Darrell K Morris - Professional Photographer based in London, UK

So, that’s it. The first two weeks of my month-long exhibition in East Dulwich (or is that East DullWitch?) are finally over, and this Thursday evening I was frantically putting the final touches to the mid-way changeover of the show. At the time I was so busy cleaning frames, trying to get every dust mark off every print, patiently waiting for customers to stop working on laptops / Blackberry’s / Ipods and finish drinks, cakes etc.. and finally make sure (at the 100th time of asking) that each print sat level on the wall and that I had the correct set-list and order to the work, that it wasn’t until I was sat on the bus back home, trying to prop up a large Victorian frame (that houses the image that you see to the left in this post) that I realized that I had come to an end of an era in my photographic career.

If you read the previous post  you’ll know that the new show is all about saying goodbye to some older work, and introducing a completely new portfolio of works, which I have now finally done.  And as the work went up on Thursday evening, I could step back and look at a completely new portfolio, that has never seen the light of day before, and range (age wise) from an image that was taken nearly a year ago, to an image that was taken just six days before the show went up (which you can see at the bottom of this post). My initial idea to shoot images up until hours before the show went up, I now see was being wildly ambitious and would have ended up with me literally in a state of nervous exhaustion, if I had tried to carry out my insane plan.  Instead I have at least played safe in the way that I have put on a ‘traditional’ show, instead of literally sticking up a plethora of images (shot over a few days) on a wall space. And, I have just about been able to keep it together, and for once I haven’t resorted to emailing or phoning friends and loved ones with various proclamations of my imminent retirement from photography or letting them know that if they see a skip anywhere around South-East London, please do check them for possibly discarded blurry monochrome images.

No, I am satisfied (yes, literally) and happy with the work, that has gone up and despite reservations about mixing colour and monochrome I think it works well. What has been particularly exciting is too see the new digital work I have taken and is now being exhibited (just weeks after me clicking a shutter). Instead, of impeding my creativity, I think it has helped and made me value an image even more and lead me to take more risks with my work, and after another Nikon FM breaking down (following having one nicked at Christmas) the time may have come to go all digital. Added with the putting away of the old portfolio, everything is all feeling very new and exciting and with a couple of new projects under way, it could just become groovy times once more. If, you haven’t had chance to see the show, you can view it on my Twitter page. Just skip through the load of old bollocks I usually tweet, and go to any tweets that start with Photo Of The Day from the last couple of weeks for selected images. And here’s my newest exhibited work. entitled Imperfect Love. Is that a bit pretentious sounding? It’s better than Untitled No47, isn’t it?