I used to own this enormous collection of cameras, ranging from a prehistoric wooden peep hole style box to the latest Practica with enough lenses to sink a ship. Even though I had one of the most diverse collections above the Scottish border I was never very skilled in the art! Even though I had all the gear some of the best photographs I have ever taken have been with a five dollar disposable camera bought at Woolworth's!

Keeping up with modern times I have now purchased a digital camera! Not a toy that resides as a 'talking point' on my mobile phone but a proper camera; no extra lenses, no zooms and wide angles, no filtration, teardrops or blurred settings just a camera that can do everything that I want it to do. But this new acquisition leaves me in a slight predicament as concerns the large pile of older cameras and accessories that clutter up my house. I approached an official in NASA wandering if they could use my zoom lenses, maybe glue them together end for end, make a Super Telescope or something, but they never replied to my emails. I have used many of the filters to make what turned out to be a most amazing mosaic style window, but the wife, the cat and the neighbors have been complaining of headaches after looking through it.

Whether it is the latest in digital technology or the cheapest Leica (the equivalent of a Skoda car in the UK) available photography is a very powerful and emotional tool. Grandparents and relatives, neighbors and the window cleaner are frequently reduced to tears when viewing pictures of babies, passports would not be quite the same without the obligatory prison mug shot included and many a party-goer feels sick all over again faced with the pictures of the night before. A photograph captures an instant in time to be referred back to again and again. Whole events, periods, days and happenings are captured in one photograph to be easily read and translated years down the line. Snapshots of holidays, moments, birthdays and celebrations are recorded in a manner that is easily preserved and for all to refer back to without hassle or time wasted. A video or tape recording, a book or a letter all preserve for posterity but each takes time to listen to or view, but a photograph will cause a flood of memoirs to come gushing out within nanoseconds. Conversations are put on hold whilst videos are watched or paper is read but a snapshot or even a whole album can be injected without falter into the middle of the fray and without pause for breath.

Certainly photographs mean more when viewed in context. The hundreds of snapshots that my father took of my sisters and me as we grew up mean so much more to us than the next door neighbor. They represent our childhood and through these snaps we can relive the times by recapturing memories and happiness. But these very same images to others outside of the circle mean very little and more use as tinder for the barbecue or to prop up the slightly shorter leg of the dining room table. Especially, but not only because my father tended to miss out our heads; most of the photographs show various torsos rather than whole persons and it is only our family that can recognize the headless children seen.

It is with the above in mind that I can fully appreciate that my seventeen years of taking photographs of endless ships around the world can be viewed by others as extremely sad and a total waste of money. This opinion will be drastically increased if you were to know that I have stashed away in a locker in Edinburgh a whole Tea Chest of photographs that would fill a hundred albums without denting the pile. This T-chest represents a whole career spanning ports from east to west and north to south of the globe. Thousands of photographs with ships on them, with oceans, seaways and lanes, hundreds of docks and wharfs, many more canals, lagoons and lakes and thousands of unrecognizable patches of water as the backdrop are stuffed away in this box. Many friends have asked to see my latest images of exotic places knowing that I have just returned from say the Windward Islands, Hong Kong or Fiji. I will pull out a whole array of photographs and all but a few will just be of ships, ships and more ships! Yes, ships in Hong Kong, in the Windward Islands and in Fiji but not of these places, and very quickly my friends are yawning politely or sometimes fast asleep.

But to myself a snapshot of the Eiffel Tower has less meaning than that of a ferry leaving La Pallice! The Leaning Tower of Pisa gives me less interest than a listing Gas Tanker berthed in Livorno and a series of pictures of General Cargo vessel steaming through the Singapore Straits gives me more pleasure to snap than those obtained from a day out on Sentosa Island.

So yes, photographs are very subjective and my subject is about vessels, ships, boats or call them what you may! I have branched out in recent years to include other items like sunsets, gardens and flowers but for the main part my theme is 'the vessels of the Merchant Navy'.

The photographs found on this website are all of my own hand or have been passed on to me by willing parties. Some have been snapped by the latest in digital technology, some scanned from older shots that I have taken and others snapped with a 5 dollar disposable camera purchased at Woolworth's and taken whilst under the influence of alcohol.

I make no claims to being good at what I do!

The quality of the thumbnails is very low. This is to speed up page loading time and to prevent them from being copied by others without my knowledge and used elsewhere for their benefit or profit. I would like to state that should anybody require a full pixel image of the best quality than I would be more than happy to oblige. Just send me an email with your request and I will see what I can do - for a small fee of course! I maybe rather slow in responding to requests (as I work at sea) so be patient in waiting for my reply.

I sincerely hope that the photographs will give to many the watery feeling that I have so long lived and enjoyed. I hope that they will be viewed for fun and interest by the ship enthusiast and that they not become material used to help people to fall asleep. I hope that they will give an excellent maritime 'picture' to the dry-footed landlubber; a preview or insight into the worlds first and largest global industry, the Merchant Navy.