A selection of images from the 2006 Goodwood Revival Meeting: a wonderful annual three-day event at the Goodwood Race Circuit in West Sussex. Classic racing bikes and cars (and their drivers and riders) gather from all over the world, display themselves to the paying public and disport themselves on track with displays of competitive spirit that would shame most of the current F1 bunch.
Continue reading "2006 Goodwood Revival Meeting"The village of Compton in Surrey is not only blessed with decent pubs, ridiculously pretty houses and an excellent tea shop, but was the home of the Victorian Arts & Crafts artists, George Frederick Watts and his wife Mary. Their legacy is seen in two buildings on the edge of the village: Watts' own gallery, built to house his painting collection and the Watts Cemetery Chapel, designed by Mary and built by her and the local craftspeople she trained. The Chapel is a truly beautiful Romanesque brick building, covered with celtic-inspired moulded brickwork and with a gesso interior created by Mary and her craftspeople.
The Watts Gallery is currently the subject of a major restoration appeal, to restore and conserve both the building itself and its collection. It has just been featured on the BBC's Restoration Village series.
Continue reading "Watts Chapel, Compton"There's a problem with photographing the really iconic places of the world: how to convey the essence and atmosphere of a place through the barrier of the familiar postcard images to which we're all pretty much innured. This is one such – the mediaeval island fortress abbey of Mont St Michel in Normandy. This is a truly magical place, where the patterns of nature and those of man contrast, reflect and complement each other as the light changes through the day and through the seasons. And this is what I've tried to capture in this gallery: the patterns, light, detail and the contrasts that make the atmosphere and presence of the place.
Continue reading "Patterns in the Stone"Each Autumn, a forest near Pitlochry in Perthshire hosts a dramatic and atmospheric Son-et-Lumière¨ show. This year's took place around the mirror-still lake in Faskally Forest, contrasting with the tumbling waters of last year's Hermitage experience.
The Eden Project in Cornwall, England is an Ark for the era of Global Warming – Silent Running come to Earth. Its huge geodesic biomes sit in the shelter of an old clay quarry that itself has been sculpted to form a setting for the technopagan presence of the domes, their plants, sculptures and people.
Continue reading "Eden Project"The intentional design of machines that both work as tools for humans and as design in their own right is rarely more clearly expressed than in motorcycle design. Here, I'm using black and white images to expose the sculptural lines of two of Triumph's 2005 model range – the Sprint ST and the Speed Triple. Motorcycles kindly provided by Haslemere Motorcycles.
The Scottish Parliament is an astounding building: In concept, execution, location and cost. It sits at the base of Edinburgh's Royal Mile, beside the ancient palace of Holyrood House. Completed: (almost) 2004. Architect: Enric Miralles.
In October 2005, it won the prestigous Stirling Prize, beating off competition from five other shortlisted RIBA award-winning designs.
This monochrome gallery, shot mostly at night, emphasises the form and moods of the encapsulated and rambling village of a building.
In 2003, I made two long trips to Central Africa, working with and photographing the Mountain Gorillas of the Virunga Mountains. This gallery shows a sample of the images from the second of those trips, concentrating on portraits of these gentle, inspirational fellow apes.