an untrained eye's photostream  

I'm twice a Flickr revenant - I came back in 2007 after two years self-imposed exile, then disappeared again in early 2009... Let's just say that while I love many, many things about Flickr, I'm not always sure it's good for me. It's certainly had a significant impact on my life since I first ventured here, and not always for the better.

Most of what I post here is street photography - it's my real passion, though I'm strictly an amateur. There is the occasional landscape and cityscape from time to time too, and the odd embarrassing self-portrait. Family photos, which probably include the images I'm most proud of, are elsewhere on Flickr.

My intention has always been only to post my best photographs (or those dearest to me), and not to flood the stream with a hundred images every time I come back from a trip.

Some of the earliest shots posted here were taken with an Olympus, but the majority have been taken with a Lumix Panasonic DMC-FX100 or (since my second return) a Leica D-LUX 4 - neither of which always gives me the quality of image I would like, but which are hard to beat for discretion when taking candid street shots.

One day I may be sucked into the vortex of camera technology, SLRs, sophisticated post-processing and so on, but I'm really only interested in the content, not the process. Given my chronic inability to draw, photography is the only medium that allows me to express myself visually - a discovery which I found tremendously liberating when I finally made it in late 2006.

What else is worth knowing about me ?

Well, at heart I'm a writer, so don't be surprised if sometimes there are essays or stories beneath my photographs. I don't yet have the confidence to allow my images to speak for themselves, I suppose, though I hope one day I will.

Also, I'm a deleter. Periodically I look back on my stream, think "Why the Hell did I post that?" and hit the delete button. I try not to delete anything that others seem to appreciate (which sounds like a lame attempt to get people to fave my pictures - really, it isn't), but sometimes it takes a few days or even longer of looking at an image on my stream before I'm really sure that it doesn't belong here.

Similarly, I'm not the kind of person who's going to fave a hundred pictures a day. If I've faved one of your pictures, it's because I've totally fallen in love with it.

Which leads me on to one last thing : I read on another contact's profile something along the lines of "And check out my Favourites - that's where the best stuff is to be found." I can't claim to have seen more than a tiny percentage of what's on Flickr, but I can say that I've been blown away by some of what I've seen. If you want to discover something new and magical - check out my Favourites. And if that seems like a daunting prospect, why not start with one of my galleries :

Hidden Treasures : a selection of some of my very favourite photographs that deserve a wider audience.