It would be romantic to say that when I picked up that camera in 1980-something I knew I’d be a photographer. But the truth is, as a kid I thought taking photos was really, REALLY boring. My dad was a documentary photographer & what that meant to me was hanging around on long walks while he recorded the unnatural birth of Milton Keynes. That, & weekends stuck in his darkroom, getting headaches from toxic chemicals.
It wasn’t until my mid 20s that I discovered the power of photograph making for myself: to tell a story by placing a frame around events happening before me & capturing that so-called ‘decisive moment’. Not so much to compose an image, as to select it.
& that is what I seek to do in all my photographs – whether it is that fleeting engagement between subject & lens in a portrait or the moments that define a wedding, an event, an actor’s or musician’s performance.
It took me a while to appreciate it, but I think now I can be thankful for long walks & the whiff of chemicals in my childhood. Wish I still had thad tracky top though…