Hi!
First of all, thanks for checking out the blog. It's really nice to be able to ramble on about the stuff i do photographically as it all unfolds without cluttering up the shop window that is my main website.
I've been taking photographs for a long time now. Most of my life, in fact. It's hard to know when I went professional; I first sold my landscapes back in the Eighties, and had my first London exhibition in 1993. I've had a few more over the years, but have something specific in mind for the next one, so I'm waiting until I can do that properly.
The portrait side was just as organic, and the emphasis on musicians and bands came out of my own background in rock music.
Which brings me to one of my soapbox moments - specialisation!
I have a bit of an axe to grind with the idea of specialisation. I'm not a specialist! The truth is that no-one really is. We all draw from our different interests and experiences, and I'm no different. I've worked as a professional musician, a professional writer, a teacher, a marketing manager, a company director, a consultant.... and they all inform and cross-pollinate what I do. How crap would I be as a consultant if all I had EVER done was be a consultant? (and we all know the adage about teachers...!)
So why is it that we are so suspicious of people who do more than one thing?
I've even noticed myself doing it on occasion.
But in fact, I'm really excited about the way photography, graphics and text are overlapping in emerging media, and the way it's encouraging photographers, designers and copywriters to work together and understand more of what we each do. It's great! The film 'Helvetica' by Gary Hustwit was a real eye-opener for me.
The next development seems to be a move towards fashion. I'm really keen to give it a go, and see where it takes me.
Ultimately, I dream of uniting all my passions by orchestrating a new cultural revolution where fashion designers dress rock musicians, who play concerts at art exhibition launches, where photographers snap them for well-written magazines that also cover deeper news and incorporate fiction amongst their cutting edge design, that has online editions with communities linking up and meeting and eating and drinking and going to see films or making them, and ... well, you get the picture!
Come on, it worked in 60s London!
I'm thinking New Europe might be the ideal location to give it a go. What do you think?
To that end, I spend a lot of my time in Prague, and a lot of my time elsewhere. Still to and fro to London a lot. Trying to find ways of doing it all by train, and loving it when it happens.
I also have a passion for spending time in cafes. I've actually got a separate blog just for that, which is rapidly turning into the only online guide to European cafes. Please do check it out! It's at:
So there we are. I'm passionate about too many things - music, coffee, books, divination, beauty in all its forms... it really doesn't seem to leave much time for a grown up responsible job. I've always tried to resolve this dilemma by getting paid for having fun and doing the things I truly love, and sometimes I think I'm actually succeeding. Come join the movement - it's a way of life!
Was it not the great sage Viv Savage, keyboardist for Spinal Tap, who propounded the great life philosophy: "Have a good time, all the time..."
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