The Marks of Man

As I am a photographer in New Zealand, a low wage place. I want to put together a high resolution camera system on a budget. The scanning back I got from Ebay is a Phase One fx, which is fine until you try to buy extras from Phase One like a filter. I was Quoted $800 NZ, worse I need the software to run it. I was told by Phase One (the dealer is great not his fault), I would have to buy version 4 for 500 Euros, out of my range, Most software comes free with the device, these scanners are selling at $38000 NZ new. Its a bit like buying a car, then being told the engine is extra. Phase one being the magnanimous Danes they are, offer software for free, but only for Macs and system 9. Steep learning curve meant that the old Titanium Mac I bought for my daughter is on loan till my new/old $175.00 Ibook arrives from the US care of the defence department surplus, with out a hard drive of course, not easy to put those in. Quick parting of the drive and OS 9 and X are working, down to the batte...

Tony Tucker kindly invited me to exhibit at his New Gallery in Cheviot. After a lot of hard work it opened on Saturday 19th of April. Here is a bit of the opening on video, I edited out my talk, I don't like hearing myself or seeing myself on the screen, I think its a photographer thing.

I don’t believe technology has really changed photography; other then to open it up creatively even further. It has shown us we have to be ambivalent about how and why an image has been created. This ambivalence and discarding helps us question some of the myths that we surround ourself concerning photography, the myth of the blur, the myth of time, the myth of capture area, the myth of the document the myth of the photographic rather then human perception. Rather the capture of time through representation and memory by the vehicle of a camera has been strengthened, because we have so many ways of capturing images and holding them with out relying on human memory. When I use the camera I am looking for so many things beyond what my eyes or camera tell me is there. The ghosts of people on a footpath, the change of the vegetation of hundreds of years, the memories of human loss and gain. I try to see the conflicts on the land both human and natural, the difficulty is expressing this all ...

If there is one thing that digital technology has affected it is the family photograph, arguably the most important form of photography, digital technology has enabled the average person more freedom in making the pictures and this is a good thing. This current era of photography has been the most important form of photography since its invention, it records our human frailty and mortality, our loves and our losses beyond the few years that we live. Eventually to fade itself once all who remember us have died or the memory has gone.

The passion I have about photography is not necessarily about the photograph, but about what the photograph could represent. I am ambivalent about the technique of photography as well as the process. Technique is important in the physical capture of an image and the effect a camera has on the perception of the photograph. But once the image has been captured the importance of the camera the method of capture and the materials used becomes insignificant, a bit like the wrapping on a chocolate bar, useful for a while but always discarded, the memory being the chocolate. I have spend years in darkrooms, ages in front of a computer making my work, none of which is relevant once the photograph has been printed, but less so after. I love to look at an Ansell Adams and I admit have read the vast amount of technical information in his books. However when you look at his work, the importance for us now is limited, as time has gone by. I have often browsed junk shops and antique shops and found ...

The Inuit have hundreds of words for snow, that’s not so strange considering were they live. As I was running tonight, I realised my project is more about paths then marks. A path, paths is everything to us. We follow paths, we come to the end of the road, path. Its not the right path, take a turn for the worse. As I splashed though puddles and ran on gravel, I realised there so many words about paths, muddy, hard easy going, damp, wet, easy, slippy, firm, dry, rocky in places, hard to see, easy to loose, as clear as the day, hidden from view, spongy, fast and slow. There are so many words and uses for paths, even a terrorist organisation named after paths, “The shining path”. We are migratory I guess, far in the past and now, the path is all we live for. Even life is thought as a path. Enlightenment is a path, for a whole supermarket of Religions. So are we metaphysically, Physically, emotionally and scientifically on a path? Far in the past we started a path to survive and its our wh...

Tekapo for me one of the most beautiful places I have every been too. You can almost pass it by on the way to somewhere else. The place the colours and the stillness.