Welcome to my new site
Welcome to my brand new site. I’ll tell you all about it soon but first a story.
I skied for years. I still do of course but not even close to as much as I did before. I raced for 7 years on dry ski slopes in the UK. When I was 16 I did my Canadian level 1 instructor course, then before university I did a season teaching in Banff. I started doing more freeride and freestyle skiing and nearly decided not to go back to uni. I did however, but spent most of my time there trying to work out how to spend as much time skiing as possible. Racing, starting a freestyle club, and teaching full time at the local dry slope, I was on skis at least 5-6 days a week. I lapped up any form of ski media and taught myself photography, knowing I was too long in the tooth already to seriously aspire to a freeski career, but hoping to still be able to aim for a future in videography or photography. I didn’t bother going to my university graduation and instead got on a plane for the southern season in Wanaka, NZ.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Wanaka but there’s something in the water there… The density of amazing skiers who life there is only bolstered by the flock of pros who migrate south every year to make the most of the best of the southern hemisphere. In short it’s a great place for an aspiring ski photographer to develop their skills. By the end of my second winter there I was shooting with X-games gold medalists, future Olympic gold medallists and what seemed like the best part of the roster for the upcoming two years on the Freeride World Tour.
After NZ was Canada, where I lacked the density of pros, but made the most of some incredible vistas and conditions with a great collection of dedicated and passionate local riders, and my ever-optimistic and somewhat loose housemates.
One of said housemates did me the favour of building me my old site, featuring ski photos and epic travel/wanderlust landscape Instagram-fodder.
Before I moved to Geelong I was spoiled for landscapes. I’d gone from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Te Wahipounamu of NZ to another World Heritage Site in Banff National Park. When you can line up a world class skier with a picture postcard background, you get a bit picky with what you shoot. The opportunities for the most amazing photos desensitise you to the opportunities in your day to day life. I have photos of the places and the highlights I wanted to share on social media, but little to document my own experience of it.
I found myself uninspired in a city away from the snow. I would beat myself up for my results not meeting my expectations. For a while, I didn’t take any photos because I could always think of a way to make them better that wasn’t immediately possible. That’s when I bought myself a Pentax K1000 and started learning to shoot film. I removed the pressure of my own expectations and freed myself up to focus less on results and enjoy the process.
The trouble was I had been demanding of myself that each image be a masterpiece, uniting numerous elements which simply weren’t in my control, and if I couldn’t shoot something in the right light with the right combination of elements then it wasn’t worth disappointing myself over.
That’s where ‘Burbex came in. A push to look deeper & connect more to the place I live. This project is my outsider’s view of what makes Geelong unique to me in 2020. Born out of a desire to document the place I now call home, I set out to walk the streets of Geelong’s suburbs, shooting a combination of timeless homes and vehicles that jumped out at me, simply shooting them as I found them.
This project was coming along well, then Coronavirus hit and we went into lockdown. Much as this could have been a bad thing, it kicked the project into overdrive. For my daily walk I’d walk a grid section of a neighbouring suburb, criss-crossing every street in each neighbourhood to spot each interesting car or house. When I was done, with every street covered, I went back again for another round. There’s always something new. A car not parked on the street before, a house which previously had a car out front which detracted from the scene. Hopefully the project will continue to give me cause to pick up the camera for a long time yet but I’m satisfied for now I have a good record of Geelong in 2020.
Along the way my photography has changed too. I have been shooting almost exclusively on film since November 2019 and have moved to embrace the find the humble beauty of the ordinary rather than chasing the more “obvious” beauty in the extraordinary. One day I hope to be able to make a beautiful photo in any situation, whatever the subject. To truly see a photo in everything.
In short my photography is my most authentic account of the world I see. Having spent years travelling and shooting picture postcard landscapes without telling the real story the way I saw it: the realities of living pay cheque to pay cheque; the times spent living out of the back of a car; even the smaller details which gave depth and flavour to the places I went. I now embrace the imperfect. Beauty is overrated.
It’s been a long time coming, but the old site no longer fit my work and hadn’t been updated in forever. The time has come for a new platform for my work to be shown on. I hope you enjoy having a look around!
Since my work is more reactive than proactive and doesn’t neatly fit into “Architecture” or “Automotive”, “Portrait” or “Product”, I have split my portfolio into sections based on how I come by the scene. “Observed” contains reactive photography. I’m walking along and all of a sudden an opportunity presents. Next comes “found”, where I head out with a theme/subject in mind and try to find things which suit a vague look. Lastly is “built”, where I try to control as much of the scene as possible, either by hunting out a specific location, adding artificial light, influencing wardrobe, hair or makeup choices, directing movement or pose. Essentially any planned shot.