Fine Art & Stock Photography
A lavishly produced book exploring the magnificent landscapes of Finistère, France's wildest department.
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There are times when you want to trip the shutter of your camera with as little trauma as possible. When using long exposure times, long lenses or shooting close-ups with macro lenses, for example, pressing the shutter button can introduce vibration that might degrade the image quality, or even ruin it altogether. The easiest way of avoiding this issue is with the humble cable release. This screws into a threaded hole in the shutter button and provides a plunger you […]
This island is a strange place. It hugs the base of cliffs on the Crozon peninsula in Finistère, Brittany. This particular part of the Crozon is a narrow finger of land pointing to nearby Brest. And the proximity of that port town is significant. Brest has been strategically important to France for centuries. And this explains why the Crozon peninsula, which overlooks the approaches to the port, is heavily militarised. It is littered with fortifications, most dating from the 19th […]
On occasion, a camera captures a little too much. Its ability to freeze time creates detail of a somewhat arbitrary nature – waves stilled at the moment of breaking, for example, or the leaves of trees being blown by the wind rendered with exquisite precision that doesn’t necessarily match the mood of the scene or the emotion you’re trying to convey. The technique of using long exposure times to allow moving subjects to blur has a long pedigree in the […]
This is a shot taken on a recent trip to Brittany. I’m pleased with it – which is just as well because it took me nine years to get it. These are the remains of a pier or jetty sticking out into the Rade de Brest – the confluence of several rivers where they meet the Atlantic. It’s shot from the shore of the Crozon peninsula, a beautifully rugged part of Finistère. I was attracted to these pillars because of […]
At last, my new book is here. Finistère Insolite (Exceptional Finistère) is a collection of 133 images across 100 pages exploring the wildness, vastness and serenity of, for me, Brittany’s most spectacular department. The photographs were shot over the course of the past few years, with all of the visits having been made during Autumn – a time when Brittany is relatively empty of people and even more ruggedly beautiful. Publishing this book was an educational experience. Having spent my whole […]
There’s something about poplar plantations that appeals to me. It has to do, I think, with their monumental appearance. I took these pictures on a bike ride we took down to towpath of the Mayenne river, which snakes down through the department of the same name in the Pays de la Loire region of France. The towpath has been converted into a voie verte (greenway) for walkers and cyclists. You can read more about the ride and the river on our […]
I wasn’t expecting to get anything on this trip. Trish & I went out for the day just to explore. An hour down the road is an area known as the Suisse Normande, a hilly part of Normandy on the Orne/Calvados border that is cut into rocky ravines by a number of rivers. One of those rivers is the Rouvre and I’ve decided that I want to use it as the basis for a photography project (about which I’ll be […]
Having put a roll of film through my much-loved Canon FTb, it was time to drag out another old classic, the Nikon F3. I still think of this as one of the best cameras I’ve ever owned. I converted to Nikon in 1985 (and if that sounds like a religious experience, well it was), after having been an Olympus OM-2 aficionado for many years. But then all my Olympus gear was stolen in New York and it was time to […]
It would grieve me to find that someone has mistaken me for a hipster. But I realise I’m running that risk writing this post. Because, you see, I’m shooting on film again. Not much. Just the odd roll now and then. I can handle it. This is not about nostalgia. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? This is entirely about nostalgia. I’m at an age where I’m entitled to gaze back at that ‘foreign country’ that is the past […]
Pushkin adopted us a few months ago. Although we already had two cats and a dog, he simply knocked at the door, walked in and asked to see his room. According to the vet, he’s about four years old and neutered, so was obviously someone’s pet. We tried hard to find out whose but ultimately came to the conclusion he’d been dumped. Why, I don’t know. He’s a sweet, mild-mannered soul. He avoids fights and tries to gets on with […]