Midnight Cowboy

Early morning, just around sunrise, in Brighton is a magical time but following Brighton Pride it is more like a Lewis Carol fantasy. People drift like dandelion seeds on the breeze, drunk with fatigue, their sleep deprived forms delicately balanced between the drug induced euphoria of waking and the collapsing crest of a wave of sleep.

I met Oli wandering in just such a daze, crookedly rolled cigarette hanging delicately from the corner of a mouth turned up into a James Dean-esque sneer, Stetson cocked on his head and bare chested. He oozed sex appeal.

Ivan - The Divided Self: The View from Within

At night, sometimes I can smell sweet blossom in my room even though there are no trees near by

The Boxxer

Unbridaled Youth

The boy was serious with an earnest look in his eyes and a rigid posture. The girl was riotous with unbridaled youth, her hair close cropped at the sides making her look androgynously handsome. In the context of the close bonds of the friendship group, they were clearly neophytes in their affection for each other.

Standing together for the photograph the third leaped in, spontaneously, with a vigour that dominated the fledgling relationship. Wrapping her arms around her friend as if to possess her, she commanded the scene.

I'm not a landscape photographer...

…but part of me would like to be. I very much love the way Don McCullin shoots the landscape, in dark and ominouis black and white and with his wonderful use of light and dark. I also really like the work of Nicholas J R White, shot on large and medium format film of course. I like this shot, taken around West Wittering, purely becuase of the textures and painterly quality. It informs me of how film will record the light but otherwise it’s a dull and uninteresting shot.

Marcy

I found Marcy in the park, taking advantage of the outside exercise bike and the late winter sun. As I approached her and waved her demeanour changed and she suddenly became discernibly anxious. She got off the exercise bike and backed away explaining that she was not engaging with anyone due to having a lung condition and being fearful of the risk that Covid therefore represented.
I explained I understood and that I didn’t mean to make her feel anxious, just that her happy peddling in the park seemed like too good a picture not to try and make. I explained I could easily keep more than 2m away and then, hearing her accent, asked her where she was from.
‘Botson’ she said ‘but that was a long time ago’. I said I knew Boston quite well from having been there on business and then asked her what field of work she had been in. She explained that she had been an experimental psychotherapist, another point of mutual connection as I told of my uncle in California, also a reasonably eminent psychotherapist.
Seeing she was more at ease and having talked more I asked if I could photograph her, just because we could, because our humanity demands it and because I could sense she was a good soul. She agreed. We exchanged details and a few days later I got a wonderful email from her, saying that she was sorry if I felt she had misjudged me but having now seen my work, she recognised the true nature of my soul. A week after that, we ran into each other again.
‘Two chance meetings so close together is the universe’s way of telling us there is something we can learn from each other’ I said. She agreed.

Ogmore by Sea

Sun dappled sand shimmers in the late evening sun. Moire patterns dance and swarm like a murmuration. The three teenagers sit casually, lying at ease and collapsed carelessly against knees and the warm stone granite. Growing up in this seaside town is an emulsion of beauty and boredom; there’s nothing to do they say, no fun places to go so we come down here to play our music and watch the sun go down.