Some of you may be aware I’ve reached a major event in my life, which is to hold a solo photo exhibition for the first time in almost 30 years, as well as celebrating a significant birthday.
I’ve titled it 20 50 70.
The 20 stands for the number of years my partner Helen and our daughter Anna and I have lived in this funny, old town called Faringdon in Oxfordshire.
The 50 stands for three things, approximately the number of photographs in this show, 50 years since I gave up eating meat, (inspired by G.B.Shaw’s vegetarian cookbook and a former housemate called Ken) and thirdly it is exactly 50 years since I emigrated to the USA, which was a major turning point in my life.
The 70 is there because it sums up the total of the first two and also reflects the number of years I’ve been around. It’s a very small number in the scheme of things.
It’s retrospective, it has to be. Where do I begin? With my sight of Victoria Falls as a ten year old armed with a Kodak Brownie camera and black and white film or later on as an adult after getting to grips with my first darkroom in the basement of the Polytechnic of Central London in Regent Street in the early 1970s. It took me a long time to get the hang of photography, nothing is ever completely finished, there’s always more to look at. My first black and white experiments were very haphazard, a lot of grainy prints ensued. But I did have a lot of encouragement to carry on.
Travel photography, political journalism, musical performances, abstract, nature, reflections, moons and more. I’m not the kind of person who sits in a field for several hours waiting for the perfect moment.
It was hard to narrow it down, even now I think why did I choose this over that?
There are also four short episodes with photographs from my previous life – from the USA, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua and Estonia.
I’d like to cover my costs first of all but over and above that I’d like to raise some funds for two causes that mean a lot to me. The first is a local charity called COGS (Community Owned Guidance Service), a project born out of the Pump House Project here in Faringdon who provide discreet support and guidance for young people in this area aged between 15 and 24. Mental health support is such a key issue.
thepumphouseproject.org.uk/cogs/
The second cause is to help provide some support for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). The situation facing innocent people in Gaza and the West Bank is desperate and with the intentional destruction of medical facilities just makes it appalling. Last year I rode over 200 miles for MAP and friends were kind enough to support me for over £1000. This is humanitarian aid.
The plan is to sell prints if there is interest, some are from original negatives (pre 2005) and others are digital images (post 2005). All the photos are numbered for ease of identifying. They can all be printed again to a specified size. Then there are already printed up greetings card and postcards too.
Please leave a comment if you feel like it. Thank you.
Here is the link to the whole exhibition viewable until April 2025. https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/13979913/20-50-70-take-2
Citizen Cane picks up his camera 