Tightropers by West Pier Photograph

I am a UK-based fine art photographer. My subject matter spans various genres, including landscapes, portraiture, architecture, still life, street photography and reportage. I guess I'm essentially a photojournalist in the purest sense of the word -- someone who seeks to capture the world around him as he experiences it. Much of my current artistic inspiration relates to what the great photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called 'the decisive moment'. He also said that taking a photo is "to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality". That encapsulates what I think is so magical about photography as a medium. It's why photos interest me more than moving images: it's about the alchemy of the moment. Most of the time -- as happens with most photographers -- the truly meaningful moments elude me. (Or perhaps I elude them -- and that's another story.) But occasionally, one's intuition pays off, or you get lucky. You happen upon the right light, the right action in the frame, the right point of view. The image possesses a visual cadence or a serendipitous layer of symbolism. And even in the digital age, sometimes you don't know what you've got until you get it home and onto a larger screen -- when a nicely-lit but otherwise unremarkable seaside view becomes punctuated by the stark silhouette of a gull carrying a starfish off for lunch; or you fully comprehend the juxtaposition of the man carrying his worldly belongings on a bicycle past an image of a group of rich people looking down on the world through expensive binoculars... I will post more into my portfolio here soon - I need to go through my archives to get the maximum resolution files. In the meantime you can see my work here: http://bit.ly/GzFABA