An insight into my world
From a very young age I have been passionate about photography. As a child I would pick up newspapers and magazines, religiously flicking from cover to cover in search of a single photograph that could describe a complex story, studying the image for some time, before turning to the accompanying text.
Not a great deal has changed since then and creating such images is what inspires me today.
Hopefully when looking at my photographs you feel the anticipation, exhaustion, stoke, fear or general mood present that inspired me to release the shutter.
I use both Digital and Analogue cameras. The rules I usually follow when shooting digitally tend to go out the window when I pick up one of my Lomo ‘toy cameras’.
When I point my Ltd edition green Holga at my subjects, I tend to get one of two responses… Wow is that a Lomo or… when you press the button is that thing going to squirt water at me!
It’s kind of like my ‘Action Girl’ camera if such a thing exists and I Heart it. Thousands of Lomographers share this love of ‘toy cameras’. You should check out the Lomo web site - hopefully you will be inspired to start ‘shooting from the hip’.
Seems I am also not alone when it comes to Hearting Tynemouth Longsands, my local surf break.
This without doubt is my favourite place to be. I caught my very first wave here 6 years ago and developed an addiction. Having watched people surf here over the years I finally decided today was my day. I hired a board from Tynemouth surf shop and asked the owner Steve if I could pay for a lesson to which he replied… you don’t need one just keep yourself centered, feet just off the back of the board, look over your shoulder then paddle paddle paddle, when the wave picks up the board do a press up to squat thrust and you’re surfing!
How hard can it be… well it didn’t go quite that smoothly but it did work for a glorious 3 seconds and all I could think about was my next wave. The only problem was, the surf wasn’t what you could say consistent and my hunger was insatiable.
In order to get my fix, I eventually packed my bag for Indonesia, where the promise of constant swell combined with the surgical removal of my 5 mm proved all too enticing.
So that’s how I started out. I will keep you posted of all the great happenings here in the North East of England, whilst continuing to share my surf adventures in Indo, Oz, Hawaii, LA, Fiji and Morocco amongst other places. I will also share the various photography techniques I enjoy using in case you feel the urge to give it a go yourself.
