You crop your photos don’t you?

No. Never. Never have and never will.

I get this question asked of me again and again and, to be honest, I get quite insulted by it. So, just to set the record straight – I never, ever crop my photos and I only use photoshop for density/contrast and colour correction.

I have always felt that the skill and art of photography lies in the what you do with your camera when you take an image, not what happens after you have taken it. If I can’t compose an image within my viewfinder at the time I take it, there’s no way I will ever use it. But, I am a purist. I use my camera on a manual setting and never use autofocus. I search for the amazing light to give me naturally contrasting backgrounds, I don’t add them in in photoshop.

I do come from a film photography background, but even in the darkroom, cropping an image seemed like cheating to me. I want my photos to be what I actually see through the viewfinder so the beauty is real for me and also real for the viewer.