At fifteen years of age I was given the chance to study at Bradford College of Art, but regrettably and with hindsight, I rather stupidly let that opportunity slip from my grasp, and to this day this situation still plays about with my subconscious mind. Suffice to say that this experience has, to some extent, influenced my way of thinking and my creative output. The main disadvantage to this is that my original dreams of spending all my life creating stimulating works of art with paint on canvas never quite materialised. Although it has to be said that much of it, was indeed, spent extolling the practical merits of the medium whilst ‘up to my armpits’ in paint. As a result, sloshing endless gallons of the household variety in various shades of mucky off white on room sized ‘canvases’, has rightfully qualified me to be known as Magnolia Man – rather than Jack the Dripper. Having said that, squeezed in between the many purgatorial bouts of ‘Magnolia’ application, brief, fleeting glimpses of my ‘spare time’ activities were brought to light. Locally I had solo photography exhibitions both at Abbot Hall Art Gallery and at Kendal’s Brewery Arts Centre, plus my images appeared in print for various photo publications. My paintings also once upon a time saw the light of day at such venues as the Yorkshire Artists Exhibition, Skipton and South Square Gallery, Bradford.

More prominently, over recent years the genre of street photography and urban landscape has taken a front seat in my endeavour to record exactly what I see when I am out and about. Having moved on from the broader standard view of regular pictorial photography, a more confined and concentrated view forces me to peel back the uppermost layers and look more intensely at what really is lurking beneath the comely facade. I am now at an age and physical condition that largely prevents me from exerting myself to any extreme, but regular walks around town several times per week - always with my camera – ensure that there is a constant supply of visual opportunities. I often use well worn paths where constant human activity tends to throw up infinite variations on the urban landscape.

Now that my photo technique has become greatly simplified and refined, my mind-set only focuses on what is in my immediate vision.

Nothing is pre planned, the only objective is to see what turns up in front of the lens. There is no intentional narrative, though curiously, despite the random nature of my photographic practice, once the editing process starts, sequences do emerge and previously hidden untold stories percolate out from within the assortment of innocent scenes. There are no sharply defined edges to my visual creations, or indeed to the narratives they may accidentally contain.