Photography has been a passion of mine since a young age. I guess I've always had an eye for detail, and a creative ability as far back as I can remember.
I used to think it was normal to be able to recreate a tune on a toy piano when I was 2yrs old, when parents and older members of my family would look in amazement at the familiar tune I was knocking out on the tiny instrument, saying 'Isn't that San Quentin ~ by Jonny Cash?'.
Yes it was, and I could pretty much suss out any tune really, it wasn't hard to figure out. The further right you go up the keys, the higher the note, the further down, the lower. The black keys were somewhere in between the notes on the white keys.
Art and design was part of the same natural ability, and it was no biggie for me to churn out accurate renditions in art classes at school.
So when my father introduced me to the camera, I was delighted to start to understand the relationship between shutter speeds and apertures on the lenses.
Being artistic is one thing, but having a technical mind is another, which didn't come naturally to me at all.
Working out the technical stuff relating to distance, relating to light, film speed, focus and ISO as well as understanding the relationship between the aperture relative to speed and focus was also a minefield. What I wanted to was to compose and snap.
But in order to achieve shots that looked amazing, I needed to understand and learn some techniques.
Having a big kit if lenses is one thing, but learning how to throw and pull focus and undertaking the depth of field, is another story altogether.
A subject that always fascinated me was the theatre. It always fascinated me, and I loved the drama and expression as well as the designs and lighting. The live actors engaging in drama and emotion, was something I loved to imagine in a frame, much like the stage itself is the photo, and the edges of the stage and curtains forms a frame around the scene.
Eventually I realise I needed to get some help, and learn on the job. So I contacted John Haynes, theatre photographer - who, as luck would have it was looking for some help.
I did the same with another well known photographer of the London West-End scene, Knobby Clark, and as well I contacted Yvan Kyncl.
After some time, I was shadowing all of these great photographers, getting expert tuition and guidance.
I began to build a decent port-folio of images, which I had printed in super large format.
One thing led to another and I was invited to show my work at The Royal Shakespeare Company head office in London.
I guess whilst I loved photography so much, passion and determination made up for most of the fortune of landing the opportunities I had. The rest was luck, and I learned more on the job.
I miss this creative work, very much.