Slowly picking up camera again after my trip. Have loads of ideas and things to work on but, as ever, finding it tricky getting started. So starting off small and keeping things simple, especially when there are beautiful blue skies to see and capture. Also restricting myself to just a few frames, something I’m seriously going to think about, want quality not quantity.

Heartbreaking reality of India is the heartbreaking poverty, especially the mothers and toddlers living on the streets.

Anjuna, Goa, 2010

Not long returned from a trip to India and I can still hear the din of the place as I write this. I love India, it simply gets in your head and body and shakes you about. Think that’s the only way I can explain this amazing country. I only had a couple of months there but could easy lose a year travelling around this country. I shouldn’t bemoan the  ’just two months’ but I genuinely feel I’ve only just tickled the surface of this country. I could easy lose a year travelling this country. It’s vast. It’s extreme. It’s varied.

My journey started and ended in Mumbai, a place that will always have a place in my heart as being my first India experience. It’s not everyone’s first choice, but I have to say I like it. Then onto Goa, mainly stayed in the north of this tiny state, before heading onto the states of Karnataka and Rajasthan. The plan was to spend time in each area rather than hurtling from place to place ‘doing’ destinations in just a couple of days. I found you need to let yourself breath in each area you stop at and find it’s rhythm. Each place has it’s own, as well as a strong identity. And when I say place I don’t just mean states, cities or major towns, even the tiny outlying villages come their own little piece of India magic. 

Over the next few days I’ll be posting up images and stories of my time there. I already have a selection (just a few) on my website. I’m really happy with my photos. There’s nothing indepth … no major projects. I’ve simply taken photographs for me. I’ve stumbled upon people and scenes and taken photographs of them. It’s the first time too I’ve been restricted to a 50mm lens. Challenging to begin with but, have to say it will now be my lens of choice. On occasions I even left the camera behind. Looking and experiencing life through a lens can be limiting. And though I did miss a few photo opportunities, I needed to turn off from photography every now and then to experience the here and now as much as everybody else.

Overall this experience, this incredible opportunity to have breathing space from my life that has been, has had an profound impact on me. It has helped me fall back in love with photography, which was something that was heavily tested last year. It’s also helped me work out the next few steps in my visual journey, but more of that as this year unfolds.

It’s great to be back. Have missed so many people.

Playing around with a few things. Love the colours, blur and darkness, also the way the photograph is haphazardly suspended inside it’s own frame. Frame inside a frame.

Ceremony of the Immersion of God Lord Ganeshas idols in the River Mersey.

Hillsborough Disaster Remembrance Service, Clayton Square, Liverpool

Swan taking a stroll down the inside lane of the A55 Expressway.

Fashion shoot Tate Liverpool.

Christmas Tree festival, Ormskirk

Just finished an eight-month stint for Trinity Mirror. Fascinating not only for the people I met out in the field but also for the places I visited and things I was lucky enough to see and be part of. Also witnessing the strange and the bizarre that makes today’s culture so rich and colourful. It’s a diverse job and posted here are just a few of my favourite images. All courtesy of Trinity Mirror.

The image above is taken from Up Days Down Days, produced in collaboration with families living in homelessness. The charity helping the families have since published 1,000 copies of the book, describing it as ‘extraordinary’.

The Lovely Road