Some older images from my folio....

There are no professional models here....they are all images of friends or colleagues of mine

Images....Old and New

A few more examples before they go off to the framer.

It’s the noise they make that I hate the most. It’s deep and it’s unrehearsed. It’s an anguished, awful desperate noise and I fucking hate it. They know they’re dead, they knew their mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife, child was dead long before I arrived. Until this moment they have held a desperate hope something can be done. They see our equipment, our sense of urgency; I suppose they are relieved that someone, at last, is doing something. Just like them, I know they're dead and this pantomime is for them really. Well actually it’s for me too; I want them to believe me when I tell them that ‘we did everything we could’ and that ‘we just wish there was more we could have done’. A doctor gave me a great piece of advice when I started this job; he said ‘when you tell them, do it bluntly, so there’s no misunderstanding what you are telling them “I am sorry your wife is dead” not “she has passed away” or “sorry, she’s gone”. I ensure there’s a lot of equipment around the dead body, lots of opened drug boxes and lots of used oxygen tubing, the defibrillator still on; it helps to convince them we have done everything possible. It’s usually at that point that the noise comes. It hits me physically; I can clearly recall every one I’ve heard, pinned to my memory like moths in a display case. They often fall against me, desperate for comfort, desperate for a tender embrace and the opportunity to hide from the hideous scene around them. I hug them and try to lead them away. They haven’t begun crying yet, it’s not time. I know there’s another awful thing coming, I can’t warn them, can’t stop it happening; there’s always someone else who must be told immediately. When they hear the familiar voice on the phone they are often unable to speak or will only manage a few words before they break down in tears, sobs wracking their chests. They proffer me the phone, a pleading look in their tear brimmed eyes; I take it and explain to the other person what’s happened and there’s that awful noise again, not softened by the telephone. Another moth pinned in place.

I went to Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow recently. I wanted to see the famous painting ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ by Salvador Dali. I’ve seen it reproduced in books and on the internet many times though nothing prepares you for the thrill of seeing it ‘in the flesh’. It isn’t particularly well displayed but that’s half the attraction of Kelvingrove for me, it’s like you’ve been given permission to look round someone’s, very grand, house. I had read about the perspective shift which occurs if you stand extremely close to the painting and look up at the figure. Amazing, from the viewer looking down on the figure the positions are reversed....sorry, I am not explaining it very well....go and see it for yourself you will love it, I promise. I blew the dust off my camera and took a few images of the other exhibits, mostly statues (they make the best photographic models ever; no fee, don’t complain and don’t insist on editing the results because ‘my nose looks too big in that one’). Not the best shots I’ve ever taken but, apparently, it’s my blog and I can post what I want! I love the place, there’s a gallery devoted to the ‘Glasgow Boys’ which contains a painting of a dancer by Sir John Lavery, fantastic. There were some parties of school kids being shown around, their teachers enthusing about the paintings and asking questions. I was pretending to listen to my iPod. I wanted to put my hand up....’please miss, I know what impasto means’. Made it back to Buchanan Street just before Lynn descended on Hermes!

....its 1942 and a Fairey Battle aircraft takes off from an air strip in northern Iceland. On board are six members of a Royal Air Force squadron based in Reykjavik . The pilot, a New Zealander called Arthur Round and the other men would never be seen alive again. A young man, the projectionist at the local cinema, watches as the aircraft disappears into the low cloud.....


....nearly 60 later the projectionist’s assistant, Hurdur, is walking across a glacier high in the mountains of northern Iceland. It’s not an uncommon sight, for 15 years Hurder has spent most weekends in the summer searching glaciers for a crashed RAF plane; It’s a promise he made to the an old man who taught him to use a projector. He finds, lying on the ice, a scrap of material it’s a collar, the old fashioned type which used to fix to a shirt with a stud. There’s a laundry tag attached with the name A. Round on it.....

....I was, for many years, a volunteer with the Royal Air Force’s Mountain Rescue Service (MRS). The task of recovering the remains of the Aircrew at the crash site fell to MRS and I was selected, with 5 other volunteers, to go. 60 years of glacial movement and global warming had removed the surface ice from the crash site. Lots of wreckage was visible. There were personal, poignant items clearly visible in the twisted metal, boots, a cigarette case, small change even a few teeth. I remember Danny tipped the propeller up so that a single blade pointed to the sky. The scene, somehow, became three dimensional at that point. We collected what remains we could, when we unearthed fragments of bone they were dazzlingly white but within an hour of exposure to the air they turned brown, oxidised, like a discarded apple. We found the pilot’s gold wrist watch the leather strap still intact, the face was missing, on the reverse it was engraved ‘To Arthur, Love Dad’. We couldn’t look at each other. Nick spontaneously, began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Danny, who was holding the watch, began to cry, he said he felt like a thief. We built a cairn with a plaque at the site of the air strip. The remains were buried at the Britain and Commonwealth War Grave in Reykjavik, full honours, a piper played the lament ‘Flowers of the Forest’, I cried like a child. R.I.P.

InkyHands, a few Polaroid image transfers. They are not the best but do illustrate the technique. Unlike myself, they look better in the flesh!

....as the corrugated iron gates of North Howard Street Mill RUC Station, just off the Falls Road, crash open they act as a dinner gong to half the arseholes in Belfast. They know a patrol is leaving the Station. Its 1994, it is wet and cold and I am nervous. I am standing in the pig (slang term for the now infamous, ‘Snatch Land rover ‘) providing ‘top cover’. I am exposed but I prefer it to being cooped up below. I can see them congregating just beyond the concrete bollards surrounding the entrance, the usual bored teenagers, excited younger kids and some very small children with angelic dirty faces who have rushed over to throw dog shit at the soldiers. I can still hear the obscenities they spat at us. It didn’t really bother me though, they were playing their eyes didn’t hold the hatred of their parents. There was a small, dilapidated play area; broken swings and a graffiti covered see-saw. It had become the hang out of the local cider and sherry connoisseurs. It was close to 1300hrs and they were now drunk enough to relish the thought of joining in the abuse and stone throwing. I saw the cider bottle sailing through the air and it was obviously an extremely well aimed throw. I ducked behind the short Perspex screen and heard the bottle smash. I remember thinking it was strange that your average wino would throw a full bottle. However, I soon realised that it had been full of urine as I was now covered in it. It raised gales of laughter from the assembled children and my colleagues in the pig. My mate Graham shouted up “never mind, it makes a change from them taking the piss!”....
...a few days later Graham and I were patrolling on foot. We were waiting at a street corner for the guys up front to get a decent distance away. A terraced door opened and a young woman emerged with two, beautiful little girls. Dressed identically in bright pink they were the brightest, nicest, joyful things we had seen in weeks. As they passed us Graham said “good morning” to them, their mother looked at him and said “fuck off, you British c-nt”. I thought something died in Graham that day....
....I saw Graham today in Tesco, he is 47 years old now. He had a trolley half full of expensive red wine and his beautiful 3 month old baby daughter. Oh and he was smiling, like really smiling.