ACCEPT (Working title)

I must point out before you move on that these images are not explicit for the sake of being Porn!

I thought I should upload three new images from a new concept I'm working on. I have decided not to upload the premise behind the imagery just yet. It feels to early and I wish to strengthen the synopsis first. So I will leave you to gather your own thoughts on these early workings.

I will upload more as and when I am content with the growth of the work.

Somewhere Between

This is now an old project but I have decided to upload it and see what people think. I unearthed it recently whilst collecting images and project for my new website (that I am currently making).

I enjoyed making the project as it something personal to how I felt at the time and It has been good to view it almost a year and a half later with what now feels like fresh eyes. Now I'm not saying it is the strongest body of work but it is a body of work that doesn't just sit within the contemporary domain, but one that hopefully lends itself to everyone; well that was my aim at the time and I still feel it to be relevant.

I will open the work by adding not a synopsis but a small paragraph that I felt fitting. It was a small writing that summed up how I felt about time consumption in everyday life and how it can hold 'us' back from truly growing as a people and how our intellect is constrained by a boundary of the mundane tasks of day-to-day life.

"For me, like many, precious "free thinking" time comes in the form of the commute.

A narrow gap in the running of day-to-day like where I allow myself to switch of - ultimately switching on. The time spent on this small journey becomes a place where congested thoughts

evaporate and "free thoughts" flow like the fleeting landscapes that pass by as one watches from the window of a moving train"

'WE ARE SHADOWS' (work in progress)

In a bid to represent the past and predicted present, 'We are shadows' looks back at the movement that took place in the early nineties that shook youth culture across Britain.

Britain had fallen into a recession a few years prior and this movement was believed to be a back lash effect from such an issue. Opportunity had dried up, employment was scarce and there was no money being pumped into a generation charged with energy and frustration. With a feeling of disconnection this group of people aged from twelve to mid twenties began to hang around parks and other 'doss' areas with time to kill.

Under the surface, a music scene was erupting. The 'rave' movement was born and the youth of this period had become the roots from which it stemmed. Hand in hand with this new wave of culture came a new drugs culture, shortly followed by a rise in crime. There was now something to focus this energy and frustration on.

This body of work focuses on a working to middle-class suburb in Cardiff between the years of 1992 - 1997. It was at this time that a quiet and respectable suburb –Whitchurch- found its youth generation at war with itself and its other inhabitants. This ‘gang’, free of care, respect, morals and hope, single-handedly brought crime levels to an all new high - theft, breaking and entry, assault, vandalism, drug pushing and high rates of drug consumption all rife within the gang itself.

This behaviour had such an effect that many of the suburbs residents chose not to leave their home after dark, and the areas that this group resided in were steered clear of by all people from the 'outside'.

This work in progress will then look forward to the present at an era that is now turning full circle. As we step out from Britain's economic crash of the 00's and a 'new rave' scene is once more creeping out from the wood work, these gangs are starting to form once more.

With the opportunity to capture the present as it unfolds, the work within this documentary will shift from conceptual to portraiture in a bid to document the faces of the repeated movement.

Bias views on photographers from the Welsh Arts Council

I have just spoken to the welsh arts council with regards to funding I require in order to carry out a project this summer. I explained its historical and cultural relevance and how important it was to record such an issue. The nice lady I spoke to really seemed like she wanted to help, until I named my game - 'I am a documentary Photographer' I said. Upon saying such an evil sentence she returned this reply ' We do not give money to documentary photographers as its not an art form; it is journalism and there are to many of you out there. I know that photography is... you know, but we would not award the money for that I'm afraid... sorry, try a local paper or something like that to see if they will help'.

Now like I said, she was a nice lady and she does not set the rules, but, however, It seems a little bias that photography is shunned by local and national authorities and organizations; yet all other art forms are excepted. I even tried to explain that what I was doing was not photojournalism and would not be a number of images put together to create a narrative, but they are conceptual portraits. Alas, it was no use.

This whole process does concern me though, as living in Wales, I find it increasingly hard to gain any strong standing research or work surrounding such an important cultural issue as to the one I am trying to tackle and record. It leads me to think what else has been missed or lost in the past due to ignorance of a visual medium. I mean after all, I don't mean to sound like I'm putting down other art forms here, but not a sculpture, nor clay pot, nor poem, nor video installation would capture histories great tales like the photograph would, and does!

I'm not bitter about not getting the money [although it would have been nice and put an end to the search for financial help] but more towards the idea of what great work never makes it past the proposal stage... still at least the council commissioned some artist to make what looks like a giant stick and hoop and place it outside the city central library. THAT WAS WELL WORTH THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!

A quick suggestion

Listen to The Fire In My Head by Voice of the Seven Woods. It is one hell of a tune!!!!!!!!! The album is amazing too!

A giant creative mind!

I have been spending a great deal of time on the studio lately. This is due to a number of reasons, the major one being my latest body of work - 'Spy On Thy Neighbour'. With so much post producing, editing, and along with any attempts to create a good book and exhibition concept, that it just seems to suck up many hours a day; so I haven't had a chance to make as many pictures as I would like too... until now!

I like the way some projects just land on your doorstep. Now what I'm about to show you isn't really my style of work and it doesn't really have any indication towards my thought process when creating bodies of work, but it has given me the opportunity to make pictures and explore and study the surroundings of my little studio... ok,ok, I know, get to the point!

Well my studio is located in an old dance hall, a dance hall that has been converted into a number of 'artist' studios that are for hire on a non-profit basis (god bless!) and as you may imagine, it is a very messy building on the whole (except for my studio of course!). It shows many signs of artists work, be it from previous tenants and, of course, todays tenants. It has little indications, in every little space, in every little inch, in every little centimeter of the building that leads to the ideas of an artists thought process. Now, these thought processes are very hard to define, single out and narrow down to one particular artist but on the whole it is as if all of these little 'indications' are the creation of something bigger; it is now as if the building itself, is a giant think box and its interiors are the insides of a creative brain. A never clean, always thinking brain that consistently makes and creates ideas and concepts but often leaves such imaginations, such ideas and concepts half finished, yet never forgotten.

So here is the start of an exploration into a 'giant creative mind!' I have decided to shoot the project on polaroid. I felt it only right to use this 'single shot' process as to 'pay homage' toward the many ideas that are 'a fleeting moment in a creative mind'. A moment that can only be caught once, a moment that can never be recreated, nor take place again.

New York and the Super Furry Animals?!

As I'm sat in my studio listening to the track Frequency, from the ablum Love Craft by the Super Furry Animals, all I can think about is being back in NYC. Hanging out in the East Village and walking the High Line (pictured) with my girlfriend. The city haunts me [in a positive way] and I miss its energy. Even with a great deal of adventure ahead of me and my global travels just around the corner, I just can't seem to shake that city off my mind. It seems like another year will pass until I am back in the Big Apple. Still at least I will be living there for a year the next time! and not just making little trips of 3 weeks or so.