Portraits 1

Click for larger view Lying low for a while so I thought I'd show some of my portrait work over the years. The man above is Peter Turner. I took this photo shortly before he died five years ago. He suffered from MS and often described his condition as being 'othered'. Towards the end he would often sit, smoke, drink and reminice for hours as he drifted in and out of his otherness.
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Peter was, for many years, the editor of the English magazine Creative Camera (I talked about in a post below - Sept 28th). CC was about the only mag in the world (during the 60/70s) which celebrated photography as the fine art form it is. Peter was a prolific writer and publisher of his own books as well.
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I first met Peter in London in 1975 where I showed him some of my work. He bluntly told me to go away and find direction which peeved me at the time, but was probably true. He came to NZ in the early 90s with his Kiwi partner Heather Forbes (also a photographer exhibiting at PhotoSpace right now, see link) and settled in Wellington. Peter became a good friend and I miss his wisdom.
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I'm othered I'm buggered.
I'm up I'm down.
It's harder It's harder.
Just being around.
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A verse from a song I wrote about him.