Lapland

I’m intrigued by loneliness. I think of myself as a sociable person who thrives in the company of others. How would I deal with being alone? Why do some people cope with it better than others? Is it something that will one day happen to us all? Is being alone the same as being lonely?
This summer I travelled to remote wilderness in Northern Lapland to visit Maria who lives alone there during the months of the midnight sun. She has no electricity, no tv, no internet and her only contact with the outside world is a weekly supply boat. She’s extraordinarily happy, euphoric even, and surrounded by an environment so energised that it’s as if the whole of nature has befriended her.
We swam every morning in water so cold it made your heart beat out of your chest.
We caught fish and cooked on open fires whilst eagles flew overhead and reindeer came within touching distance.
We spent hours in the forest and never tired of watching the light – lost in the moment when sky and water merge to form a continuous landscape of infinity.
In today’s virtual world dominated by twitter, facebook and networking with high speed internet on the move, it was fascinating to step away and get back in touch with the raw, intense and healing power of nature.
I still don’t know if I could live alone but maybe it would be easier with a friend like Mother Nature.

Story Behind the Still – Times Square NYC

more surprising secrets behind the still image as seen in Digital Photographer this month

10 second portrait

It’s funny how you become known for a certain style, a certain signature ‘look’ to your images.
Encouraged by the industry that feeds you to define and identify that ‘style’, you find yourself exploring less and less avenues as you close down on your own visual eye and work on specialising your ‘branded’ identity.
Trouble is, the danger is, that along the way you lose yourself and it’s not until you strip everything away and start back with the basics – just you, a camera, an open mind and your own creative vision that you can start seeing again.
Recently I decided to give myself a task.
Take a photo.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? And it is!!!!!
But, sometimes, the further you get from that place you first started out in the harder it is to stop obsessing about the light, the location, the set up and just seize the moment to take the shot.
I’d been invited to a boxing match and after his fight I grabbed this 10 second portrait.
It’s not my best work but I like it because I took it.
I like it because I didn’t let the fluorescent lighting talk me out of taking it.
I just took it.

suspended in motion

I’m obsessed with movement and I just LOVE the way things fall through the sky and seem to hang there – suspended in motion. It’s my take on the ‘decisive moment’ and it doesn’t get much better than this Vincent Haycock Music Video for Mellowdrone

It reminds me of some shots I took one twilight of local kids playing on the trampoline in their backyard.
There’s something fearless and uninhibited and spontaneous about kids that we totally take for granted and never quite recapture as adults