About

The View From The North 'Project'
The View From The North is my main website, and has grown into a project to photograph industry and the industrial landscape of the north of England.

This is something I have long been interested in, but it has only been my growing proficiency with a camera that has enabled me to photograph it as I have wanted to. Although the industrial landscape is man made, and bereft of the beauty of the natural landscape, its interest to me is not just at an aesthetic level. It is as much about capturing something that is on the cusp of change, and trying to portray the bleakness and beauty of the conflict between nature and mans creations.

I don’t really have any inspirations for the project, but I do enjoy the work of landscape photographer John Davies, social documentary photographer Ian Beesley and the British photo journalists of the 50’s and 60’s collectively known as the ‘Young Meteors’ (Denis Thorpe, Don McCullin, Philip Jones Griffiths, etc).

Me
Documentary photographer based in Chorley, Lancashire. I’m an engineer by profession, which may account for the bias towards industrial and mechanical themes in my photography. However, I do try to photograph a wide range of subjects including landscapes and street photography. Recently, I've been involved with teaching photography, which has been great fun, and a wonderful learning experience as well.

I'd be lying if I said I was self taught as I've taken a number of night school courses in photography. However, I'm of the firm belief that although education is great for learning about the technical possibilities, you can only develop your own style by getting out there and putting into practice what you've learnt. And then keep practicing!

Photography
The pictures on this site were taken with both film and digital SLR's. I used to shoot colour on digital and black and white on digital. However, I find myself using digital more and more now due to the fact that I am more comfortable with converting digital images to black and white. If anything, my style has evolved to the point where most of the images I put on this website are now in black and white. I won't bore you with the equipment I use, it's largely irrelevant.

As well as this website, I endeavour to update my blog (http://thevoicefromthenorth.wordpress.com/) at least once a week (more often if I can). This kind of runs in parallel to theviewfromthenorth.org, and it contains more information on the places I go, how I photograph them, the mistakes I make and the occasional post on equipment.

If you have any questions about anywhere I’ve been, can provide some background detail or have any photographic questions feel free to contact me!