When I go out into the city I have no plan. I walk down one street, and when I am drawn to turn the corner into another, I do. Really I am like a dog: I decide where to go by the smell of things, and when I am tired, I stop.
— Daido Moriyama
Ministract /ˈmɪnɪ-strækt'/ adj. Of or pertaining to that which might be minimal, might be abstract or might even be both.
My name is Tom McLaughlan. I live in a little hamlet called Kirkhouse, north Cumbria, four miles south of Hadrian’s Wall, five miles west of Northumberland and under the most wonderful big skies.
I call my pictures ministract because sometimes they're minimal, sometimes they're abstract and sometimes they're somewhere in between. On the one hand, they may be of the buildings and structures that watch over us - the colour, precision and detail that hides in plain sight - or, on the other, the wistful moments that come wrapped in blurry schmocus. In the last few years, I’ve realised that what emerges from the camera - colour, precision and detail or blurry schmocus - reveals as much about how I’m feeling as it does about what my eyes are seeing.
If you'd like to continue the conversation then please do get in touch - it would be lovely to hear from you - and if you want to read the story behind the Ministract logo, designed by my friend, John Spencer, you can do so here. The blog reveals the passion and dedication that constitutes his creative mind, through a step by step guide to how he came up with and then realised the concept.
Emily Dickinson urged us to “ignite the imagination and light the slow fuse of the possible”. If my work comes anywhere close to doing that, then I’ll be very happy indeed.
Many thanks for visiting.
tom
Home page picture: Light and shadow in the rafters of Berlin’s Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz.