I think I was about nine years old when my father gave me my first real camera, an ancient Exacta, built like a tank. A few years later, in Jamaica, I learned to develop film with my best friend Zac. We would take turns to squeeze ourselves into a tiny, dark, hot wardrobe and with sweaty fingers, jam the film into the reel. In 1981, my mother managed to find the money (almost impossible on a local academic salary) to buy an enlarger and the rest of the equipment for a black and white darkroom.
I studied anthropology as an undergraduate, but used many of my elective options on photography courses. The photography department had plenty of equipment which students could use, so I tried everything. I loved the huge 4X5 cameras for landscapes but also for social documentary projects. I experimented with 6X6 and 6X7 and 6X9, and also shot hundreds of rolls of 35mm for the student newspaper. When I heard that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in 2007, I dug through my old negative files, and there, sure enough, was a roll of Tri-X which I took of her in 1989 when she came to speak at Commencement.
After I finished university, I stopped taking pictures for a long time. I went to graduate school in social anthropology, and simply couldn’t find the time to do it, or at least I convinced myself that I couldn’t. I sold my remaining camera equipment, stuck my head in the sand, and missed most of the great autofocus revolution of the 1990s: an interesting moment, this was the last really significant technological advance in 35mm film cameras before they began to slide into history.
I returned to photography around 1999. This was a strange moment for such a move. I say this because the writing was on the wall, though I didn’t see it at the time: film was fading fast, indeed had faded completely in many areas of photography. However, digital was still technologically scary, and horribly expensive. And also not really comparable in quality, at least at any kind of accessible price point. So I jumped back into film photography. In fact, many of the images on this website are scans of prints or slides. In 2008, feeling increasingly cut off from the zeitgeist, I decided to try digital photography. I sold all my beloved film equipment and bought a very decent DSLR setup. For a year I used this, and learned a new language of photography: one of raw files and colour spaces, Lightroom and pixels and noise. In the end though, I found that I missed analogue photography enormously (I will say right now that debates around which is 'better' strike me as absurd and boring). I sold my rapidly depreciating DSLR, restocked my fridge with Tri-X and Provia and re-established what my son calls the ‘dark and creepy’ room. In some sense then, this website represents my current connection with digital photography. I don't rule out the possibility of another about-turn in the future but this where things are now.
London, 2010.