These are a selection of images I took for a local artist friend, Shulin Wang. Shulin paints with traditional Chinese ink painting techniques on porcelain, and is now experimenting with leaving a matt finish to accentuate the texture of the fired brushwork. She also makes teapots themed on the Maitreya Buddha, emphasizing the rotund physique […]
spain
After a break of several years, I’m returning to the darkroom to learn toning techniques. The photo was taken with a Minolta Autocord, printed on Ilford Art, first skin and table sepia toned, dress and pot coloured using Fotospeed palette toner blue without intensifier and then covered in resist while the print was submerged […]
boat
rifle
I don’t know. I guess it’s a measure of how safe Taiwanese society is, but when I see a guy emerging from a store opposite the restaurant I’m sitting in carrying a big rifle, it sets me on edge. Since I was in Taiwan, after the initial moment of unease, I took out my camera […]
new noir
There’s something that fascinates me about a person concentrating upon a view of their reflection in a mirror. Compositionally it presents a challenge, and yet is quite simple. It’s the eye, stupid. It is the eye that is looking, the eye that it the center of attention, and the eye that may well be the […]
olduk
This is just a random selection of photos from the UK, from around 2005 to 2015. There’s not a lot to link them: I was just looking through some old scans the other day and chose these. There’s the one of Alex taking time out as I’m searching for photos to take, knowing that I […]
set
Back in 2014 we made a couple of shorts. The first was a read tribute to the recently deceased Philip Seymour Hoffman; the second was a reconstruction of an interview between Truman Capote and David Frost, on the nature of relationships. It was my introduction to the use of lighting, rather than purely available light. […]
noir
These are from six occasions. The first two were watching her apply her make-up in a mirror. The next was when I noticed the interesting way the bedside lamp was lighting her. Then there was a more deliberate attempt at doing something interesting with lighting, based on the film noir aesthetic. The close-up […]
praying at the feet of the Buddha
Taipei Times bilingual article
stairs; door; track
There are certain objects in the physical world, often related to ideas of movement or transition, that lend themselves to metaphor. Stairs, for example, allow ascension, relocation from a lower level to a higher one. People at the top may seem, or feel, powerful, but also exposed; people below could feel, or appear to be, […]