My photography in 2015

2015 was a year of development, being published and taking pictures of people playing Pianos. It was also a year of taking what I had learned in an underground car park in Edinburgh and applying it to my street work. It's also the year I move my work from Flickr to Instagram, a much more vibrant community of varied photographers.

This was the first great picture of 2015 for me, on the Circle Line choosing the right moment to take the picture of this awesome scaffolder. I got on and saw him, hesitated and then someone came and stood in front of him, so I resolved that when they moved I’d shoot, and I did.

St Pancras has these types of scenes all the time but this couple were really going for it, completely unaware of who was watching. The picture is made by the woman in the background.

I rarely stand and wait for people but this guy in Kings Cross looked so good I had to capture him, it took a couple of minutes for him to look up from searching for his ticket to notice me.

This year’s alternative project apart from my street work was St Pancras Piano. When I was commuting every day past the 3 pianos in the station it was clear I needed to take pictures of the wide range of people that played them. Most photographers shot from the back, I chose to shoot from the side. My hashtag #stpancraspiano got picked up by the regular piano players on Instagram and soon lots of photos began to appear by other people using it.

2015 was also the year I started to shoot for Electronic Sound magazine, an iPad mag for the synth electronic music scene, spanning everything from classic Moog to new artists like Karin Park. I was sent down to the venue and told by Neil Mason, the Commissoning Editor, to just do what I do.

My street work has become wider, as in I have stepped back and aim to get a little more context to the photo than just a head a shoulders.

This is my picture of the year. A holiday in Helsingborg in Sweden, a fantastic Air BnB house with a pool, outside eating area and a pizza oven, the lights however were not so good, leading to iPhone lighting and a shot which looks like a Caravaggio painting (and quite possibly a Taylor Wessing entry for 2016).

Shooting Gary Numan was a highlight of 2015, frantic, very stressful and the time flies by like a blur but the result is a really honest portrait, I daren't ask him if he likes it though.

New York! The last two months of 2015 have been spent in New York, I came here to shoot and I’ve been very happy with the results. I was so worried about not getting the shots I wanted that I shot outside of my normal comfort zone and went for subjects I never would have gone for in London.

Times Square is my new favourite place to shoot. With such a varied group of people and lighting to die for it’s perfect for moments like this which look staged but are anything but.

As I raised my camera to my eye I hesitated thinking that this shot was not going to work. However, with all the other people looking left at the traffic, the couple looking up at the astonishing electronic billboards and the only person actually looking at me is the photographer, I think it kinda worked out.

The light in New York is amazing, the grid layout means the sun creates amazing shafts of light while leaving the background in almost complete darkness. This well dressed guy was waiting at the lights, holding his coat closed from the November wind, creating a perfectly lit moment of quiet.

The lighting in and around Times Square creates amazing pools of reds and greens as the adverts wash everyone with colour.

So another year of firsts, new projects, new people, new locations. It feels like I am still working towards something and at the moment I’m enjoying the journey and not worrying too much about the destination.

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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.