My Work

Lectures and Training

Over the years, I've made a good living from my Photography. Whilst it's been hard, I have no complaints and wish to give back to the industry that's given me so much!

I often give talks and lectures to various groups in the professional and amateur fields and I do not collect fees for this work, however expenses are expected to be covered.

If you think I can benefit your organisation or would like personal tuition, there are no catches, just use the contact page and email me and we'll see what can be arranged.

Grand Master

At the Societies Gala Night in London, I was installed into a very select band of Brothers and Sisters! Out of the many awards presented that evening was my very own Grand Master Award. There are only one of these awarded each year.

Pictured here with my buddy Mike McNamee (right) , Editor of the ImageMaker magazine and fellow Grand Master.

Digital and Composite

I started out in photography with manual cameras, film and darkroom techniques. I've been fortunate to see the industry evolve into what it is today and have been instrumental in the education of others in making the transition to digital workflows.

Many of the techniques I use, have a grounding in what I learned in the darkroom and bring forward traditional methods into the digital age. Photoshop skills are paramount in todays world and I have been proud to have developed some of skills widely used by photographers today.

Alternative Photography

Although I still do a vast amount of digital photography, I'm currently investing a lot of time and energy into re-discovering the original methods of producing prints which started in the early 19th century, and becoming very popular from the 1850's onwards.

Wet plate collodion, Platinum/Palladium, Cyanotype, Kallitype and Salt printing all have a place in my photographic arsenal, along with reproducing images onto Rice Paper and other handmade substrates.

Wet Plate Collodion

Wet plate is the process of capturing a photographic image onto a solid plate of glass (Ambrotype) or metal (Ferrotype/Tintype). The surface of the material needs to be sensitized with chemicals so it can record the image, but the whole process (including development) needs to be completed before the chemicals dry, hence the name ‘wet plate’. Early practitioners were often referred to as ‘alchemists’ due to the fact that they mixed variations of the original formula from raw materials, many of which were highly toxic!

I became a devotee of the process in early 2019 and loved the more considered approach required to produce images in this way. The process is being revitalised by modern day practitioners and numbers are growing.

Platinum Palladium

This form of printing was patented in the 1870's and gives you that true artistic feel. Platinum/Palladium is the most archival print we know of today. and has the widest tonal rage of any process being practiced today. Printing is a traditional handmade photographic technique using 'Noble Metals' which also makes it one of the most expensive techniques out there.

Each print is truly one of a kind 'unique'. Although images can be contact printed from the same negative, the coating, exposure and chemical composition will vary slightly from print to print.

The fine art 100% cotton rag paper is coated with the various solutions to make it light sensitive and then a negative is contact printed under a UV light source to make the image. The exposure can take several minutes and is then developed and cleared in successive solutions before archival washing.

The entire process can take two or three hours to make just one print! My technique produces neutral black images, but varying the ratio of Platinum and Palladium solutions can produce a very warm brown tone and everything in-between.

Cyanotype

One of the easiest of the alternative processes to learn with chemicals readily available, it demands no special skills to get started. All you need is some good quality artists paper and two chemicals, water and two trays. 

The prints can be made from any negative and are exposed with the sun or an ultra violet lamp source.

Images have a deep blue colouration and make excellent prints. With a little tuition  photographers can achieve archival gallery quality results.