Dave Laffan

Lives: Greater Manchester

Favourite Genres: Landscape & Portrait

Favourite Photographers: Alexey Titarenko; Rankin; Adam Karnacz; Olga Karlovic; Marc Adamus (plus many others)

‘Light. It was the light.

I remember it well, the moment I started to notice the light. An eight year old boy walking his dog through the local Clough (a very northern way of saying a ravine surrounded by woodland) on an early morning spring day. Mist rose up through the woodland and sunlight penetrating the branches overhead, mixing and diffusing with the mist. It looked otherworldly, it felt magical.

I wanted to pause time. In that instant, I knew I needed to own a camera. A photo would hold still that moment. And then I would be able to share just how beautiful our local ‘Clough’ had become on that morning.

Several months of pocket money savings later I bought a 110 film camera. You wouldn’t even know it as a camera these days (have a search for a Halina micro 110 camera if you want to see for yourself). It was a small plastic black box with one button, a flip up square and a rotating wheel. A slide off piece of plastic hid the area into which you would load the film. I loved it, a passion for photography had ignited.

These days the cameras I use are far removed from that micro ‘spy’ camera, the photographs I capture are very different too. But, from the boy of eight, to the man in the picture on this page, I can tell you one thing that hasn’t changed…….

It is still all about the light.’

Dave is a full time professional photographer working in multiple genres throughout the North West of England. Dave has also been teaching photography since launching ‘Let’s Click Photography’ in 2020