As a hobby photographer I have always had an interest in creating images, for many years, of inanimate objects or natural scenes which I then used as a basis for paintings.
Some years ago I decided to challenge myself as a painter and attempt what was for me the hardest subject to do, portrait painting!, to help with this, and to avoid endless
hours of posing for the subject, while I agonised in front of the easel. I started painting from photographs. Quickly discovering that finding the image I wanted to paint
was not an easy task, I decided to create the images myself.

This however has rapidly changed to the point where the photographic portrait has become the final result, not just an interim stage, where the lighting is achieved on the image,
not on a canvas. I have discovered a fascination with the play of light on the face and how varied emotive results can be achieved by the use of light. This I hope to pursue in
collaboration with whoever I work with, using my ideas or anything the model wishes to try.

 

 

 

 

 

The website is named after and also features some images of my long suffering test subject, The Bear (aka Flash Test Dummy) who sits endlessly through many hours of me testing lighting setups.

His suffering hopefully contributes to the creation of something good.