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“The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool are holding a Cecil Beaton exhibition, I consider him to be one of the worlds greatest portrait photograpghers of our times.”
From Mikes About Me Page
As an army brat, I was born in Germany where my father was stationed with the British Army. I travelled extensively during my early years but eventually settled in the United Kingdom after my parents separated.
Although I displayed artistic tendencies form an early age, I struggled finding the right medium through which to express myself. Due to financial difficulties, I was unable to study art to further develop any talents and quench my creative yearning; instead I left school to work, with no formal qualifications.
Later in life I tried my hand at traditional art such as oil on canvas and sculpture, but found I did not have the simple patience to see a project through. Dejected by this apparent lack of commitment, I simply left art behind and carried on with life.
It wasn’t until 2006 that I discovered digital photography. I picked up a cheap, basic camera to see how I would fair, and immediately fell in love with the medium. It fulfilled all the criteria I needed, namely seeing immediate results of my work. I went on to invest in better equipment and more editing software and then I discovered the use of HDR editing.
Although at first I struggled with this technology, I persevered, knowing that it had potential if only I could tweak it in a way that it wouldn’t over-process the image. Many hours spent playing with several editing tools began to bear fruit and I found that by combining certain programs I could create HDR tone mapped images that differed from anything else anyone had ever seen. This also gave my art a very exclusive and unique character.
My work in perfecting post-processing made me look deeper at not only the subjects and the world around me, but at how editing tools can be used to present photography in a completely different way.
As a self-taught photographer with no formal training, I continue to endeavour in my desire to learn more, making many mistakes along the way and learning from them, constantly seeking new ways to portray the images I capture.
With an early interest in street photography, I began working with urban/cityscapes and landscapes and found many subjects in that world. Most of my work takes me around my local area, but I have a yearning to travel the world to see how I can apply this process to some of the great landscapes of the world.
For the time being, I am still honing my skills, and still learning more about the camera and editing.