Californian portraits in gold rush country.
During my previous trips to California, I’d ended up in some very out of the way places on my route, where I’d often come across really interesting people. Whenever I did, I asked if I could take their picture and most of the time, all were very happy to allow me to do it.
I’d always prefer to find an interesting backdrop or interior if I could. With these four portraits I love the the directness in the way they posed.
Winner in the Environmental series category The London photographic awards.
Californian gold rush landscapes. I’d been researching the Gold rush areas of California and found some particular areas I wanted to see and explore. I became fascinated with the history of some of these places and how they became abandoned after the Gold that had been discovered there, ran out. The picture here shows just three shots from the work that I produced appearing in the London photographic awards book that year. I won the environmental series category with this series of images.
My Singapore barbers chair winner environmental colour category LPA.
On assignment in Singapore shooting for a client in London. I had just one day free to explore the city. It’s an amazing place, but very modernized with not much of the original architecture still standing to see.
I did though manage to a find few very old streets and see some extremely interesting things. This shot is actually of a barbers shop setup in a street market.
Singapore barbers chair
It was complete with the barber himself, but unfortunately he was camera shy so I couldn’t get the shot with him in. I still love the image though, lots of detail surrounding the amazing chair! I entered the shot into the London photographic awards, and was awarded Winner of the Environmental colour category for the image.
Winner of the still life series category in the London photographic awards.
I kept spotting some really interesting tiny mushrooms on walks I’d taken. I decided to try and photograph them with my large format 5X4 Sinar camera, using 5X4 sheet film. Not easy trying to get a camera that big on the ground, and level with a tiny mushroom, but as I would have to extend the camera bellows out quite considerably to fill the frame with the mushroom, I thought it would give a really nice look with a shallow depth field.
I entered the shots into the London Photographic awards and was awarded winner of the still life series category. This picture is the double page spread from the awards book.
Portrait series specially selected for inclusion in Graphis Photo.
On my travels around the country I’d discovered a preserved railway line in Hampshire called the Watercress Line. Run totally by volunteers, they have many original steam engines and carriages that they run on a schedule at certain times of the year. The stations and ticket halls are all original and some still have the lighting working by gas.
I wanted to create some portraits of the people that worked on the line with each one placed against a backdrop reflecting the part they played in preserving the railway.
These are three of the shots I produced and which were specially selected for inclusion in this edition of Graphis Photography, shown here beautifully reproduced in the book.
Merit award received in the Association of Photographers awards London.
Iceland landscapes. I decided to undertake a personal assignment to Iceland. It’s a place I’d wanted to visit and photograph for a long time, so I finally arranged it and made the trip.
Ten days spent driving around and exploring the country and it’s amazing landscape. For the most part really desolate with little in the way of habitation, so I spent each night sleeping in the back of my hire car.
As I was shooting with my 5X4 Wista field camera at the time, I also had to spend a lot of time in the car unloading and loading up my 5X4 dark slides with colour sheet film in a light tight changing bag.
Iceland
I went just around the start of Summer so I experienced practically twenty four hours daylight! The sun did go below the horizon around midnight or so but appeared again less than an hour later!
Quite a surreal thing to experience, but strangely it did make me keep going because of the daylight.
The shot of the Seljalandsfoss waterfall was a very special one for me, as it was so spectacular to see when I first came upon it.
I decided to enter it into the Tenth Association of photographers awards, it got selected and I received a Merit award for the picture in the landscape category.
Merit award for my portrait series of Irish farmers.
My series of five portraits taken of Irish farmers in a remote southern part of Ireland. A bit of a step back in time with the way they work, one taking the milk to market by Donkey, another working with one of the oldest tractors I’ve ever seen!
I entered the shots into the 5th Association of Photographers awards, they were selected and I was awarded a Merit for the series of five.
This set of four landscape shots were taken on a personal assignment shooting in Wales and The Lake District. I entered the set into the 3rd Association of Photographers awards, all four were selected. I was completely amazed to receive the Gold award for the series of four.
Subsequently, two of the shots were specially selected for inclusion in the prestigious, Graphis Photography book, the double page spread of the book shown here, along with the other two images.
