The collection of images within this book displays my often unremarkable travels, mostly around North Yorkshire, with my plastic toy camera. The subjects and prints here have no real order. They are random and experimental, reflecting the freedom which this camera encourages. This approach allows me the time and pleasure to play with light instinctively and intuitively.



Through working, my photography had often become very technical and rigid. I felt I was losing the joy of spontaneity and craved a return to the playfulness and freedom I experienced when first experimenting with film and light. Discovering the toy camera was the perfect antidote, allowing me to revisit the enchantment and romance of creating images. I now relish the fun of photography without the responsibility and weight of commercial equipment. For me the perceived weaknesses of the camera are its strengths, vignetting and imprecise focusing creating evocative pictures with a timeless quality.



Lith printing in a traditional wet darkroom can also be an inexact science. Varying chemical dilution, temperature and print exposure creates diverse effects and colours, ranging from the powerfully gritty to the subtle and even delicate.



What, I wondered, would be the effect of combining these two unpredictable yet exciting processes?