I describe myself as an amateur fine art photographer. I use old cameras with even older lenses, the aim being to produce film images that I can exhibit or put towards International Photography Award competitions. One project I’m working on at the moment involves collaborating with friends/models to produce very short depth of field, naturally lit portrait images. The intension is that the best of these will be part of a body of work that forms the basis of upcoming exhibitions.

In the last two years I've been lucky enough to have my work in seventeen exhibitions, one of the latest being a group exhibition of 12 Australian photographers in Milan. I have made the final jury round of The International Fine Art Photography Awards in Paris two years running (some of the work is included here) and one of my works was a finalist in the $25,000 Kennedy Prize for contemporary art. Another of the works won the Photographic section of the RSASA Portraiture Awards. A portrait of London bombing survivor Gill Hicks has recently been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery to form part of their permanent collection. One day a week I teach Black and White Photography at the University of South Australia, this being despite the fact that my highest qualification in photography is Year 12 Creative Arts achieved 3 years ago as a mature age student.

I often experiment with alternative processes, expired film, low light and quirky old lenses, I process my films in the laundry and hang them in the shower to dry. I use medium and large format film cameras, often combining them with some lenses that are over 150 years old. I’m not really after producing glamor shots, I'd prefer that they were more art and natural portraits where my friends/models/collaborators use little to no make-up and bring along their choice of what they'd be comfortable wearing.


After I've processed the films and scanned the negatives, the models and friends I work with will get hi-res scans of any of the film images they'd like for their own use.

The word amateur has Latin origins, amare, for the love of.

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