During 2017 I had two successful exhibitions and gave a talk as part of "Rewired", an event at the Royal Geographical Society in London. I helped raise several thousand pounds for neurological charities and was featured in newspapers, a magazine and local radio. I also got divorced and lost a lot of money to solicitors.... Continue Reading →
Street photography and printing and framing photographs for more exhibitions have been filling my days recently. I'm happy to say that the Movement for Hope exhibition in London was a great success. By a strange twist of fate the comedian Russell Brand came to the private view and seemed genuinely interested in my work - see... Continue Reading →
Its been a hectic time recently. This week I was at the House of Lords for the launch of a book that I contributed to. I've also been selecting and printing photos for a London exhibition in September and there are a couple of other exhibitions in the pipeline too. The writing was a personal reflection... Continue Reading →
From years back, when I was still wearing the soles of my shoes out on street photo walks, I've found the idea of anonymising people and merging them into the urban landscape intriguing. I have some sympathy with people who question whether it's right to take photos of people without asking first. As much as I think candid... Continue Reading →
It's funny how you can take a photograph and something that you might think of as being detrimental ends up adding an unexpected new dimension to the image. I took this photograph of a lovely lady feeding pigeons a month or so ago. I was in my mobility scooter at the time and by the time I'd got... Continue Reading →
It's been wet. It's been really wet, mild, windy, occasionally cold, but mostly just wet. We are not supposed to have a monsoon season in the UK, but this January was very like one - albeit cooler. All that dampness condenses on glass and makes for interesting opportunities for image making. A new glass bus stop has... Continue Reading →
"There is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in" Leonard Cohen, ANTHEM In August 2013 darkness threatened to seep through the cracks in my life. . I'd spent 10 days in hospital to find the cause of what, for over a year, doctors had told me was a bad back (I was... Continue Reading →
As I was getting dressed this morning I listened to the CD "Popular Problems" by Leonard Cohen that I'd borrowed off my dad. The album artwork makes great use of shadows and that and Cohen's inevitably deep and melancholy lyrics got me thinking about how we all have a shadow side. my shadow side I'm not embarrassed to... Continue Reading →
As I can't trudge the streets looking for interesting subjects to photograph anymore, I wait for them to come to me. It's again the tough inner zen master of my MND making me stop looking for life elsewhere and start noticing that it's available right here, right now - all we have to do is stop. Sometimes being forced to... Continue Reading →
We are moving to a new house in a few days and I may not have an internet connection at first. I'll be taking a break from blog posts for a short while as we make the new place shipshape. Until then, here are a few photos from my archives on the theme of "Moving" - These were taken with a Canon 6D and a Samsung EX1 compact,... Continue Reading →
(Apologies if you've received this more than once. I've reposted to see whether the image in the WordPress "blog reader list" makes a huge difference to the amount of readers the post receives.) - To first time viewers welcome and I hope you enjoy! On Saturday evening almost by accident, my family and I experienced some... Continue Reading →
When I was travelling through Romania in 1992 with my future wife Ali, we witnessed a tremendous amount of poverty. After seeing news reports at home in England, we had prepared ourselves for crowds of orphaned "street children", but in fact hardly saw any. Instead it was the sheer numbers of disabled people begging for spare... Continue Reading →
As we travelled by train through Romania there were so many photogenic looking towns and villages with stations, we sometimes just got off to explore. Never exactly sure where we were, we felt safe in the knowledge that there'd be another train along soon. These two pictures were taken at a couple of those stops.... Continue Reading →
This is the second of my posts about the time I was invited to photograph members of the Romanian National Circus in 1992, as they relaxed in-between performances. Part one can be found here. . One of the photos I took during the time I spent in the circus encampment still ranks, for me, amongst... Continue Reading →
As promised, here are some prints from my Romania Contact sheets - We had stopped in Brașov, Romania, during our trip by train through eastern Europe in 1992. Not far from the flat where we stayed with a local family who'd befriended us at the station, were what I took to be a group of traditional Romany gypsies. It was... Continue Reading →
Good news! My wife Ali just called to me from the loft with the enticing words "I've found something you might be interested in". I walked onto the landing to find her hand dangling a very tatty looking "Prince Cigarettes" bag from the loft hatch. Inside were my long-lost black and white prints and travel diaries from the... Continue Reading →
Wow! Yesterday Mindful Photos achieved the highest viewing figures it's had since I started the blog two years ago - Three Hundred and Eight views by Six P.M. and Twenty "likes"! Thanks for all the interest 🙂 I've started to add gallery pages at the top of the website. Do have a look. There are pictures that haven't made it into... Continue Reading →
Sooner or later I will come to the end of my prolific week spent in Venice but for now the photos keep on coming. I'm gratified by the number of half decent pictures I came back with despite walking with crutches due to my disability. Just goes to show that you don't have to trudge ten miles a day searching for... Continue Reading →
Each of these pictures were taken near Venice's Lido water bus stop on the way to the beach. It was a wonderful surprise to find that Venice can be a sunbathing and sea swimming holiday. The beach was beautiful. As we relaxed, ordinary Venetians carried on their working lives. I like the similarities and the differences of these two pictures of... Continue Reading →
Following yesterday's picture that I captured through the doorway of a Venetian café, here are a couple of candids that I took from inside. A different café, but same camera and lens set up. Olympus OMD EM5 with the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8 OIS lens - I just don't see the point of lugging around a heavy DSLR... Continue Reading →
mindful photos 