Many years ago, in the days of film, back in the 1980's, I did a lot of photography as an art student in Manchester and Liverpool. Mainly nightclubs, music venues and band photography, as I was a DJ in some of the trendy clubs, and I was sort of in a few bands, but also quite a lot of model photography, both male and female, fully clothed, partially nude. nude and erotic. I even shot a few minor celebrities - Debbie Greenwood, Mick Hucknall (he was minor then), Pete Burns (ditto), Anthony H Wilson etc. (sadly I don't have any of the prints). I even had my bathroom converted in to a black and white darkroom, which didn't go down to well with my landlord, or my girlfriend!
After having been seduced by the glamour of film, video and tv work I have now become re acquainted with still photography, my passion has been re ignited.
I am very keen to take 'arty' shots, mainly black and white, and definitely not 'lads mag' stuff. I want to shoot gritty, real pictures with very little, or no 'airbrushing'. I know it is much more flattering to smooth the skin until it looks like just another plastic mannequin, but that's not what I want to do. 99.8% of photographers do that. Also, I can't stand the sterility of a brightly lit white studio setting!!


Back in the 80's, I used to shoot with a Canon AE-1 Program, a Canon A1 and a Leica M3, all film of course and as I said I used to develop and print all my B&W shots in my bathroom. My bath had 3 plastic tanks in it, developer, water and fixer. No room for a bath really.


I don't photoshop the crap out of my pictures until the model looks like some sort of blow up sex doll. If that's what you want, 99.9% of the photographers out there will give you that homogenised plastic look, I won't.

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