Networking

Sometimes the overall mix of colours when photographing indoors -- clothes, lighting, complexions, furniture, decor -- can all serve to be a bit distracting. But B&W simplifies and takes away and can do an awful lot to make indoor photographs more elegant and 'timeless'. And sometimes less is more... I like this one a lot for its energy and expressions.

Dappled light

The late summer, with interesting stuff going on on the streets and lovely dappled light to take advantage of all seems an awful long time ago...

William Bloye

I've long been fascinated by some of the older civic buildings on Gt Charles Street -- such as the old Birmingham Chest Clinic. They have a sort of pea-souper, inter-war atmosphere about them.

I thought the relief work on the chest cliic might be Eric Gill, but it isn't -- it's by William Bloye, who was born in 1890 and died in Italy in 1975. But until that time, and especially in the 30s, 40s and 50s he was Birmingham's unofficial civic sculptor, working on an extraordinary range of civic and commercial commissions from his studio on Golden Hillock Rd in Balsall Heath.

And interestingly, he did study lettering under Eric Gill.

Anyway, this is how I see the chest clinic -- in grainy monochrome, the light failing. If I turn around I know that men will be hurrying past in trilbys and tightly belted overcoats, pre-war Austins and Humbers creeping along Charles St in the rush hour traffic.

Running man

In a swirl of silver thermal blankets and blazing late-autumn sunshine, the first runners in the half-marathon came home...

Breakfast conversation

This was taken at an event I photographed for a local voluntary organisation, but I liked the atmosphere and intimacy of it sufficiently to regard it as a 'personal' picture.