Painter or Photographer

For a long time, I never felt like a painter. I never felt completely at home in painting circles, always a bit out of place. I comforted myself by saying I was a photographer who now makes paintings. But that’s not true. I’ve been making paintings far longer than I spent wandering with a camera. Looking back, I realise I was never really a photographer in the traditional sense. I was engaged in making photographs, and that engagement carried over into my painting.

I have large gaps in my painting canon knowledge, and I’ve come to see that as an advantage. I’m not a photographer who paints. I’ve always been a painter who learned to make paintings through making photos.