Cuba – Frozen in Time

About mudgey

I have been a photographer and filmmaker for over 40 years, taking pictures as a child and professionally trained at the Plymouth College of Art & Design in the UK, during the late 60’s. I became a Medical and Scientific photographer, where great emphasis was put on the technical craft skills of photographic image making. Here, the quality of the print was everything and at that time I felt little more than a photographic technician. A Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition of pictures from the depression in the 30’s by the photographers of the US Farm Security Agency, affected me deeply and inspired me to become a documentary photographer. After a few years detour as a high school teacher I took up a 20-year career as a documentary filmmaker with BBC television, travelling extensively and always carrying my still camera. I came to the US early in 2002 at the invitation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the American University, where I taught photography and filmmaking; I am now a full time photographic educator and artist, known as Mudgey. I’m interested in narrative through detail, giving people the time to study and contemplate a scene, to see things that would have been missed in real time, as the thoughts and trials of everyday life sap concentration and observation. I have made the full transition to digital image production and use very high-resolution medium format digital cameras to satisfy my continuing obsession with image quality and facilitate my aim to give people a visual experience as good as being there.