Images: #01- IDF lookout on Sinai /Israel boarder, Israel #02 - Garden, Waimate, New Zealand #03 - Staten Island ferry, NYC #04 - Cathedral Square and The Wizard, Christchurch, NZ.

Change - can be filed under, time.

It goes without saying that everything around us is in a state of constant change, including ourselves.

The examples are obvious and everywhere. We all age, becoming more or less able, tolerant, wise or attractive. Culture evolves, we accept new normals, rebel against lost privileges, mourn extinctions and question deviations away from accepted behaviour and the planet changes - it copes in a multitude of ways with its Homo sapien infection and it’s ever changing geological and atmospheric interplay.

One of the hardest disciplines of photography is recognising the importance of image making that considers the future viewer as importantly as the present day. To photograph for an unknown future audience without regard for the here and now is a discipline devoid of instant gratification. It’s like saving your money instead of spending it. Not easy to do.

Retrospect and good archiving have taught me how important even the most benign images can be. A random domestic view back to Manhattan Island from the Staten Island ferry was at the time a record of my experience, including fellow passengers, their clothing and the view beyond.

This view is now loaded with historic grief and trauma for some, it symbolises a loss of innocence for others and an opportunity for conspiracy for a few.

Being able to travel freely and photograph in parts of the world that are now so dangerous and ravaged that they are strictly off limits to casual travellers provides important historic reference and juxtaposes the then with the now, similarly the simple observation of a newly planted garden or housing development has beautiful domestic merit.

Imagine a city scene we all took for granted, gone. In the attached picture the wizard and his beloved (or not) cathedral have been laid to waste by age and the whim of mother nature - at the time I thought he just looked unusual. I didn’t for a second include the cathedral incase it was some day destroyed - I just liked the way it mirrored his hat.

Pushing the button without any money in the race is one of the most important parts of my photographic practice. It doesn’t matter why you take an image - it only matters, if.

What seems mundane and ordinary to most at the time might end up being the most important picture you will ever take. It’s a gift to the future viewer, whether it’s a modest audience of one interested family member or a trail of casual gallery visitors, it’s worth doing.

My grandmother and my mother were both recorders of the mundane - not dramatic picturesque image makers but prolific domestic pseudo historians. I expect their desire to record a newly built fence or a local Highland pipe band parade was an act of love or maybe pride - there certainly was no artistic ego at play, only a gut reaction to the importance of the everyday.