Me in my home darkroom, January 1987

Me in my home darkroom, January 1987

 
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The Poster from the “Barras 100” celebrations in 2021 featuring my photograph taken in The Barras in 1977

 
 
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I have been involved with photography seriously since about 1976 when I bought my first SLR camera, a Russian "Zenith E" with a 50mm lens. I became involved with camera clubs in the early days and although I enjoyed my time in them socially, the competitive and prescriptive nature of them was not always to my liking.

I was predominantly shooting in black and white and processing and printing all my own work at this time.

I am self-taught in both my photography taking and processing and printing and I was fortunate enough to always have a darkroom at home, so more often than not I could be found in there working on new projects. Although I did not set out to profit from my work I did manage to sell a few images following a small exhibition of my work in The Paisley Arts Centre.

Around the late 1990's until about 2002 I took a break from working at the level I had been for a number of reasons. Firstly I had a major move of jobs and living location, secondly the kids were growing up and finally the dawn of digital photography was starting to take a hold and I was watching with interest.

Although I still had my film cameras and lenses, my first digital camera was to be a Fujifilm Finepix. I was basically dabbling with digital until such time as I switched from Windows computers and bought an iMac and simultaneously took out an Adobe subscription to Lightroom and Photoshop and this gave me the encouragement to start back where I had left off.

My first serious DSLR was the Nikon D80 which I loved using and it was soon accompanied by a wide series of lenses. I then progressed to the Nikon D750 full frame DSLR which is a fantastic camera.

Up until about 2012 my taste in photography was wide ranging and included taking landscape, portraits and transport photographs. My passion however is documentary and street photography. I have always endeavoured to record as I was going about my photography and still do to this day. Although street photography can take many forms, it is the documentary element that interests me most. In 2019 I produced my first photo-book entitled "Mother Glasgow" and some of the images it contains can be seen in my portfolio. This was followed up with a Zine version. In 2020 I produced another three photobooks and Zines entitled "The Glasgow Celtic Way", "AcumfaeGovan" and “ Brexit….One Day in Westminster”. In early 2023 I was privileged to have some of my early work published in book form by Cafe Royal books. All of these can be purchased using the Shop link above. Individual prints can also be purchased .

In 2019, in order for me to try and progress with my documentary/street photography, I decided to end my association with Nikon equipment and purchase a Fujifilm 100X-F camera which is my first mirror-less camera and I am enjoying using it as it is so discrete on the streets. I then supplemented this with the purchase of the excellent Fujifilm X-T3 and some lenses, and in late 2022 I replace the X-T3 with the excellent X-T5.

I have recently had work exhibited at a few exhibitions hosted by The Glasgow Gallery of Photography and had illustrated articles published by The British Culture Archive and Document Scotland. I also gave a talk on my zines hosted by Street Level Photoworks and it can be viewed here.

In September 2020 I took part in a film, "Watch The Birdie" which featured me talking about my work and how I went about covering a celebrity golf event in Renfrew in 1977. The film can be seen here.

In June 2021, I was also privileged to participate in the “Barras 100” celebration and have an exhibition of my photographs of the Barras in The San Toi gallery.

In September 2021 I was featured in Photography News Issue 92, where I discussed my switch from Nikon equipment to Fujifilm. The article also contains some of my photographs.

I am also a member of The Royal Photographic Society.

I hope that what I have chosen to include in my portfolio of photography interests you, and if you want to contact me please use the form contained in the Contact Me section.