For me the fleeting serendipitous moments that emerge from life have a more lasting meaning and value than those that are planned.This ‘Series’ of images emerged after a look back through some of my images from the last seven years or so. They weren’t intended as a series but over time I have noticed continuing themes that have developed in my photographs. The images represent my sons path through learning as he tries to negotiate his recent diagnosis of autism whilst staying focussed on his own ambition. The chronological progress of images also represent my own learning of the diverse photographic medium and is a hybrid of analogue and digital techniques, my interest in photography was rekindled by some experiments with pinhole cameras.Throughout my sons education there has been the involvement of proffessionals and a slow progression of diagnosis with a variety of outcomes addressing the reasons for a slower than expected progress with reading and co-ordination. The involvement of Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists led to a plethora of recommendations and diagnosis dependant on the professional you had access to at the time. Dyspraxic, Dyslexic, and on the Autistic Spectrum to name a few. All of this gave us recommendations for how best my son could access his education but with limited fundingand specialist help he has had to negotiate the mainstream school with the feeling that he is literally treading water until he starts his walk home at the end of the day.

My own education took me to art school studying firstly painting and drawing and then a gradual move towards photography and story telling with moving images.

I remember a statement made by one of my painting tutors that if the end result was what he or I had expected them we had both failed. The learning process was one where you should allow chance to be a major player.

This approach has stayed with me I think since then and I have carried this into my photographic work to push a process to the point where it breaks and begins to fail is the point where you might learn something new.

The most interesting image is the one you seize back from the brink of failure and its structure just about holds together. My approach to making art and photography is one of discovery and rediscovery starting the process as if for the first time, I tend not to use the same camera repetitively avoiding habit and building skills but to use it both to learn process and to express something about a particular time and place. I still enjoy using film and experimenting with alternative photographic techniques these I think give a greater connection to the process and understanding of the interplay between light and time, this also gives the distance I need to reflect on the context of what I am making. I think my influences as a photographer come more from my progress through art college studying painters like David Bomberg, Frank Auerbach and Giacometti who seemed unconcerned with the acquisition of skill but with building images through the understanding and observation of light perspective and structure. I also enjoyed work of artist who built stories through symbolism like Odillon Redon.Whilst there is a lot I enjoy about much contemporary photography I see my own influences I think come from the experimentation of early practitioners of the photographic medium the film making of Luis Bunuel, and darkroom experimentation of Man Ray.

The education system in which my son is still going through seems to concentrate on the management of behaviours rather than engaging with enabling ambition and personal progression.
My son has a relentlessly enquiring mind and thirst for knowledge that feeds into his interests and ultimate ambitions for the future. He concentrates on his own personal encyclopaedia of knowledge to enable and lessen his uncertainty about the future.

My opinion of learning has changed over time, both through my own experience and as an onlooker/facilitatorwhilst the education system might if you are lucky give you a foundation on which to build, most of what we learn, use and remember is learnt through our own enquiry through experiences away from a classroom and received knowledge. If I can highlight any one important thing that photography has given me is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of events and my role as a parent trying to preserve a sense of enquiry and ambition when everything else conspires to control and categorise.