BIO

Born England, 1950. Early childhood - rural Sussex. Expressed an interest in photography when quite young. (Birds). Left school at fifteen with no qualifications. Moved to London aged sixteen - was a bicycle messenger for a film company. I still remember every alley and shortcut in the West End through which one can - or could - manoeuvre a bicycle. London was then a civilized and engaging city. Soho was an energetic, cosmopolitan village and I grifted along on my salary of four pounds ten shillings a week. I was elevated to cutting room trainee but was fired after 18 months. Aimless, my father gave me a camera and I began shooting pictures of what I saw around me, London - 1967 onwards. I taught myself darkroom technique and adopted a simple, reportage style of shooting, i.e. I didn't really know what I was doing. I hustled sales here and there. This required taking the bus down to Fleet Street and hawking your pictures from one newspaper to the next. I remember my first sale to an American magazine - Newsweek. I remember the name of the guy who kept encouraging me to take pictures and bring them into him - Richard Steele. I developed an interesting portfolio of faces - and the ambience - of the time.

I spent a good part of the next decade in America. In my mid twenties, I started making documentaries - self funded or with money 'raised' from investors. I produced four or five films with the help of the BBC and Public TV in Boston. Back then, an idea, a subject and a friendly connection at a network could get you into production. Things were a lot less formal and I had a lot of fun running around with Barry Ackroyd, a 16mm Eclair and a rented car. With nothing to do one winter in a snowy New York City, I attempted writing a screenplay. This was never produced but nonetheless supported me for several years through options, re-options and the other assignments it attracted. The next spec screenplay was produced and led to a successful period of TV writing and the mandatory period in California with the attendant carousel of Hollywood 'meetings', none of which led to anything. My fault - I was never really committed to it and didn't play the game. TV writing is kind of relentless, but nonetheless lucrative and this enabled me to buy a couple of small hideaways which I have come to dearly appreciate. The world seems tougher and a lot less friendly than I remember it as a teenager with a Nikon, a bicycle and a reasonable eye for a picture.

I have consistently taken photographs across this period - 40 years or so. I am now more and more interested in faces and the book of landscapes I have just completed seems to have an inordinate number of portraits. I really don't make a living with anything in an organised, professional sense. I think about writing again but don't really do it. The self discipline seems harder and harder to muster and to maintain. I feel I should do more but I try not to beat myself up about it. Looking through a camera is quite enough to sustain me.