My creative breakthrough - if that is not overstating matters - came when I acquired a 24-mm wide angle lens. I suddenly started seeing everything in exaggerated perspective, which can be quite disorientating if you are not looking through a camera at the time. (The man from whom I bought this wonderful piece of equipment loved motor rallying, and was puzzled that his pictures always came back showing his favourite cars as faraway dots in a great sweeping landscape.) A great many of the images shown here were taken with that lens. It remains far and away my favourite and is the single most important item in my camera bag.

I photograph women because I like doing so, and because they inspire me to produce my best images. My subjects are generally either friends, friends of friends, or just people I know. The net is now also a good place to find people who are happy to pose. The best models are those who are equally keen to produce a good image and who have their own ideas about how they want to be photographed.

Most of the black and white pictures you see here have come out of a darkroom. The vast majority have not been altered beyond a little digital retouching for cosmetic purposes - spotting out dust marks, boosting contrast and other minor alterations. Increasingly, however, I have started to play with images on screen. Some darkroom images have been manipulated to a significant extent. In the case of digital images, some have only been very lightly tweaked, while others have been changed beyond recognition. Still more of the images here are original colour transparencies which have been largely unaltered. Confused? I don't blame you. The important thing is that none of this really matters. It just means I now have a wider range of photographic tools available to me. And that, of course, is a good thing. My pictures come from a background where digital manipulation of any kind, and the use of digital cameras, was not regarded as "proper" photography. But of course that debate is now well and truly ended. I believe the most important thing is the finished image; how it is produced is irrelevant. One of the things digital has done is to take much of the mystique - and let's not kid ourselves, the slog - out of darkroom work. But let me stand up and be counted here; there is still nothing to touch the sheer richness and detail of an expertly crafted darkroom print.

I am not a camera buff. I have no interest in finding out about the latest camera technology or owning the most expensive hardware. In my experience, the photographers who get most excited about the latest fancy gadgetry make the least interesting images. (I'm strongly tempted to name names here, but some of them know where I live.) A large number of my photographs have been taken on a modestly-priced Cosina CT7 which I sort of inherited many years ago from my father-in-law. Camera experts would probably look down the entire length of their noses at it. I also use the fully manual Pentax K1000. Last year, I bought a Canon PowerShot G6 digital, with its 7.1 megapixel resolution. It also has a truly excellent macro facility. You can see the evidence of this in some of the close-up flower images here. My photography in the future will be a mix of the old and the new. I continue to shoot film and print in the darkroom, though to a far lesser extent now. I use standard developing chemicals and photographic paper, though black & white materials are now something of a rarity in photographic shops. If you live anywhere near Dublin, I can heartily recommend Gunn's camera shop in Wexford Street which, thankfully, still stocks the full range of B&W materials.

This site is for anybody with an interest in visual art. It is, I suppose, primarily geared towards fellow photographers. I have never considered myself an "artist", but increasingly my images, or links to my site, are turning up on art websites, alongside the work of painters and sculptors. Needless to say, I'm pleased - and also flattered. I welcome all feedback. So if you have comments or questions, please email me. If you think you would like to pose for me, or if you know somebody who might be interested, I would be delighted to hear from you.