I was gifted my first box camera when I was eight years old and have taken thousands of photographs since then.

When I was a young child, my mother and I used to make “Nature gardens” using various mosses, tiny stones and small plants that we found together on walks in the woods. I became aware that there is a whole world of tiny and hidden things surrounding us all of the time. This fascination of the microcosm has never left me and is one of the main influences in my work.

 

I studied traditional subjects at Oldham School of Art and Crafts in the 1960s. My abstract photographs were not liked and discouraged by my tutors. I made the decision to leave after a year.

 

When digital cameras became more popular than film, I gained a new found freedom to take hundreds of photographs on one memory card as well as the ability to edit or delete the ones I did not like.

Initially I felt my photographs did not fit into any existing category or under any specific title other than Abstract Realism. I observed a correlation between Abstract Realism and my own work. I adopted Abstract Realism as the closest title to describe my photographic style.

 

It is difficult for me to describe to other people in words what I see, but with my photographs I can show them exactly. 

 

Although what I capture is only one tiny insignificant moment in all of eternity it is significant to me and feeds a need to share something beautiful and by sharing reinforce the reality of that moment.

 

Sharing also increases my pleasure because it is not only me enjoying the beauty, but I am sharing another’s enjoyment of it too. 

 

Photographs can be powerful, some more powerful than others. A fleeting moment may be captured which has a mood, a soul, or tells a story. This can refresh us, calm us or inspire us with enthusiasm and motivate us.

 

When I started printing, framing and sharing my photographs, I found others share my enthusiasm and passion for Abstract Realism. People are now seeking and buying my work.

 

Abstract Realism is a refreshingly simple concept, It is not Impressionism but Realism, and is already being embraced by art lovers, art collectors and investors as the movement gains momentum

 

 

My images are a record of things or moments that exist or have existed in reality.