I bought my first camera 7 years ago now when my first daughter was born. This was the first time that I had ever owned a camera. I am now an avid amateur photographer and this had become rather an expensive hobby!
Most of my photographs are landscapes. I love going to Scotland to walk and take pictures of the beautiful mountains.
I am also a very keen Liberal Democrat and over the last two years or so I have been doing more and more photography for the party. I was very surprised at the lack of decent high quality images the party had nationally. Locally in Lewisham the quality of our literature and our photography has been recognised but as a local party we are the exception to the rule.
I have been taking pictures at the last two national conferences and increasingly I have been working with London Assembly Members doing photography. Photography is one of those things that you learn best by doing and my connections with the Liberal Democrats provided an ideal way in.
A picture tells a thousand words and very little else provides me as much pleasure as getting a really strong, striking image. My pictures are on the front page of the national party web site, their Facebook page and many have been used in Lib Dem News.
Over the last month or more I have also been working for Mike Tuffrey as his photographer.
The Liberal Democrats, in my opinion, pay far too little attention to the power of photography and its ability to portray, frame and project an image. It is a real shame that at a time when the party is in government and is making a real difference, so few images are being recorded and such little effort is being made to project a strong and positive image of our party at an important moment in history.
Left to the professional photo journalists, employed by the media, the politicians are at the mercy of the photographer’s devious eye for an image that fits the story. See Phil Coomes article here for more on how the power of a chance photographic image can permanently influence the power and standing of a politician.
A good photographer employed to help promote a politicians identity and to build a positive and strong image for them is a very different animal indeed. That Photographer has the interests of the individual and the party at heart and is there to portray a strong and positive image for them not to catch that unguarded moment and splash it on the front page.