It took me longer than I think is average for me to become comfortable enough with who I am to be able to contemplate engaging in an intimate relationship. Not that I didn’t long for this as a teenager; the rage of hormones and the swelling desires that swamped me like an ocean current were powerful and merciless. I struggled a lot with the unrequited need for emotional and physical intimacy in my teens and so whenever I see teenage love I feel a curious mix of happiness and longing; happiness for their emotional intimacy and longing for the awkward teenage boy I wish I could help.

Leica MP, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f/1.5, Kodak Porta 400

Hoops

They were just shooting hoops in a free period, in between lectures, on an otherwise damp and silently still concrete court.

Leica MP, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar C f/1.5, Kodak Portra 160

Patience

The dog resisted the pull of the leash, his owner exhaled with indifferent resignation to the beast’s steadfast truculence. ‘Honestly, it’s like living with a permanent toddler’, she sighed. I smiled sympathetically. She made again to move off, but the dog remained rooted, his lack of submission tugging the lady back on the unexpectedly taut leash. For a moment, her face was pulled into the golden pool of light from a low dipping sun poking through the trees. Illuminated and suddenly quite serene, the light seemed to bless her with inner peace.

Lieca MP, Zeiss 35mm Biogon f/2.8 Kodak Portra 160

The Light Outside pt2

Oh my god the light outside is amazing. A thick fog as descended on Horsham and everywhere the light is soft and diffuse and velvety. I’m supposed to be working but these moments rarely present themselves; still if I take time out I likely won’t find anyone interesting, it will be fruitless. Of course I was wrong; of course you can always find someone who offers you a little part of themselves.

Oh my god the light outside!

Oh my god the light outside is amazing. A thick fog as descended on Horsham and everywhere the light is soft and diffuse and velvety. I’m supposed to be working but these moments rarely present themselves; still if I take time out I likely won’t find anyone interesting, it will be fruitless. Of course I was wrong; of course you can always find someone who offers you a little part of themselves.

School Boy Error

It’s been a while since I shot on anything other than 6x7 but a new(ish) relationship that is blossoming and two boys exploding into manhood made me realise that so much of what is the most rewarding in life is passing me by without a visual record. So I did the only thing any pretentious middle class twat with photographic pretensions would do. I bought a Leica MP. I tried 35mm digital, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take the damn thing anywhere. It just seemed so, well, fruitless and unprofitable.

My pretensions palpably punished me however when trying to get to grips with loading and unloading film in the Leica MP. Considering it is designed to be mechanically perfect and operationally simple I managed to make a right hash of it. First school boy error was spending a few hours shooting a roll without realising I’d failed to load it correctly and the film was not advancing. The second was believing I’d fully unwound the film only to find the film stretched naked before the void as I opened the back.

Fearing the worst, i.e. the best frames were likely the ones entirely lost to electromagnetic radiation, I optimistically developed the roll and was rewarded with the serendipity of a wonderful light leak on the two best frames. Sometimes the rewards are oblique, unanticipated and entirely the result of school boy error.

Design for Life

Design for Life

Travelling tattoo artists @iegotattoo and @antonio_giglio_tattoo on their way back home but enjoying a morning in and around Brick Lane. They both had such a strongly visual masculine presence but also that vague vulnerability I always look for. Placing them against the soft pastel pink of the graffiti accentuated that gentleness in both of them.

First Date

I found them in Victoria Park, lying carelessly against each others, the grass murmurous with tiny busy insects and the rich summer sun oozing into warm open pores. I felt I might be intruding into such intimate moment but they welcomed be with warm hearts. Their comfort with each other belied their familiarity; ‘it’s actually our first date’ one said. I took their picture and wished them well.