Please sit down with a drink or a snack and take five to ten minutes out to let me share part of the journey of being.

Several years ago I was looking for something to do to help me break out of my cycles of Depression and feeling hopeless about everything in this world. After some serious thought I decided I wanted to have another shot at Photography. I’d done Photography at Art School many many years before, but in the end it was at that time too expensive for me to pursue. However now I found myself with plenty of money to spend and yet experiencing desperate unhappiness and despair. I’d enjoyed it (photography & life) in the past, and believed I could again. I’d also had a nagging sensation of never having reached a decision point about it’s place in my life.

And I was correct. Within two years I was obsessing over information including: books & blogs; equipment and techniques; shooting styles and post processing; printing and sharing my joy. It seemed the only bright light in a pitiful existence. As I began to feel again, and be nourished by a more positive and hopeful view of life, I came to desire to make this my living and income, rather than the madness that is the current preoccupation with doing everything cheaper and taking the humanity out of the human experience for too much of our time. Technology hasn’t been the holy grail of the human experience where we’re all freed from the 5 days or more work week and those extra hours are spent embracing more of our human potential. Still 95% of us on this planet are either starving and dying in wars waged with technologies of our own making, or working even more hours for others to reap the benefit with little return for those doing that work.

So I’m chasing My Dream. I value people and I value the world we live in, and I want to help others see that there is much to value about our world and life in all it’s forms.

I capture the little things in life that are all around us and provide the beauty in our world, just by being in it. I love Nature, Animals (particularly Cats), Food and just chatting and exchanging thoughts with people. Yes, the City has a certain frenetic excitement about it, in the transitional times of dawn and dusk there is charm too; but for me it’s the way of the Romantics. Idyllic and Pastoral. We only have one World and one chance in it, so we should savour it in every way we can.

Indeed there is much to savour! I shoot to show the extraordinary within the “ordinary” through my Photography, show a meaning in a moment; tell a story or provide you a view of something you may never have seen or thought about during that moment. All around us is wonder. All too often in this day and age we’re constantly drawn away from what’s already beautiful and in front of us. We’re constantly throughout our day surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of messages telling us negative things are somehow the ONLY events or things worthy of our attention. I strive to lift myself and others above such negativity with my works.

I want to help people be able to pause and see the wonder and beauty that’s there to find without much effort and at little cost or usually free for all to see.

I don’t completely support myself through this site, unfortunately I still have a “day job”. However I’m striving to make this my “financial support”; if photography generates me a living by itself in the future I’ll consider myself comfortably retired!

There is other work that’s not in the shop, with more casual discussions & work which I don’t necessarily think will be bought, but is still important to me. Such work can be seen at Mirrormere. If you see something there you would like to see in the shop, drop a line.

I hope you see some aspect of something here that gives you pleasure and will stay with you even if you don’t chose to take it away as a print. Unfortunately I don’t sell downloadable images or Stock Art on this site, there are many such sites out there already. I want you to have something tangible, a print you can touch, smell, see, hear it if you flap it in the air like a flag, you could, but I suggest maybe not taste it. In essence “real” and that you can choose to integrate into your own space in this world in whatever “framework” you see fit. It has substance in all it’s forms.

Thank you,

Craig A. Menzies.
craig.m@shardsofarcadia.com