Ch, Ch, Changes

I've always considered myself an artist as much as a photographer. I painted with oils and charcoal on to my images to help express more fully how I felt. It was wonderful. I loved mixing and experimenting with chemical recipes in my darkroom, brushing them on to the watercolour paper I used at the time. I showed and sold my work in galleries around the world for many years. So far so good - the only hitch was that I barely earned enough money to keep myself afloat.

Ch, ch, changes . . . I met my wife and we started a family.

Realising I needed to find another way to earn a living, I changed my style and started taking pure black and white film photographs of families. Children can be a real challenge so I never get bored - something that happens very easily to me. Everything is smooth and then . . . digital.

Ch, ch, changes . . . I almost lose my family over the long hours I put in to understand and master the new technology. I manage to finally improve on what I was capable of after 25 years of being a black and white film user and darkroom printmaker. I'm now thinking I can sit back and relax again. Wrong. I get the artistic urge to start using colour. Digital opens up so many possibiities that were previously cloaked in truly noxious chemical processes!

Ch, ch, changes . . . and I'm chasing the new again. I now spend hours playing with colour in photoshop. Not too much different from mixing chemicals in the darkroom to see what would happen.