Selected paintings 1980's
I recently got some old slides from boxes I’ve had around for years and years and sent them off to be professionally scanned. I lot of these were of my paintings and drawings from previous decades.
Beaching the inshore lifeboat at Cromer, Norfolk
Wednesday 24 April. At about 7.50pm, I was watching the sun setting at Cromer in Norfolk when I saw the inshore lifeboat east of the pier. As I went down to the beach to get a closer look, the boat turned towards the shore.
Fly-tipped
A week ago, a truck fly-tipped a load of waste onto the little road I can see from the back of my house. They did this blatantly and in broad daylight on Saturday morning. Within a couple of minutes, they were gone.
What looked like general household waste was eventually revealed to be a large quantity of building crap - rubble, plaster, and other solid and heavy debris. I posted a photo on our local community forum. Various people thought they saw the truck but didn’t get the licence number. Others pitched in saying they thought the licence plate was either covered, removed or fake. Somebody managed to get a photo of the truck making its getaway.
Big charcoal drawings from the 1980's
When I was studying at the Hornsey College of Art in the early 1980’s, I devoted most of the second year of my degree course to practicing the discipline of drawing. I was developing my understanding of structure, line, tone, light and shadow, learning how these things could fundamentally underpin the physical aspects of image-making and painting.
Lockheed U-2
I took these photos of this awesome Cold War wraith at an airshow (probably Farnborough) many years ago. I developed and printed the images myself (at art college).
1960s slide of a barrage balloon
This is a photograph I’ve been wanting to see again for years and years. I only vaguely remembered this particular trip, to the point that I doubted that it had happened. I remembered a giant airship, and people jumping from it. I had no idea at the time what it was I was seeing.
The Little Chapel at Les Vauxbelets in Guernsey
This is a photo of the Little Chapel at Les Vauxbelets in Guernsey, taken in the late 1960s or early 70s. I only vaguely recall going to the island of Guernsey as a small child with my mother and brother. I think my dad stayed at home, so I'm not sure who took this photo, but it did end up in the family photo album.
Rudston Monolith
I was once driving back home from Bamburgh in Northumberland and came across the amazing site of a giant megalith in the churchyard of a Norman church. I had no idea why there was an enormous - obviously ancient - standing stone in such close proximity to a beautiful old church. I had to stop and have a closer look.
Old photos of Kennedy Space Centre from 1984
In 1984, while still at Hornsey School of Art, I sold my old Ford Escort mk1 and used the proceeds to go to the USA and visit my old school friends who had emigrated a few years earlier to New Orleans. A group of us went on a road trip to Florida, with our destination being the Kennedy Space Center.
A photo of Old Beirut
This is a photograph I came across in Meza, a Lebanese Restaurant in Tooting, London. The photographer and the date of the photograph is unknown.
In rural Hungary in winter (video 01:13)
At the beginning of February 2012 I went to a family gathering in Ösi, a small village in Western Hungary
On the Dalyan River (video 4:03)
In late September 2018, on a warm, still afternoon in Turkey, I took the last boat from beautiful Iztuzu Beach, at the mouth of the Dalyan River delta, back to Dalyan, a few kilometres upriver.
Nile turtle in the Dalyan River (video 1:29)
This Nile Turtle arrived for breakfast every morning at the Longhouse Inn Hotel by the riverside in Dalyan. It was fed on any leftover eggs (scrambled and boiled). Some establishments on the riverside lure the species with chicken skin in order to attract more customers, a practice which is in fact harmful to this secretive turtle which is unable to digest this food alien to its natural diet. I would imagine eggs aren't great for it to be eating every day either.
Button (video 1:18)
A video I made ten years ago; Button. I took the shots in Smithfield Market, London’s ancient and famous wholesale meat market, which was incredibly noisy.
Tree-felling in Istanbul (video 4:26)
One morning while on holiday in Istanbul, I heard a chainsaw in the street. I tried to ignore it but it was a really intrusive noise and I wondered what was taking such a hammering. I looked out of the window and was peturbed to see a man cutting down the large Acacia tree (I think) in the yard of the house opposite...
Very small businessmen
I too have dabbled with some images using these small figures that you can get. It’s a thing.
Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway: train arriving at Dungeness (video 1:01)
The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway (RH&DR) is a 15in (381 mm) gauge light railway in Kent, England, operating steam and internal combustion locomotives.
2 trains, 1 platform (video 00:12)
Something I’ve never seen before - and that shouldn’t ever happen; two trains on one platform, at Victoria Underground Station, on the southbound Victoria Line platform, September 11, 2018.
Photographs taken around Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door in 2011
This is an update to a post I originally wrote in 2011 when I took a trip to Dorset to visit the unique landscape of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in Dorset, southern England.
Five recent black and white photographs
Five black and white photographs taken within the last year.