Starving artist

This post is actually intended as the second part of a two-part series, starter with this post about my new work -- and inspired by various bloggers who have asked about where they can see my art, and how they can buy it.

It's been a long time coming, but modesty and laziness have been getting the better of me. Effectively, this post is a masturbatory journey through my photography.

This first picture was taken in Camden, one summer afternoon. I like the colours of the picture most of all, the green trees framing it and contrasting against the white building in the background. I also like the colours of the barges on the water. The picture to me has a lazy feel, like there is no sense of urgency to it. The water is still and quiet, the people in the picture don't seem to be in any hurry. There are people just standing and talking, others just sitting by the water. Camden is one of my favourite places in London.


About as different from Camden you can get is Arches National Park, Utah, where this next picture was taken. It was around Easter of 2001, and a group of us were hiking and camping in the desert. I remember how Tom and I had been so reluctant to go the morning we left -- it was still dark and it was snowing in Salt Lake City, and maybe it was a fear of the unknown, but we had second thoughts about the whole thing. We also had no idea that when we got out to the desert, the snow of that morning would seem like a dream. The Moab desert is one of the most incredible places on earth, and I would sooner camp in the desert sands than I would stay the night in a Mayfair hotel. It's little wonder that I now love Edward Abbey's book Desert Solitaire so much and later went on to write my dissertation on the American wilderness.

I think this picture was taken early one morning -- I assume it was morning, otherwise we would have been hiking and you can see one of our tents in the picture. What I like most of all about it is the effect of the sun through the trees and the red rock in the background. I wouldn't normally want to post pictures from the same place and time, right after each other, but I had to include this one. In the distance you can see the snow-capped mountains, I love the contrast of it.

In terms of contrast, I don't suppose it gets much more different than the red rock canyons and desert sands of Utah's Moab desert, to this. Taken in February of 2006, I packed my bags and my snowboard and took myself off to the mountains for a week.

This is the church of Mary Magadelene, in an old town called Peisey-Nancroix in the French Alps. On deviantArt, you can see a couple of other versions of this picture -- I experimented with different sizes, and a greyscale filter, but I like this one the most, for the faded colours against the pure white snow. The village was very quiet, it would be rare to see another person in the street, and the most traffic you saw most days would be the snowplough.

I have no idea if this church was abandoned or still in use. I never saw any signs that it was still in active service, nobody came or went and there were never any bells calling people to mass, even on a Sunday morning. I should have tried the door, I now can only imagine what it was like inside, but I was usually just passing it on my way somewhere else. Isn't that always the way?

Once again, going back several years -- this time to the summer of 2001. I spent the summer with no fixed address, which is a nice way of saying I slept on a friend of Rie's couch becuase I had nowhere else to go and my home was several thousand miles away. Sure, I could have changed my ticket and gone home early, but sometimes I would rather sleep on the couch of someone who is little more than a stranger to me -- if it affords me other interesting opportunities.

Opportunities like deciding you're bored and catching a Greyhound bus to San Francisco. One of my favourite things to do when I go somewhere is to just walk out with my camera, and dig stuff. To set off with no purpose, no sense of direction, and see what I can find. Back in the days before I had digital cameras, this was actually shot on APS film -- the kind you don't have to wind back, it just slots in like a battery. I searched all over the city for somewhere that sold black and white APS films, to me it's not the same using colour and converting it -- you get a certain richness of contrast.

There is little more to say about this picture, it sort of explains itself -- I hiked to the very top of this street, and casually shot the picture down it. It remains one of my favourite, and most remarked-upon pictures.

Slightly closer to home, this picture was taken in the lovely town of Southend-on-Sea, in Essex. At one time it was a summer holiday resort (since it's the closest seaside to London), now with cheap flights to the continent its popularity has slumped against Spain. Just the same, I've grown up visiting the town for walks by the sea, or trips to the funfair. The beaches of Southend consist largely of stones and cigarette ends, although one beach does have soft, yellow sand -- imported from the Caribbean.

This picture was taken for a project (a project I am tempted to revive) back on Open Diary, where people would all take pictures from their lives on one particular day. I took this day out in Southend. There is no great story behind it, I just liked the colour of the boat and the dark of the wooden jetty -- and the written warnings all over to "keep off" the jetty. I have another picture taken when I climbed underneath the jetty, I just like to go where I don't belong.

I'm wary of this post getting too long, so that's all the pictures I will include for today, but more can be seen at my deviantArt page -- including more pictures of Essex, the Moab desert, the French Alps and some pictures of a Manhattan skyline that no longer exists in the same way.

In terms of cost, the prices here are based on an example: This picture is my first sold piece, so all details relate to this and are given solely as a guideline for a picture printed on an A3 canvas -- that is measuring 420mm by 297mm.

Excluding postage and packaging, but including all printing costs, the canvas would be £80GBP. Postage to World Zones 1&2 is £15GBP. Anyone outside of these zones are advised to make a rough guess from the table provided. Smaller prints are available, and naturally would cost less to both buy and to post. Larger sizes are subject to the suitability of the print itself. If anyone would prefer not to have canvas and instead just a framed print, that would probably about halve the price -- a more accurate quote will be gladly arranged on request.
I think that about covers it?