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Life
I began my working life training in quantity surveying but gave it up in order to go to Exeter University to read social science. I then taught in Further Education for most of my subsequent working life teaching subjects related to employnent and drawing upon economic, industrial and political knowledge.
 My engagement with the visual began in the eighties with deindustrialisation and rising levels of unemployment. Initially I attended some w/e courses at The Photographer’s Place in Ashbourne Derbyshire (run by Paul Hill) and subsequently undertook the first part-time Photographic Studies MA course at the then Derby College of HE.
One focus of my interest in the visual world lies with the ordinary, down-at-heel, sometimes ugly, and even brutalising environments in which people find themselves - a kind of landscape work that can be redeemed through the photographic image: “Land in Bradford” (1987) was one exhibition I held attempting to deal with this issue. Subsequently, and partly due to my developing interests in other media, specifically printmaking, I have taken to using the straight photograph as a resource to be manipulated. My final work for the MA Printmaking at Bradford College (1999) uses manipulated images dealing with war.
After some time away from image making due to illness, I have this year embarked on several projects, a good deal of which is here displayed. First, I have begun a small body of work on Ulva (Scottish island off the coast of Mull) which may become extended as I visit different places in the UK. Second, I have recently travelled to British Columbia in Canada and have three strands of work developing as a consequence. These include more work on landscape (Bowen Island), some incidental pictures of dereliction (Bowen and Quadra Islands), some photocollage work on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway in Esquimalt, Victoria and some tonally altered work of property development in Esquimalt built on disputed land (owned by elements of the established population - erstwhile colonialists - and claimed by the First Nation people, The Songhees).
Third, two projects have emerged from my recent trip to Poland. Some straight Modernist stlye pieces on the pier at Sopot (seaside town near Gadansk on the Baltic) and some images of the Gadansk Shipyards, which fall into two categories - those landscape items of subdued colour, and some very bright and highly coloured straight photographs.
Teaching
I have taught some modules on the history of modern art and photography at Leeds University.
Exhibitions
Photographic based work inspired by war, Peace Museum, Bradford, 2000
MA Printmaking, Dean Clough, Halifax, 1999
The Spirit of Bradford, Pennington Midland Hotel, Bradford, 1997 (with Aire Valley Arts)
Celebrating Diversity, Manor House, Ilkley, 1997 (with Aire valley Arts)
Head, Bolton Royd, Bradford, 1997 (with Aire Valley Arts)
MA Photographic Studies, Derby, 1990
Land in Bradford, Lister Gallery, Bradford, 1987
Publications
The Spirit of Bradford, Centenary Publication, Aire Valley Arts, 1997
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