light, colour & photography

about me and this website

A life can be very full indeed. It is only when we look back that we can begin to separate the creative from the routine, the significant from the mundane and the inspiring from the mediocre. With this in mind, nothing in the "about me" section should be taken too seriously. This is not a confessional but an attempt to share experience, knowledge and - to the limited extent that I have it - any insight gained along the way.

For many years I taught in secondary education. Over time I learned to an ever greater extent how other people learn. It's really quite simple: people learn by relating what is new to what they already have. Invariably the starting point is experience.

To begin with our experiences are primitive. We are aware of sounds, warmth and cold, softness and hardness, light and dark. We are aware of hunger, thirst, pain, discomfort and of being "comfortable". Bit by bit we learn to associate these fundamental experiences. That association is the beginning of our conceptual framework. The child recognizes its parents; the first words become associated with objects and people. And with the marriage of percept and concept we have 'meaning'

We have this innate longing, this need to make sense of the world in which we live. For the most part it happens quite naturally. It is the purpose of education to stimulate, energise and consolidate this process; to provide the 'glue' that holds the otherwise disparate fragments of knowledge together.

The world of colour, perhaps like the universe itself, seems to have no bounds. There is always more to explore, more to learn. There are many other sites whose content covers subjects identical to those presented here. But this is no academic website; the starting point is experience. The conceptual framework will be built quite gradually. I have tried to provide the glue to help you learn.

I've had a varied life and a good one too. I have met some wonderful people who in turn have encouraged, inspired and changed my life. It is sometimes said that we spend our life waiting for the person who will help us change it. This is certainly true for me. To those few people who have changed my life I am forever grateful.

So now you have it: the prime reasons for creating this site is to share with you what others have shared with me. The approach is based on how I learn and how I think others learn. Building and designing this web site has been great fun. It is very much a personal one. It is a work in progress and I hope you enjoy looking.