I sometimes call myself a photographer. I sometimes think of myself as an artist. I sometimes hum the word ‘oxymoron’ quietly to myself… But mostly I just muddle on.

Whether or not it’s of interest where and when I was born, where I went to school, what my early ambitions were, where I succeeded, where I failed, is neither here nor there. I’m just an old-fashioned rhino who happens not to believe that autobiography informs the work in any useful way (utility trumps prurience in my rules), so there’ll be none of that here, thank you very much.

Some sort of credo, on the other hand, feels obligatory – in the full knowledge that practically everything written by photographers about everything apart from the brute technical aspects of their craft has been at best disingenuous and boring, at worst pretentious and unreadable.

And boring.