Since the early seventies photography has been something that has been very close to my heart. In the early days, it was not as much a hobby; it was just something that I did, probably like most other people. There were whole shoe boxes of negatives that I accumulated; snaps of my family growing up, outings, holidays, weddings and funerals and any other event that we went to, the prints of which were all consigned to albums for prosperity. However, at that time, there was little more than a hunger in me to shoot which was combined with a feeling of disappointment at the outcome.In those early years, I did not understand that photography is actually an art, I treated it more as an action to express something using a language that I did not really understand. In the mid to late eighties, I discovered even more frustration as I turned away from colour photography to immerse myself in black and white, seeking answers to questions that I did not understand how to ask.I know it is profanely easy to make statements like the quotation attributed to Arthur Brisbane, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But these are not always true, especially if the picture is poor in the statement it produces from its viewers. Just a couple of negative comments about the quality of a work of art can begin to demean the picture’s value in the eyes of the viewer. This was the cause of the frustration I experienced in the early years. It was not what other people were saying about my work, it was more what I was seeing for myself.I have moved on from those early years. Spending time in the company of very good photographers is an excellent way to cause you to become truly focused on the art involved. It caused me to begin to understand the subtle nuances of light and to take a wholly different view of an image before taking the picture. Today, my photography is still a way of expressing something but now using a language that I am more adept in.