Where to start, why and how?

Rather than waffle on about my childhood, and pretend to be all 'affected' by my childhood experiences (which obviously I am, but I'm not going into that just yet) I am going to just show you some of my shots from the last few years and explore them a little.

A strong influence on my life, and the one continuous subject that I have returned to in life in general and in photographic terms is Edna Chaplin, my Grandmother.

Edna is my only Grandmother, we have always been very close. Due to my parents working full time it was always my Gran who looked after me during school holidays or after school.

There was no such thing as a television or even toys per se, I was given air rifles, throwing knives, catapults or the permission to start a fire at the end of the garden. As we lived near the sea, we often dressed up and played pirates or whatever took our fancy. In fact the area we played is now where I do the majority of my location shoots, so there is a continuity in many ways from then to now.

She does not allow her photo to be taken at all, so there is always a sense of irony that I always test new equipment by photographing her first, with little objection.

Edna is a firm Christian, and apart from being a nurse in the Second World War has always been a house wife up until the death of my Grandfather. She now lives in the Retired Nurses home Bournemouth. Quilt making and crosswords are her favourite pastimes. Her rebellious nature has made her a tricky character to understand sometimes, but my affinity with her has always run much deeper than anyone else in my family. In fact I have no photos of my parents, and they have very few of me. Not because of any other reason that photographs do not mean much to them, they mean everything to me.

Sadly her health is starting to fail her. And her once vivid memories are fading fast, and it pains me to see her struggle to find the words that she once used so effectively. She frequently comments how she now is ready to 'go home'.

And so it begins...

Hello and welcome to the blog of Mark Chappell, firstly may I thank you for taking the time to drop by and have a look. For a long time now I have wondered why 'normal' people have chosen to document their lives, and equally why people would want to read the musings of these ordinary people.

If I am honest this blog is really for me alone, I have always found it easier to write my thoughts out, no matter the subject matter.

People who know me, know that I often have several personas that I adopt to cope with certain situations. And as a result people feel like they don't often get the 'real' me, and to a certain extent this is true. I have always got by on life by my ability to bluff and 'blag' my way through.

So this will be the testament of the real me, my honest thoughts, opinions and feelings. I rarely make promises as I have a poor track record with keeping them, however I will make just one here, I promise to be 100% truthful on this blog, regardless of the subject matter. It is not a 'look at me' nor is it a vehicle to impress clients or models.

I could just keep this about my photography in terms of a simple one dimensional explanation as to what I'm doing, but to remove the personal aspect would remove entire the reason as to why I choose to take and make photographs. Hence, the reference to Hunter S Thompson in my blog title, even though I'm physically not in my photographs (I hate having my photo taken) there are elements of my person lurking behind the midtones and rummaging around in the shadows...