I've always enjoyed taking photos; I guess you could call it a hobby, except that it doesn't feel like one - when I go somewhere new, I pick the camera up automatically. I started taking photographs seriously when I was about eleven. I took a camera on a holiday to Brussels, and rather than taking photos of sights, I took photos of things - things that looked nice, things that were unusual. Sometimes I played with camera angles.

When I got the film back, I discovered the photographs were really very good. I mean, very good for me, then; and very good for someone who couldn't draw, or paint, and who'd never been good at "art". I showed my art teacher. He thought they were good. So, a year later, I bought myself an SLR, and the bug stuck. Nine years later, and I acquired a digital camera - and suddenly, the darkroom process I'd found both pricey and time-consuming was made easier.

Photovore, then, is a work in progress; the wheat separated out from the chaff. It's a selection of pictures I'd feel proud for people to see. Which is why, now, they're published online. I hope you enjoy them.

Tom Armitage
March 2004