For most of us taking photographs is about what’s in the mind as well as the eye and I strive really hard to match the two. I want to be confident with my subject, to be able to find the best way to capture its moment as I see it and feel it. I also want command of the editing tools that alchemise the raw shots on the screen into those images in my mind’s eye.

The more I experiment the more I can do, and with the brilliant help of the groups I’m involved in - particularly Emma Davies’ Photography School Camera Club and 52 Frames - I’m getting better. I dabble. I splash around. I dip my toes in the water. Sometimes I wade out beyond the shallows, where the waves lift my feet off the ground, and that’s where I have most fun (and make the most mistakes…). It’s all learning.

Today I launch my website - well, I’m linking it to my socials and making it visible, which is a sort of launch. And it’s a statement. It’s says “I’m a photographer”, which is something I don’t yet believe - but would love to believe, to say it with confidence and mean it.

I don’t know why I doubt myself. Armed with our smartphones we’re all photographers now, and most of us post confidently and regularly in our online social galleries. I love my phone camera. I use it as much as my big camera because it’s quick and easy. Photography now is a bridge between the accessible and inaccessible, it’s producing mass observation - a creative mega database, a supersized open source gallery with infinite rooms. It’s the democratisation of creativity. I love being part of it, but still …. am I a photographer?

I know what I want to do and I know why I’ve called my website Unfiltered Moon. It’s because the moon is the mysterious planet of our imagination. Its influence is subtle but profound as it orbits the earth reflecting the light of the sun, illuminating, hiding and disguising - transforming the ordinary into the beautiful, the shimmering, the shadows. I want my photographs to reflect both what I see and what I imagine - to be the unfiltered link between my mind’s eye and the camera lens. I want them to shimmer and shadow. Is that a statement about my practice? Maybe.

I’ve worked with makers, creators and artists all my life. Maybe that’s why I consider myself a facilitator of their practice, not as somebody who can develop my own. It’s a suit I’m trying on, but I’m not comfortable with wearing it yet. Maybe there’s a small dose of imposter complex at play. I’ve been gaining confidence through the brilliant groups I’m part of and I love sharing my work in these spaces, with my Facebook friends and on Instagram. But putting my photographs out in the world on a website, their own showcase, does feel more than a bit presumptuous - however, I am going to hold my breath and press the button. It’s another step on the journey of self-belief.

Fun is the thing isn’t it? Using a camera to experiment, edit and share images, tell stories, make statements, create for friends - cards, coasters, prints, photo-books. It’s fun and I’m constantly learning. When it’s no longer fun I’ll put the camera down, but I can’t imagine that ever happening, because I see photographs constantly,everywhere, everyday.

Maybe that means I’m a photographer…