Fishing in the Rivers of Life

Category: Rivers of Light

  • One at a Time – Lady in Red

    One at a Time – a series of posts where I examine a single image. Today it’s Lady in Red. It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but here I don’t think we need that many, for the single abiding theme is drama. Why is the woman in red so pensive? Surely…

  • Panasonic Lumix S9 Review:

    A Promising Concept Held Back by Missing Essentials At this stage in my career, what you might charitably call an “industry veteran”, teaching myself new tricks can feel a bit like training a chicken how to abseil – it’s cruel, and may well end in tears. Currently, I’m trying to get to grips with a…

  • One at a time – Dogs Bollocks

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s the turn of Dogs Bollocks. I think this picture is the dogs’ bollocks, but I would say that, wouldn’t I? Joking aside, it’s a great example of how street photography can lift the mundane daily life…

  • One at a time – City Briefcase

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s the turn of City Briefcase. The light struck me as I was walking to the bus stop on my way home from the office. I was tired, but the rays energised me in only the way…

  • Photography: The Dying Art

    The Misplaced Focus on Art Over the Artist Reading Lewis Liu’s essay on Marcel Duchamp’s impact on the artistic world, arguing that art is simply a social construct, and his theory that AI will do the same was a revelation. A lightbulb moment when I realised he was missing the point. With so much talk…

  • One at a Time – Dog, on the beach, Margate

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s the turn of Margate. It’s a funny old world; of all the things I’ve photographed and all the things I’ve seen, this image ranks so near the top of my favourite photos, if not at the…

  • Real-world X-H2S testing

    The Myth of Press Photography Glamour It’s a funny old world; one where perception and reality are so often worlds apart. Take press photography, for instance. Imagine the reader, binging such films as The Bang Bang Club, Blow-Up, and Minamata. By now, they’d believe life in this universe is a dangerous, exhilarating, and glamorous cocktail—an…

  • Bearing Witness: Why You Must See the World Press Photo Exhibition

    If you do one thing this bank holiday, or even just one thing in the next three months, visit the World Press Photo Exhibition at the MPB Gallery, Here East, London. Why? Because not all superheroes wear capes. Some wear press vests in the most dangerous corners of the world. I call them superheroes because,…

  • Prawns in the curtains

    A Strange Turn in the Mirror Hopefully, I’m not going to cry, but I am gripped by a sense of melancholic failure as I’ve just suffered a quite frankly strange out-of-body experience. My life flashed before me. I was there but not really present; I was wandering like a stranger in my own world. It…

  • Heretical and Heavenly: The Leica Q3

    Wrestling with the truth How I agonised as I ummed and ahhed over how to say this, worrying whether I should pull my punches or just give it to you straight. So let’s just cut to the chase. This camera is a masterpiece. Come on, a Leica with autofocus! You’ve got to be impressed. Believe…

  • The Fujifilm X100VI – a triumph of technology and styling

    A beast of burden dreams of film As I trudge and traipse across London Bridge, grumbling like a mule and burdened like a packhorse, I recall a time before digital equipment weighed me down. And once again I find myself wishing: if only digital cameras could be more like their film forefathers. Cue nostalgia and…

  • One at a Time – Tsunami

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s tsunami. Vision fractured, life unbroken. A survivor of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka sits in the small makeshift treatment centre, the same one that would later treat my chest infection caused by breathing the toxic…

  • One at a Time – Ted Fest

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s Ted Fest. After narrowly avoiding getting killed when the gearbox on our helicopter sprang a leak, I finally made it to the real-life Craggy Island, Inishmore, an island on the West Coast of Ireland, for the…

  • One at a Time – Morse

    One at a time – a series of posts where I examine a single image. Today: Morse. Christ, almost twenty-five years since I shot this one. But. And I hope you agree — it’s a cracker. If memory serves me right (and it probably doesn’t), this was shot at BAFTA. I’d been kept waiting ages…

  • One at a Time – Woman and Child

    One at a time – a series of posts where I will examine a single image – today it’s Woman and Child. Sunday evening, on my way back home from a shift, the light was glorious. So much so that I was compelled to get the backup kit out of the bag. That’s the thing…