OK…any photographer worth their salt should be creating personal work on a regular basis. This photography feeds the creative urge, it defines the message, the viewpoint, the opinion of the photographer. Photography is an act of visual communication and therefore must inform and educate, discuss and tell a story or it has failed. To be able to do this effectively the imagemaker must ‘know’ themselves intimately to effectively make a statement. The imagery must be challenging in terms of the current art market, it should be experimental and reflective of the photographer’s style (style is really a tool box of design we use to create the message, i.e. colour, shapes, viewpoint, arrangement of tones, use of metaphor, symbols, motifs and the such like) Most of all - as commercial photographers - the imagery should translate into the commercial world, it should be usable in the marketplace. If you want to test your photographer, ask to see their personal portfolio, if they don’t have one - run a mile to one that does and can talk about it eloquently. We are always looking for clients that need a more personal viewpoint in their photography so get in touch today on 01684 850556 to discuss how my style can help you in your next campaign.

My Creative Statement

All creative imagemakers must go through a personal journey together with their photography, this can be a painful process having to address personal issues and character flaws along the way, my journey started in 1993 when I took on the last year of the BA (hons) in Design Photography at Blackpool College of Art.

Since this time at Blackpool I have battled with what I am trying to say to the world through my lens and vision, this is loosely called 'your opinion'. A person's opinion comes out not just verbally but visually too, this can be subtle or stone cold in your face. My personal mantra came from Friedrich Nietzsche, a German artist, he recognised the creative process as a painful one…he said "One must have chaos in one's life to give birth to a dancing star"

To break through the chaos of one's life one must first address the greatest barriers to communicating effectively…themselves. Pride, prejudice, social engineering, belief systems, loved ones, money, regret, hatred, family, bad influences and political all conspire to make one numb and blind to opening up the world inside yourself, the key is to humble yourself, to first admit that you are flawed.
Once you have humbled yourself to the point of breakdown, once you are in utter despair in facing the fact that we are all fundamentally corrupt we can start again, wipe the slate clean, sterilise ourselves and go back to when we were not in this state - childhood.
Once a child again we can see through untainted eyes but using an adult brain full of experiences.

My personal breakthrough came when I discovered a philosopher / art critic call P.S Feineger, some of his observations about the human race, nature and art were like having a blanket lifted from my mind. His basic philosophy was that the only way the human race can learn, develop and flourish is by understanding nature. Nature was here first and spawned us all…he states "because it seems to me that, in the last analysis, everything made by human hands and most things conceived by the human mind have their prototype in nature" and again "but not only can we do no better than learn from nature by studying it's manifestations, actually this is the only way we can progress" then finally "because the human mind is inherently incapable of imagining anything of which it has no previous knowledge" the philosophy comes together with "become aware of the fact that there are universal principles in nature that apply equally to people and beasts; that the atoms and molecules which form our bodies are identical to those that constitute the rocks, plants and animals, we should feel related to all of nature at this fundamental level"

So, once a person has been thought his process a kind of clarity about the world slowly moves into focus, fed by many influences and newly found opinions, images start to flow. We begin to se ourselves for who and what we really are, unfettered by the dross and confusion of the world mankind has built around itself, we begin to understand our uniqueness. If we can bring out our uniqueness in images then they too will be unique and that is inherently of value - there is only one Mona Lisa!

I have persevered for the last 20 years to abide by this idea, I have promised myself that I will never tell lies with my camera, I believe that photography should be pure, should be truthful, in effect I should not have to write this…my images should tell the story