My father had a Leica his brother had bought from a German POW at the end of the war. He used it for 25 years, shooting roll after roll of patient black and white, before he sold it and used the money to buy an old SLR for himself, and my first camera for me.
He never told me how to make a picture, never criticised my work, and never told me to look at anyone else's. Just encouraged me to see things my own way and then died when I was 17.
When I decided to start shooting professionally, for the first two years I forbade myself to look at any pictures except for the ones coming up in the trays in my darkroom at night.
It was years before I realised where that idea had germinated. I hadn't wanted to be influenced, but that in itself had come from him.
Once I started to look at other work, it was Lee Miller who stood out. Her acute eye, her intimacy, her versatility and her madness. I bought four of her prints which hang on my wall to remind me to always look at things in many different ways. Later I traded a portrait for her 1938 picture of the Great Pyramid, which doesn't show the pyramid, but trumps all other photos of it; and still makes me smile every day. The year after she shot the picture, the second world war began and when it ended my father got his Leica.
He never told me how to make a picture, never criticised my work, and never told me to look at anyone else's. Just encouraged me to see things my own way and then died when I was 17.
When I decided to start shooting professionally, for the first two years I forbade myself to look at any pictures except for the ones coming up in the trays in my darkroom at night.
It was years before I realised where that idea had germinated. I hadn't wanted to be influenced, but that in itself had come from him.
Once I started to look at other work, it was Lee Miller who stood out. Her acute eye, her intimacy, her versatility and her madness. I bought four of her prints which hang on my wall to remind me to always look at things in many different ways. Later I traded a portrait for her 1938 picture of the Great Pyramid, which doesn't show the pyramid, but trumps all other photos of it; and still makes me smile every day. The year after she shot the picture, the second world war began and when it ended my father got his Leica.
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