In Launching this Website …

I imagined that I’d be launching this website sometime in the near future – fully formed, elegant, responsive and ready to meet a 21st century world. But, like many before me, I’ve realised that ideas don’t arrive like that, neatly packaged. So, this is a ‘developing website’ – it’s ‘work in progress’.

Untitled
from 'Old Friends' Series

It’s taken me over a decade to feel that I’m finding my photographic voice – a voice that’s uniquely mine; the journey from engineering to fine art photography is ongoing with its cycle of learning, experimentation, reflection, ownership – these phases ebb and flow, recycle and recur. And I can see that the current phase (where I feel ready to share my work with a wider audience) is following the same pattern; my ideas are germinating. I'm selecting the images and writings which I want to share, planning their presentation on my website, considering exhibitions and galleries etc.

With the website, for example, it’s been tempting to grab a website builder (e.g. WordPress) and choose its slickest gallery design or mimic the website of someone whose work inspires me. But I think I could end up hating this route; it risks that same feeling one gets when a favourite book is adapted for television – right words, wrong rhythm.

When I’m unsure about a photograph I’m working on, I often print it, put it in frame and prop it against the coffee table so that it’s in my eyeline when I’m sitting, relaxing. And, over the following days, some subconscious process of appraisal/critique occurs and suddenly I blurt out “I know what’s wrong with that photo”.

So that’s the way I want to test and develop this website – particularly the way it looks and the way I present the galleries and my journal of writing – I'm seeing it as a ‘developing website.’ I hope this will allow my subconscious appraisal process to operate and, in this way, I’ll find what’s right with the website more often than I find what’s wrong with it.

The website won’t deliver the ‘ultimate viewer experience’ for a while – it won’t adjust its layout to fit your phone or tablet. But, over the coming months, I hope it will evolve into something more elegant and user-friendly than it is at the begininng so that some day soon, as the fairy tale foretells, this ugly duckling website will re-appear as a beautiful swan.

Until then, I hope you can see past this duckling, to hear the creative voice in my photographs and in my writing.

Paddy

December 2019