Reflected gaze “It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson

“ When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” ― Ansel Adams

My first photographic prize was when I was aged 10; the picture was taken with my father's Praktica which had a 50mm Zeiss Tessar lens and which I printed at home on Agfa Gevaert paper.  Prize money was used to buy Kodachrome film and books on portrait photography. Photographic heroes were Henri Cartier-Bresson [ http://youtu.be/hyhMqDfmG9o ], who coined the term “the decisive moment” and ultimately founded Magnum Photos, and Ansel Adams who captured images of the Americas. Both were mindful of composition, light and shade and made iconic images. The Chinese would write poetry for thousands of years with a painting; Shu shi called poems imageless pictures. My tutor at university taught me optics; he made his own lenses to look at muscles – he won the Nobel prize and the Order of Merit. Later I was fortunate in being able to spend a lot of time with Bill Brandt - he taught me what motivates his art and his techniques. More recently I have benefitted by association with the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).