My pictures of South London’s parks and open spaces have been made to show how beautiful and green this region is and to try to capture the best of each season’s light and weather. I love the different characters of the seasons in this country, and even though we do have long periods of dull grey weather throughout the year, there are always moments of striking beauty. My speciality as a landscape artist is the use of weather and light from both a scientific and an artistic viewpoint. My understanding of the weather helps me to anticipate what is possible and likely, and helps me determine when to go out. As an artist I try to ensure that any success in placing myself in the right spot at the right time is used to enhance the aesthetic qualities of the work. I study my locations and spend time in them, and I have chosen the medium of photography to depict them because it is so well suited to capturing nature’s fine details and range of colours. I can draw and paint as well, but good photography is just as much of a challenge. I hope the final printed work has strength and integrity like good visual art in any medium, and that the pieces are of interest individually as well as in a set. I am an ambitious perfectionist, and while I can’t necessarily control or anticipate all of the variables all of the time, I nevertheless hope that these photographs are among the best representations of our landscape around.
My other work is from a mixture of places I happen to know well, and a few one-off visits. The Elan Valley is my other major “four seasons” project, although currently the winter portfolio dominates. I lived not far from mid Wales for some time, and continue to visit the area when I can. Now that I live in London, the weather and landscape of the Elan Valley is a great luxury, with extremes of cold, atmospheric fog and heavy frosts all far more frequent than in the southeast. The landscape itself, containing wild areas of semi-alpine rocky ground, ancient woods, expanses of water and Victorian architecture is beautiful on all scales, from the widest views to the fine detail of the ground itself, covered in mineral-stained rock and lichen.
A memorable Elan Valley experience was the aurora borealis of 2005 when I made the trip from London on the basis of a good forecast. I arrived in the hills overlooking the valley just before midnight and got out of the car to see not only intense deep red and green rays hanging in the northern sky, but a solitary police car that had followed me up the deserted road. Once their suspicion was dispelled, I was glad to show them what they would otherwise have missed before attempting the difficult task of recording it on film.
ORDERING PRINTS
All of the images in my landscape galleries are available as mounted or framed prints in a range of sizes. The film images (mostly square) are printed digitally on matt rag paper (a little like very smooth watercolour paper) from scans made and colour corrected by myself at an exhibition printing facility. Printing is an art in itself, very demanding of visual acuity and technical experience. Although my aim is to reproduce the film faithfully, converting a transparent image to flat paper is a complicated and often subjective task. Having made a large number of prints for exhibitions, I'm now more confident than ever in being able to do the photographs justice, and produce work worthy of gallery or home walls.
If you wish to purchase a print, just send me an email indicating your choice of image(s) and sizes - I am always happy to discuss the options and can send a PDF price list for common sizes. I also have PDF catalogues for my recent exhibitions, which contain more general information and thumbnail images. The prints I most often make for exhibitions are 15x15", mounted in 50cm square board and titled and signed by hand.