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Was born 7:00 pm, July 25th, 1966, at Masterton in the Wairarapa, on the North Island of New Zealand
Some of my own photography is on this page. All marked with SC
Scroll to down to find list of people I admire and why.
Timeline of childhood
10mnths old taken from mother and go to live with Mrs. M
May 1967
13 mnths returned to live with mother & step father
August 1967
16 mnths taken to live with Mrs. W
November 1967
23 mnths returned to mother & step father
June 1968
SC
5 yrs sent to live with Mrs & Mrs K
May 1971
SC
June 1971
5 yrs returned to mother, step father gone
May 1974
7 yrs sent to live in M Street S/W Family Home
June 1974
7 yrs sent to live with Mrs & Mrs S
June 1974
7yrs sent back to M Street S/W Family Home
August 1974
8 yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs B
September 1974
8 yrs returned to M Street S/W Family Home
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SC
October 1974
8yrs sent to T Street S/W Family Home in 'swap a kid' deal
8yrs swapped back to M Street S/W Family Home
October 1974
November 1974
8yrs sent to Mr & Mrs B again
November 1974
8yrs sent back to M Street S/W Family Home
December 1974
8yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs L
December 1975
9yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs Bm
9yrs sent to live in T Street S/W Family Home
February 1976
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SC
August 1976
10yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs H
13yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs R
May 1980
August 1980
14yrs sent to live at A Street S/W Family Home
May 1982
15yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs Mc
August 1983
17yrs sent to live with Mr & Mrs M
January 1984
17yrs sent to live with Mrs D
July 1984
18yrs went out on my own
July 1984 - June 2006
Since I was 18 I have moved approximately 33 times
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SC
Some have said that my photography is eerie yet beautiful.
So what am I like?
I included the timeline of my childhood and teen years so that you can get an idea of where I am coming from. Without it, I make little sense.
I could proceed to tell a whole lot of lies here, but I am not going to, I am going to be absolutely brutally honest. Some of the time I am sad and I sometimes feel forgotten or invisible. I think we all do, from time to time. Forgotten by whom? I don't know. Invisible to whom? I don't know that either, I just know that at times I feel that way. It could be a byproduct of my early years, or it could simply be a part of the human condition that we all contend with and yet rarely speak of because to us, as individuals, it seems so strange that we can feel that way.
Other times I am content and happy with things just as they are and can not think of a thing I would like to be different. I am a solitary creature really and often avoid crowds.
People tell me I am sweet, kind and a peace maker, and those things are true too. I try to remember to treat people the way I would like to be treated, often times in my life I have failed miserably in doing this, particularly when I was in my early twenties. These days (having been tempered by experience and wisdom) I am better at doing it, yet there are times I still fail miserably, yet most times it is not intentional.
I have made some horrendous mistakes in my life, some stupidly awful mistakes and I have many things I regret. And yet I have reconciled myself with the results of those mistakes as best I can seeing as there really isn't anything else I can do in regard to them.
I have a very strong belief in God and always have right from the start of my life. I believe in the message of Jesus Christ, I believe He did all He said he did, is doing all He said He would do, and will do all He has said He will do. But I am not a televangelist wannabe or anything else. I queitly believe what I believe. Even as a small child and while enduring trauma, I knew that he was there and he was watching over me. I trusted him implicitly, yet never trusted in man. Sounds strange, yet it is true. As a child, I could see him in almost everything that was beautiful from trees, animals, sunsets, full moons and colours of the sky. He was life. He was breath. He was beauty. He was protection. He was mine and He was the one thing that no man could ever take from me and they never did. As a child, everything had him in it somewhere. Those things remain the same today and they always will.
There are people I admire, Nicholas Romanov, Steve Biko, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, DCL Wolf and Edgar Allen Poe. There are things I have an extreme interest in, the Romanovs and the Holocaust and Political history and a whole bunch of other things.
I am very gypsy hearted and get itchy feet, although I think this is as a result of conditioning rather than an accident of birth or genetics. I am not as bad as I used to be, but am not as good as I could be in the Gypsy department.
These days I don't trust easily, and yet, having said that, sometimes I trust too readily, it really depends on the situation.
What I feel as a natural course and what I display are often two different things, as I said, sometimes I feel sad, yet not really anyone who knows me would ever guess it. I joke around, often laughing because it washes with people better than crying and mostly because if someone asked me why I was sad, I couldn't tell them because I really don't know why.
I find this world to be a beautiful place with many possibilities, and yet other times it seems such a cruel, vicious and cold place where terrible, senseless things happen. Often I despair at humanity, or the lack of it. I wonder sometimes why God bothered and other times I can see why He did.
I write prolifically and take lots of photographs of clouds, skies, trees, sunsets and sunrises. I like thunder storms, I love the sound of the thunder and will go outside to hear it better. One of the things I would like to do is to learn how to photograph lightning, however, there really is no way to learn, it is very much chance and happenstance if you manage to catch a ray of light. It is mostly a game of predicting when you think it will strike and clicking the shutter hoping the lightning appears the instant your shutter is open. As yet I have not managed to catch any lightning on film.
I like to think I am a simple, straight forward person, but the truth is that I am not, I am so complex that half the time I don't even understand me. Yet I am a good friend, loyal and true.
That's about it really.
People I admire
All of the following are men, none of them perfect, all have made their mistakes and all had/have their vices I am sure, as do we all. But they each possesses/possessed something that made them stand out to me, and thus caused me to admire them greatly. I don't admire easily, but these five, in some way or another, made me view them as special people who stand out from the rest. They are listed in no particular order of preference or anything else.
The list of five, Nicholas Romanov, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Steven Biko, DCL Wolf & Edgar Allan Poe.
Nicky Romanov is new to my gallery,(June,2006), not many make it here. I added Nicky because I discovered, through reading his personal diaries, that he was not the tyrant I had previously thought him to be. He loved his family, God and he served his country loyally. But my admiration for him comes from the fact that above all, he loved his family, he was totally devoted to them and it was his refusal to abandon his beloved son to Russia that led his family on their final step to Yekaterinburg and Ipatiev house. I admire just how much time and effort he invested into his children, as opposed to other royals of the day who generally abandoned their children to nannies and tutors. Nicholas wrote regularly to his children while away, and when at home, made every effort to be with his children, often refusing to receive others if it was going to interfere in the time he spent with his beloved children.
That he loved completely there is no doubt, and in that time and in that era, it is remarkable the sacrifices that man made for his family. I admire him for the complete love and devotion he showered on his children. Thus he remained true to himself.
Tsar Nicholas Romanov
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Yet another man who loved God dearly and remained true to himself. He was also a brilliant musician who could compose music in the same way as I compose stories, except his made perfect sense from the get go.
He remained true to himself, married the woman he loved and did not go out of his way to jump bars to keep people happy. In his life he was faced with trials, the death of his father hit him hard, as it would I guess, anyone, and yet he continued to devote himself to the pursuits he loved. And at the end of the day, I think he was the best composer ever. I admire him for remaining true to himself.
DCL Wolf
Nothing I say can ever truly articulate just how much I admire this man. He has his faults, like every other person alive, yet his good points far outweigh his faults, in my humble opinion. He is a man who truly has a heart after God, and he remains very real. Wolf doesn't tell you what you want to hear, he tells it the way it is, unbiased and straight to the point. He is neither arrogant nor timid in the giving of advice, friendship and encouragement.
He is a brilliant author, a loving father to his five children and a wonderful husband to his wife. To me, he is a very good friend, trusted, loyal, true and straight up. This man is like the older brother I never had and I admire him for all that he stands for and all that he does and last, but not necessarily least, I admire him for putting up with me...(slight chuckle).
Bantu Steven Biko
Steven Biko, was a man who loved God and a man who stood up against injustice, against racism, knowing it would probably cost him his life. He flew courageously in the face of those in oppostion to the truth and to justice, he did not necessarily do this fearlessly. But the true meaning of courage is to be terribly afraid of doing something for fear of personal persecution and yet to do it anyway. That was Steven Biko in a nutshell.
This man fought the good fight for his people right to his last dying breath, and though he did not live to see the fruit of his work, we all know that South Africa could never have been led down the path to change without people like Steven Biko. I admire this man greatly for the work he undertook in his lifetime. I admire him because he never said quit, he never laid down and he never ran from adversity, he just dug his heels in and kept going with everything within him.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar, lovely little Edgar Allan Poe. Yes he was a strange little man, and boy did this guy have some vices, but man could he write.
He is my favourite author of all time and if I was abandoned on an island and only allowed one book to read, it would be the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
I admire the fact that he was just so different to others in the era that he lived, and he must have known this, and yet he persisted and had much success. He was a bit of a rogue who drank a bit more than he should have, but he was also a romantic and you gotta love a romantic. He was unafraid and uninhibited in his writing and thus true to himself, and that is what I admire about lovely little Edgar Allan Poe.
