The Major and a muse

In memory of my mother who passed away on the 16th December 2009

Back in 1986, my final exhibition before I wandered into electronic hyperspace, was a culmination of a series of portraits which were commissioned by the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery in Coventry, my home town. When I decided to return to the more meditative world of photography, at first I just experimented in my studio but I knew I wanted to return to the environmental portrait but did not want to just pick up where I had left it in '86. It took a couple of years of back burner thinking before Bographica arrived on the scene. I was up in Monmouth seeing a very old friend, the photographer Richard Sadler. I wanted to take his portrait and I was very aware that none of us are getting any younger and it was an opportunity to use a recently purchased 5 x 4 field camera with my digital back. I wanted to force the camera into situations it was not really set up for. The result was 'The Man Who Shot Weegee'. On my way back home I shot a couple more portraits because already I was beginning to see the possibilities and this was confirmed when I put the two pictures together back in my studio. Each photograph is actually two pictures taken on the left and right of the frame, to create the panoramic view. Using only available light I am using shutter speeds of upto 3 or 4 seconds. This means that my sitters have to remain perfectly still for several seconds while I take the two pictures. Since my first outings I have refined my methodology so as not to take up too much time from my sitters.

I am very well aware of history. I am know that in 5, 10 or 20 years time that the people and places I photograph will have changed or disappeared. I see 'Biographica' as a social history document. It is not only a series of images but also a series of small biographies, hence the title. Each portrait has a short biography of the people. I am looking at producing a book next year or soon when have found an editor. Each picture is located, dated and timed as part of the information gathering process. How many times do we see untitled, unlocated and lost time frames of photographic documents, leaving us to wonder who that person was? Biographica's intention in part, is to place in time, a series of people who are living now in a world that will not be there very soon. It follows in the tradition of documentary photography and I am not interested in making 'art' but in collecting a series of short stories.'

Edited from the article published in the January 2011 issue of Ag Magazine