Background
Former creative in Photography,
Lecturer in Media Production:
Photo-Graphics
Publishing
Additional Topics:
A keen guitarist with an interest in Science,
Ancient History and Paranormal.
A Brief Career Journey
I graduated from what was then Trent Polytechnic, now Nottingham Trent University, with a degree in Photography BA (Hons) (1st) and followed that with a Post-Graduate Teaching Qualification from the University of Nottingham.
I became a photographer working on creative briefs for Advertising Agencies, Marketing and PR Companies handling accounts for well known brands such as Apple, Toyota, Toshiba, Slimming World, DEB, Qualcast, Thorntons, Duracell and hundreds more. Several years later I found I had completed my ambition as a creative photographer. It had been a fantastic period.
I decided to capitalise upon my Teaching Qualification and became a Lecturer in Photo-Graphics and then Media Production. My specialism of course remained photography and visual communication while topics included my experience within the environment of publishing, working alongside art-directors, editors and magazine journalists.
Overtime I saw how the syllabuses became less specific, simpler to pass and their intrinsic quality, once meant to prepare students with technical & aesthetic skills with which to excel in industry, had been eroded. Gone were my peers with established backgrounds and proven artistic talent in the field of photography and media, instead replaced by anyone with a teaching certificate and a nouse essentially for navigating software packages. Students, being young, were generally none the wiser. Neither were the administrators. I saw what was happening, and it was not good enough for me. Such an institute, in my view, was no longer a beacon of excellence. So that feature of my life, which I had enjoyed, was completed. By now I had reached an early retirement age anyhow so could look for the next thing.
For a short time I also did social photography, winning awards from the British Institute of Photographers
Exhibition Work:
‘Age of Anxiety’
‘Channel Tunnel’
It occurred to me that the elements of line, tone, colour, shape, form and texture, that were a key features among the palette of treatments and approaches I would call upon within my visual photo-graphic work, were those deployed in making three dimensional and tangible objects. Something I hadn’t done.
And so my exploration into jewellery making started. I began making items which, for the first time, I could hold and feel in my hand, unlike the content of my images. So iana Jewellery was formed, in which I would make a small number of jewellery pieces, part-time.
