I am a photographer. The short form is I make photographs.

Photography is my work but becoming a photographer is my lifelong endeavour. I got my first camera in 1979 - a Nikon film camera that travelled with me across oceans and borders and recorded images I intended to make and others that surprised me. Six years ago, I made a conscious decision to peruse this craft and to make a profession of it. The digital medium opened a spectacular vista of possibility.

What I do is more complex. I record events, moments, emotion and fix memories; I paint possibilities for those looking for a home; I manipulate light, dark, shadow to make a mood and tell a story and sometimes to reveal what is not immediately obvious and yes, occasionally to push a viewer in a direction they didn’t see. And I am a student of my own work.

A photographer’s ‘eye’ necessarily must develop and change over time. Environments change, perception changes, one ages; these conspire to force a regular revisioning.

Every day is a new day in my work. Every day I learn how to see again; sometimes thanks to other professionals who share their work and vision with me and who push me - hard on occasion - to move well outside where I am comfortable; sometimes through the eyes of my students, who each have their unique vision and view of their world; often through failure: unlike any other medium, failure to capture or communicate is the key motivator to move on, retake, retry.

I love my work but to say it loves me back would be too simple. I am challenged every day to understand my vision and to make what and how I see accessible and clear.

The work pursues unrelentingly, pushes, cajoles and challenges; it masters the photographer and not the other way round.