Hastings Pier. October 2010.
As with many of my kind there is a certain fascination with photographing the ruined, dead, decaying, half destroyed landscape. Truth be told I am still not sure why it holds so much visual appeal. Maybe somewhere deep inside my subconscious there are hidden reasons waiting to get out, or may be it just looks different, and therefore interesting. But more often than not I will convince myself that it is a small historic moment that needs to be recorded.
Malibu. November 2018
My work has always walked the fine line between documentary and fine art in that I want to document a scene, but I also want to make it visually appealing and in doing so may expand the truth a little through increased saturation, and image enhancement. However, Disaster Porn as it has become known (a crude and horrid term) is not something I wish to be associated with.
Very often whatever drives a photographer to make images cannot simply be explained. Photographers will often pour out all kinds of spiel in an attempt to explain and justify their work and what moved them to make an image, but more often than not its instinctual.
A mentor of mine (and I have probably mentioned it on here countless times) once told me that,
'A photograph should always ask a question.' But that's not to say it should always give an answer..
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