About
I combined a career as an academic botanist with activities as a photographer and abstract painter. My photography was of people and landscapes, mostly in monochrome, but after retiring I decided to concentrate on photographing my world in close-up.
I began by combining my experience as a portrait photographer with the skills I had acquired as a laboratory botanist to photograph the plants in my garden, and mosses, liverworts and lichens in their natural environment. I went on to photograph fungi, wild flowers and still life subjects by adapting the same techniques. The most recent venture is photographing the inhabitants of seashore rockpools with a compact waterproof camera.
In 1998 I joined the Royal Photographic Society and received the Associateship (ARPS) in Visual Art for a panel of plant portraits from my garden. In 2005 I received the Fellowship (FRPS) in Nature for a slide sequence of mosses, liverworts and lichens of the North York Moors. I hold the Master distinction (MPAGB) of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain, the Excellence award (EFIAP) of the Federation Internationale de L'Art Photographique, and the British Photographic Exhibitions Five Crowns Award.
My painting began with watercolours but in the 1960s, at the suggestion of an artist friend, Rita Simon, a pioneer of Art Therapy, I moved on to acrylic paints and have since produced about 80 large acrylics in a hard-edged abstract style.
In 1998 I joined the Royal Photographic Society and received the Associateship (ARPS) in Visual Art for a panel of plant portraits from my garden. In 2005 I received the Fellowship (FRPS) in Nature for a slide sequence of mosses, liverworts and lichens of the North York Moors. I hold the Master distinction (MPAGB) of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain, the Excellence award (EFIAP) of the Federation Internationale de L'Art Photographique, and the British Photographic Exhibitions Five Crowns Award.
My painting began with watercolours but in the 1960s, at the suggestion of an artist friend, Rita Simon, a pioneer of Art Therapy, I moved on to acrylic paints and have since produced about 80 large acrylics in a hard-edged abstract style.
