Guy Woodland.

The son of a diplomat serving in the then British Foreign and Commonwealth Office I was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1962. In a world devoid of digitisation and reliant on the BBC World Service Short Wave radio service, cameras and photography became an early fascination.

My first photograph taken when I was five opened a whole fascination on my part to capture and 'own', moments. This has continued all my life as I become exposed to different worlds, different cultures and people i could never have imagined.

This passion and desire to try and define a world in front of me followed me through school and eventually I became a professional photographer on the advice of Patrick Litchfield who beckoned me to Blackpool where I spent 3 years on a HND course. Ironically the first college I visited was the then London College of Printing which is today The London College of Art. Again a circle was complete as some 34 years later I joined a the college as a mature student, where I am currently in the final phases of an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography.

Over the years my career has allowed me to cover many varied assignments. I have worked as a photo journalist, editorial, documentary and aerial photographer. I have experience in the landscape as well as photographing people. For a period I worked for Sotheby's and spent several years working in a commercial studio.

Whilst all of this was enjoyable and has taken me around the world, the desire to experience new places and new challenges continued, and probably explains my moving through the broad church of photography.

A little dissatisfaction in a changing world about 15 years ago drew me to publishing and I started making books and have published numerous to date.

Recent adventures have included China and I have been fascinated by the changes occurring across this great country. I have been fortunate to visit the provinces of Guizhou, Gansu, Sichuan and Beijing, as a guest of the Chinese government, a process of exploration I will continue with.

However, and probably a reason aged 53 of deciding to go back into education is on reflection a knee jerk reaction to being bored. Bored of the noise that photography produces. Last year in 2015 more photographs were made and this exceeded the total analogue film archive.

Pretty much everything has been photographed, again and again. The noise is so loud it can not be contained. There are positive and negative repercussions to this brave new world of digitisation. It can transcend cultural barriers and boarders, it can be available instantly. But for me, I question issues such as are able to absorb all these images raining down on us, and, a crucial question arrises. Where have all the stories gone that need to be told, how do we find them, are they truthful and most importantly do the feeds that supply these images become diluted or missed as they compete against endless trivial pictures of cats and peoples food consumption (not that I have any personal issue with cats and dogs or food).

The traditional disciplines in photography are eroded and gone, I have over the last few years been fortunate to meet serious and great photographers covering important topics from genocide to famine, injustices, corruption, humanitarian disaster, and most of them can not make a living with their tremendous work. These precious voices are diluted by the noise, and I wander if this is a deliberate ploy? This poses a question, if media outlets will not remunerate properly for these endeavours, eventually this kind of reporting which affects the principals of Photojournalism and Documentary Photography will stop. This leads to another question. Photography has always been utilised by state, and independent photographs can sometimes provide a check this. If these voices become diluted to a point of obscurity then the state has won. Meaningful reporting is in flux. I am not sure where it will end up - redefined for sure.

Photography is like a baby who has started to crawl (in comparison to say painting that has existed since cave men. It is in its infancy and the discussion about how we nurture this precious child is crucial if professional photography in which ever discipline is going to survive. This is a conversation I am happy to be involved in.

My website reflects my past as it is part of who I am. It also nods to a future as I want to become excited again and therefore need to find new ways of taking photographs and expressing myself. To this end I am very interested in the state of conscious and unconsciousness and how by sometimes letting go or being in the Now go we start to explore new areas.

Either way the journey will be exciting.