You will find some of my photographs displayed in the Image Gallery.

The pictures are listed under seven categories - here are some notes on each of the headings. Click on the headings to view the images in each section.

Calderdale

This is my"home-patch", if you like. My photography depends to a large extent on my being in the right place at the right time; the fact that I am more often in Calderdale than anywhere else means that I inevitably achieve more hits here. Having spent the whole of my working life in the area, I also know the best places to shoot in any given lighting and weather conditions.

Calderdale is a tremendously fertile area for the landscape photographer. Within its boundaries lies a very varied range of geographical features, ranging from lush, steep-sided valleys with cascading streams to wild and exposed heather moorland and millstone grit crags. The district is also rich in architectural and industrial heritage, a feature which is now being exploited as a tourist attraction. As in many other areas, this is something of a mixed blessing - whilst it is obviously beneficial to the local economy, it can often be a pain for the local community!

The geography also has a major influence on the atmosphere of the area. The interaction of light and weather with the hills and valleys creates an extremely varied catalogue of subjects, and what on one day seems to be devoid of photographic potential can be transformed on another day into a vivid and dramatic image. Such changes often happen on a much faster time scale than a day-to-day basis - sometimes lighting effects are so fleeting as to be almost impossible to catch on film. This, of course, can be very frustrating to the landscape photographer!

The Bronte Country

The heart of the Bronte Country is Haworth, a Pennine village lying just outside the northern boundary of Calderdale. In"the season" the place is in danger of disappearing under a sea of coaches and ice-cream wrappers, but if you can manage to see through the trappings of tourism, the village manages to retain some of the character experienced by the strangely-magnetic Bronte family. I often wonder what Emily, Charlotte and Anne would think of the idea of people streaming into Haworth from all over the world to take a peek into their lives.

The pictures in this category are taken from a set of photographs commissioned by the Haworth Information Centre to form a permanent display panel, showing some of the locations featured in the Bronte novels and diaries. For the display, I did some research into the literature and unearthed quotations or references relevant to each picture - the prints are available with these quotations, details and prices in the mail-order section.

The Red Teapot

This is my whimsical foray into the realms of surrealism! I'm not sure how the series started, but I saw the graphic potential of the teapot and just played around shooting it in different ways. Then I became aware of settings which seemed to cry out for a little something extra and the idea was born. Since then the RTP has travelled with me far and wide and will continue to do so until I get arrested!

I suppose I could lapse into the pretentious and talk about the metaphysical interface between the hand of man and his natural environment, and the deeply significant presence of a strong icon of twentieth-century civilization within a broader geographical context - but that would be silly.

Millstone Grit

These shots are part of a commission to illustrate"Glynn Hughes' Yorkshire - Millstone Grit Revisited"; published by Chatto & Windus in 1985. The book was an update of Glyn's earlier "Millstone Grit"; and just at the time when he was looking for a photographer to provide new pictures he happened to call in and see an exhibition I had in Hebden Bridge - a classic bit of serendipity if ever there was one!

I like working in B/W as much as colour, but I don't often use it because the darkroom work is so time-consuming. Getting the perfect print takes a lot of concerted effort, and can eat up an awful lot of materials in the process. The plus side is the tremendous sense of satisfaction at the end of a successful printing session.

I was a bit apprehensive when I got this commission. The success of a landscape photograph lies in a combination of subject and light; the former is usually fixed and constant, the latter is continually changing. In other words, there's a whole lot of luck involved in getting it right! Which makes commissioned work very tricky, and the shorter the shooting time, the trickier it gets. Working in black and white helps - it gives a little more control over the end-product which colour materials don't.

Northumbria

The coast of Northumbria has an atmosphere all of its own, and for me the magic is focused on the semi-island of Lindisfarne (Holy Island). Cut off from the mainland at high tide, the island can be reached by road at low tide when the half-mile causeway is uncovered

This dual character is echoed in another aspect - Lindisfarne at high tide and out-of-season is totally different to Lindisfarne at low tide in the middle of summer! I've managed to avoid the latter so far.

Trees

Self-explanatory, really. Trees are such a rich subject, with their variety of size and form and beauty - add the right light and you can't really fail. It's a bit daft to list them by their locations - they could be anywhere. I must get round to identifying them...

Pot Pourri

A selection of shots which don't fit into any of the other categories.

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