" It's all about the drama." This is the way Alex sees photography. Alex sees himself as a photographer whose mission is to add drama and impact to his photos. He wants his viewers to be affected by his images. As an active and competitive member of Belmont camera Club for 24 years his view is informed and relevant.

His success in 2010 hints at his knowledge. Last year he was awarded Exceptional Service and Exceptional merit to Photography from the FCC, his Associate standing from the APS who also recognised him as the Highest Achiever for his work in 2009, he won 3 sections of the APS National exhibition in 2010 and he came 1st in 3 sections of our Image of the Year competition. This is without mentioning his acceptances and awards in various international events.

Alex has a particular love of portraits. "Photos need to say something about the subject. There needs to be a story." he believes this is more easily done with portraits. he is always looking for interesting faces which he finds often and in surprising places; from macaque enclosures in Tasmania to Evans Head. But as these photos of 'Larry' show, Alex takes them from interesting to powerful, and revealing of the character within.

Rembrandt has influenced Alex's work. "He shows warts and all. Look at his work, they aren't pretty." We can see this influence in Alex's use of light. He uses dodging and burning, traditional photographers tools, to create that iconic effect on his 21st century images.

Alex talks about his images.

I took this photo of Larry because he has an interesting face. His clothes, his face and his stuff in his truck told us that he had a story. He had a hard life. Barbara, my wife, got talking to him and we found out his story. He's having it tough. I wanted to bring that out.

I began working on it in black and white because I am a monochromist. I cropped in tight to get rid of the distractions; his stuff, the side of the car, the seat belt. Larry's face came to be all. then I tilted it a bit which gives tension. See how the line of his neck adds to it. I tried reversing it but it was better as shot. I looked at it a lot. I tweaked it a bit then looked. I kept tweaking and looking. Then I saved it and came back again a couple of times to look and keep working on the image.

This has done pretty well for me.

I just kept thinking about images and I remembered that Larry had beautiful blue eyes. I thought he might look good in colour so I got out the raw image and started again. I did the same as before but didn't convert it to mono. I kept working on it until I was happy. The colour version was much easier because I knew what I had to do. I like it much more in colour. The golden light from the window works well. I manufactured it. The light was really flat so I had to put it in.

This 'Larry' won first place in Colour division at the Maitland Salon this year.

Here are some more of Alex's images. The story to this one is of being prepared to pursue one's art.

Alex was driving along a narrow road in Tasmania, saw the house and had to get the shot. With much tooting of horns and general carry on, Alex stopped and got the shot. One of his greatest tips for newer photographers is 'Be Bold!'

He means it in terms of cropping and manipulating images, but stopping for the shot is just as important.

Alex wanted to take a good photo of a gorilla.

In contrast to Alex's dramatic stormy scenes of fishing boats is this one.

"This won't do any good in competition. The judge would want it cropped but I really like it with the boat coming straight at you."

Alex has his collection of photos which we may never see. For every hundred images he takes, if he gets 5 or 6 good ones and maybe an exceptional one, he thinks he's doing alright.

DK Feb 2011