I am writing this about 3,000 miles from home. I live now just outside Toronto, Canada but I was brought up in an area of North West England just north of Manchester. I went to school in Bury and for most of my life I have held an association with the Bury area. My parents…
I don't know if this applies to everyone, but I wonder if there's a time in every photographer's life where we start to look for projects and not just images. I hope it means that from the perspective of our own creative journey we've progressed beyond the point where we concern ourselves with f-stop, shutter…
Quick posting this time, not an essay. I recently went home to England for a week to visit my father who is now in a nursing home and, to be honest, not likely to come out again. There's a lot of stuff I could write about Dad, about his career, his personality, how he and…
I confess, I rarely read my camera manuals unless there's something specific I need to know. For instance, I knew that you could change the default output picture style on a Nikon DSLR - everyone knows that, right? - and I knew that you could adjust those default styles. But then I had never taken…
Using your phone to make images.
I've written before about the power of black and white photography when it comes to conveying emotion. Back in April, on St George's Day in fact, a lunatic in a van ran down people just going about their everyday business on Yonge Street in Toronto. Why he chose that way to express his frustrations maybe…
Not every photo expedition has to be carefully planned, with the objective thought out before hand and all the necessary kit packed into a bulging and heavy backpack. Getting out of a cosy bed before dawn once the clocks have gone forward is one of the most difficult parts of the photographer's calling. Sometimes, though,…
