I originally started taking photos when I went on a school trip to Russia as a young teenager. It was 1987, I was 14 and a long held dream of visiting the still communist USSR was coming true and I wanted to document it. From that point I wanted to document my life back home too and took photos of my friends skateboarding. In the subsequent years I moved from one cheap compact camera to the next until a trip to San Francisco in 1997 where I was frustrated at the lack of control over the camera, I wanted to set my own shutter speed, exposure, depth of field and focus. Upon return I bought my first SLR and despite the occasional period of neglect I’ve not stopped shooting film since. Although not principally the subject of my photography, skateboarding and it’s inherent eye for forgotten or ignored locations and views of the everyday world definitely has a strong undercurrent in my own personal perspective, the quiet corners, as is time and it’s effects on the physical world.