For years I discovered I had been living someone else’s life, their dreams, their aspirations. I had to make a change. That change became a journey travelled, a journey of many tunnels, of dark times but moments of light and hope that have brought me to the place I am now.

I do not sit as someone with a mass of written qualifications; I believe our life story is the best, most authentic qualification we will ever have. I am simply someone who has found, through photography, so much more than a desire to take some half decent images, I found my authentic self. My qualifications are not in photography or mental health (although I have a diploma in mindfulness) they are in being someone who struggled, for years, with self-worth, identity and later it seems PTSD. Through these struggles I have found a pathway to better times through the lens of a camera and my personal reflections.

My work is both personal and hopefully about helping others to connect with their own unspoken emotions, feelings, hurts and dreams through, first and foremost, images that express those unspoken words. My photographs are a journey in themselves, always me, always authentic, never perfect but always real. They speak, to me, of brokenness through to new light and hope.

As such my images veer towards strong lines, darkness and light with a tendency towards strong contrast and colour as an expression of emotion, life and journey.

I sometimes take images reflecting my personal and emotional journeys as well the many literal ones of travel, travel which has involved paid and voluntary work, holidays, and cultural trips. Why? Because I have an inquisitive nature and travel has taught me as much about myself as it has the places I have been. These locations have included New York, LA, Hawaii, Cuba, Iceland, Tanzania, Morocco, Malaysia, South Korea, Ukraine and various cities and counties of Europe. My images, especially of many trips to Kenya, including the slums of Kibera and Kawangware, the sometimes hostile natural environment and the impact of HIV use the vibrancy of colour and a strong contrast of light as a metaphor of the hope to be found in the hardest of times.

I have had work exhibited at Sheffield Cathedral where my images on the Reformation sought to give voice to people of all ages on what this period meant, today for them. In December 2019 / January 2020 some of my images formed part of collection that sought to show an alternative way of seeing our local community and my images of Africa were displayed for two months in Bristol as part of a project to highlight ‘A hopeful side to Africa.’

My current projects seek to explore the benefits of an individual photographic journey through the challenges of Covid 19.

As I say, I do not profess do be the world’s best photographer just someone who is real with them, someone who is open and increasingly authentic in the life he seeks to lead. Nothing would make my efforts more worthwhile than seeing you open your heart and mind to using photography to explore the same. And so the travels and the journey continue.