" Find your own voice", is John's philosophy towards photography. From a beginning in painting, John has found photography; but still experiments and considers that his style is continuing to evolve.

" There is the great wide world out there, then the world inside your head, and a photo is another world. I want the viewer to step inside the world of the image." He believes the reason photographers do what they do is to present their interpretation of their world.

Problem 1970

With great humour,applying to himself, John quotes Turner; 'Indistinctness is my forte.' Although a great respecter of technique, John sees the content and mood of the photo as the most important aspects. The emotive response from the viewer is more important than how sharp an image is.

John began taking photos seriously in the 1980s and, as his photographic honours show, has been extremely successful in competition. From his first national acceptance in 1987 with From Blarney Castle, John has had a distinguished career in national and international competition.

Baby's First Dive - 1992

"From Blarney Castle is where I discovered the uses of snow. Snow's great. It puts highlights into the middle of the picture instead of just around the edges and sky."

Baby's First Dive - First International acceptance, Maitland 1995.

From Blarney Castle - 1987

Experimentation is a constant theme in John's photography. From trying out Cibachrome printing as a darkroom amateur to playing with Curves in Photoshop, he has dared to be different. " Find your own response to what you see", is John's main tip for travel photography. "You have to avoid the guide book shots" and as his 'exotic' shots show, John finds his own.

Lal Lal Hillside - 1992 was the first and only moderately successful experiment in Cibachrome colour printing. Colour casts are much easier to control in digital.

Lagoon - 2001. One of the more successsful digitally manipulated shots winning International awards as a print (Interphot 2001) and as a slide (Georgia Sth Slide Circuit)

Corellas, Renner Springs-1996 has had more International acceptances than any of John's other slides, winning a Silver medal at the Circle of Confusion Salon, Whitney Califoria in 1999.

There have been a number of photographers and artists who have inspired John. Seeing Ansell Adam's work blown up to huge prints he was impressed with both the content and technical skill. He admires Art Wolfe's wildlife photos, the landscapes of the Japanese photographer Shinzo Maeda and finds David Hockney's use, in his photo collages, of perspective from multiple points of view highly intriguing.

"A camera is like a sketch pad in a way. It is making notes of what you see. It's a way of finding out interesting things about the world. Unless we look intensely and closely we don't know what the world is like really"

John's work shows engagement with his world. We share his interests through his beautiful images and can't help but admire a photographer who dares to be different.

John talks about his photos.

Padua - 2005 Taken as a grab shot at 8am on our way to the station and Venice. I thought, on processing, that it might have said something about the position of Islamic refugees in western culture or perhaps she was just waiting for a bus.

It won a Heritage Building Society prize that year.

Assissi - 2008 Produced from a digital colour image, cropped to make a vertical image and converted to grey scale. The tonal values were altered considerably using levels and dodge and burn brushes. I was hoping for a somewhat surreal effect. Runner up monochrome print at Maitland International 2010 and Newcastle National 2010.

Fishing Boats, Newcastle - 2002 Produced from a colour slide; scanned and digitally manipulated using watercolour and poster edges filters from Micrografx Pictue Publisher. Edge effects and posterisation are now regarded as faults to be avoided but in 2002 it was all new and exciting. Exhibited at APS national 2002, awarded Diploma at FIAP International Exhibition Heidenheim (Germany) 2002.

Lotus Old and New (Macau 2008) Taken as a colour image in the Lou Lim Loc gardens in Macau, converted to greyscale with minor editing (levels). Maitland International 2009 and Cover for Image Magazine July 2010.

Venetian Red 2003 Scanned from a slide and treated with Micrografix poster edge filter. Somehow this treatment worked much better than a straight print from the original slide. This was shown at sydney International 2004.

Macaques in a Thermal Pool - 2009 Like a few others I have visited the 'snow monkeys' at Yudenaka Japan. It was late summer and I was able to be admitted with a London based Pro photographer before the reserve opened to the public.

I thought this wet baby clinging to his mother's back quite delightful.

Egret, Stoney Creek - 2010. Digital Capture, here rendered in monochrome. The still dark makes great reflections. A colour version with the Egret in a different pose was accepted in Maitland International this year.

" From the age of five I had a mania for sketching the form of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of great note. At the age of seventy two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals,insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees.

Therefore at eighty I should have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvellous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own"

Katushika Hokusai Japanese woodblock artist 1760 - 1849

At the moment I am a little behind the great man's schedule, but it keeps me going.

John Warren 2011