That was my nickname when I was a lot younger which probably came about from my brothers and sister not being able to pronounce Bernard properly when they were very young. This is a selfie I took in my bedroom at home in the very early 1980's. Yes, that was my bedroom wall and some of those images were even taken before I left school. The Japan, "Cantonese Boy" single sleeve (bottom left) was just a copy and I think also the one next to it was a copy from Rush's Hemisphere Tour brochure. All the images I printed myself in my home darkroom on a LPL enlarger and actually some of the product shots were taken at home in the extension which was only used for parties until I took it over as a studio now and again. It's funny that, looking back on the images on the wall I was probably setting up more still life and product shots to photograph than anything else.
This photo was taken by a friend who was my assistant at the time in my 2nd studio in White Herons Farm, Colgate, West Sussex, probably 1993. I wanted to put a mailer out so I took all the framed images off the office wall, stuck them on the studio wall and stood in front of them. That was it. To be honest it was probably a case of not being able to make my mind up as to what single image to put out and I personally think it is good for people to see who they would be dealing with. It also showed a variety of the work I was doing at the time. After having been in a studio with inhouse processing and printing facilities I invested in my own processing machine, a Jobo ATL3. I could now offer E6 (transparency), C41 (colour negative) and black and white printing and processsing which gave me an edge on local competeion. I even started doing transparency and slide duplication.
Was I ambitious, or simply crazy to take on a 2400sq ft studio on my own back in 1995 on The Jubilee Estate, Foundry Lane , Horsham, West Sussex.
It was a large space but a tad expensive to heat.
I do remember that one of my first jobs was to photograph a brochure for a swimwear company. This whole big studio and we were working in an area
no bigger than 10' x 10' so I had to get some infrared heaters in just for the shoot placed either side of the model. It was November I think, poor girl, but she survived bless her.
I carried on with the whole inhouse lab backup.
Still at it after all these years, and still love it. It still motivates me to create images, and now that includes some video and motion graphics.