My approach to photography has always been more intuitive than scientific. Some of the subjects I choose to photograph, may not at first glance appear worthy of attention. Once I sense the creative potential of a scene I endeavour to distil a simplified and resonant image out of an apparent chaos of forms. My aim is to capture a moment of stillness and beauty midst the flux of life.

I have chosen to concentrate on black and white photographs for this recent body of work. I like to create a sense of mystery and a touch of the surreal in my images, which seems to work better in black and white. There is also a timeless quality to black and white images. They evoke the work of my heroes from the early days of creative photography in Europe and America – Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, Elliott Erwitt, Bill Brandt, Diane Arbus, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, to name a few.

I feel that black and white images lend themselves to creative invention and rely less on the visual ‘pop’ of colour photography. Colour can often distract your eye from what is important in a subject. There is a long held notion that colour photographs represent a form of objective reality, which of course they don’t. Ansell Adams wrote, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it”. A photograph is the result of a myriad of subjective, pictorial and technical choices, and is not merely the recording of a slice of ‘real life’. I also think this quote from Edgar Degas, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”, is relevant to photography as well as painting.

Being one step further removed from reality, black and white photography has enabled me to concentrate more on structure and compositional elements in my work. In some ways, I think it is a greater challenge to produce a visually pleasing image in black and white. I have enjoyed the process of creating the works for this exhibition.

All works are $500, framed, and available in editions of 5.