no shield

In 1997, I had lived in London for may be a year and I still believed in the magic. I used to work behind the bar of a Charing Cross nightclub and in a menswear shop in Covent Garden. British Journal of Photography used to have their offices above that shop and the editor at the time was a regular client. When he learned that I had come to London in the hope of breaking through as a photographer, he offered to include my profile in their young photographer section. I was thrilled...I thought my time had come. Then came....I'm going to let Thom Yorke of Radiohead say it, because he says things the way I mean them:   

            Prove Yourself
 I can't afford to breathe in this town
 nowhere to sit without a gun in my hand
 look back up to the cathode ray
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off...
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself
 I want to breathe, I want to grow
 I say I want it, but I don't know how
 I look, I bleed, I beg and pray
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off...
 Prove yourself
 (why.....?)
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself

 ©Radiohead- 1993

and because I didn't know how to prove myself to content the editors, the art directors, the art buyers, I became really confused about what being a photographer was about and I stuck to serving Southern Comfort and selling hooded tops. Luckily, I kept on taking polaroids, and printing very dark portraits of friends or dead baby rabbits and enjoying myself. I got better at understanding what photography was about. But most importantly, I stop caring as to getting published or receiving a pat on the shoulder. I glued hundreds of photos in scrap book, until I got so bored of my own self-obsession, I rang a friend and suggested that after 20 years of trying to build a pyramid on my own, I would like to build a shed in the back garden and would she help me to nail the boards. I'll spare you a long blurb about the philosophy of failure and success. I have a few 6x4 prints to glue. 

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