Where it all started

My earliest memory of what a camera was or its purpose was handling an old Polaroid back in the early 1980s. Anxiously waiting for the photo to come out of the front and then actively waving it about watching it slowly reveal its picture. To me it was one of the coolest things I could lay my hands on as a child.

Blurred, out of focus, subject just about in the picture. These randomly shot, small windows in the past, remain in their limited capacity, in a photo album I make sure is always kept safe. Some are my handy work and others of me but whenever I look at these, to me they represent all that photography is about. The feeling, emotion, subjects, the innocence - a true memory captured right there at the moment in time.

Fast forward to the early 90’s and that’s when I think I started to think about photography a bit more. Wanting to capture the events or sights before me, as I may not be in that place or moment again. I can clearly remember being on a school trip to Hadrian’s Wall around the time Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves had just been released and Christian Slater was the heartthrob on my bedroom wall. Stood on a windy pathway along the wall where the infamous tree scene was filmed thinking, “Wow, I’m stood where Christian Slater has been!” and making sure I photographed that tree - ideally with none of my fellow class mates in the shot. Photography without people in shot is something I’ve tried to maintain through the years.

Somewhere around 1996, I was in Prestwick, a town on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland, armed with my mum’s camera. She’d invested in a digital camera some time prior and taken up some photography herself. Not really knowing what to do with it, obligatory auto setting firmly in place, I found myself in front of a striking orange sunset over the sea. Camera in hand, I Viewed It…Captured It. This photo, taken with no real skill or clue as to what I was doing is the photo that set me off on my photography journey.