooting seriously now for long enough to know that I need some direction. I’ve never really thought about what I have been photographing, only whether each image, on it’s own merits, pleased me visually and I thought was technically good enough to go into the portfolio. The subject matter, or rather, the motivation behind why I stopped and took that shot was always second. Or not at all.

Gina started by separating my images into three sets, 1. a couple of images she didn’t really care for, 2.  my big landscapes and 3. my curiosity shots which are a mixture of street and ad hoc shots that visually appeal to me.

The first thing she said, and something I had come realise over the past few months was that I am a colour photographer, she recommended I stop working in Black and White, which was a great confirmation to something I had already had an inkling of. I have even gone back and switched a couple of pictures back into colour.

‘This is you!’ pointing to the pile of curiosity shots, ‘This are the interesting ones, the pictures that give a view into your visual eye’.

She went on to say I need to write more about my work, because by writing I will discover why I like taking the images I do and be able to progress my style. It makes complete sense, I’ve always shied away from writing, even though I don’t think I’m at all bad at it, I just never have had much to say, thinking that my work should speak for itself. But clearly the writing Gina wants me to do it not for you, it’s for me and that appeals far more as it’s delving into the Id.

This suddenly is a fascinating idea, going back to early memories and thinking about what types of images I liked as a child and as a teenager and then into my career as a Graphic Designer. Visual imagery has always been important but I don’t think I’ve ever actually stopped to think why do I like what I like.

So Gina recommended writing down memories, ‘Start with “I remember...” and see where that takes you’

So here we go, of my first ever memories I remember being 3 years old and cradled out to the green Vauxhall Viva estate at 4am just as it was getting light for a long car journey to Scotland. During that holiday the images I can still visualise are a dark old gypsy caravan we were staying in with ornate fittings and lacy curtains. It was there I decided to throw away my dummies and watched the men take them away in a large grey dustbin lorry. Also I have images of being on the beach and having a tantrum over not wanting to go on a donkey (still legendary in my family).

Was this embryonic in my visual style? I don’t know but it’s these types of memories I shall be investigating to see where my motivation is and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Portfolio for 2011

As a Graphic Designer I was taught traditional photography at college but as a student it was a means to an end rather than the art form I consider it now. I could take pictures, develop film and print; but a lot of it was guesswork and luck.

I suppose, without realising, I was waiting for was Digital Photography. The first digital camera I used was an Apple Quicktake 100 in 1996, but only being able to take 8 shots at 640x480 it wasn’t exactly practical. It was a few more years before I had my first Kodak point & shoot, however, in 2005 when I bought my Nikon DSLR (the D50) my attitude toward photography changed. At this point that I realised I didn’t know very much about photography at all; leaving the dial on Auto all the way up until leaving it on a plane a couple of years later.

After suffering major withdrawals from photography  I decided to go back to school and enrolled on a short basic photography course led by Dave Hodgkinson. Six weeks with a borrowed Nikon plus 50mm prime lens seduced me under the skin of photography forever.

It was in San Fransisco with a Canon G10 that I took my first portfolio shot: The Bay Bridge and ferry terminal at dawn.

I now pack a Nikon D80 which nourishes my passion for photography; a passion that consumes my every waking moment. The shots that I’ve missed over the past couple of years because I either didn’t have a camera or it wasn’t in my hand at the right time, are burnt into my memory.

This body of work is a selection from the past three years, which reflects my recent move into Street Photography. As the work changes and progresses, more and more black and white street shots creep into my portfolio. Let me know what you think.

Street Selection

After emailing my photography tutor and asking for a project, he set me a Street Photography assignment studying Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and other famous street photographers. I was to read up and write a short piece on the street scene and then go out and take some pictures. That was a year ago and I've been shooting street ever since, I love it.