Secret Affair

Richard Childs

Richard trained as an Orchestral Percussionist in the 1980's but his true love has always been the outdoors and particularly mountain environments. Throwing in his drumsticks to become a full-time photographer in 2004 he continues to work with a large format camera alongside digital equipment and exhibits his work in solo and group exhibitions as well as at his own gallery in the Ironbridge Gorge. Links to Website and Facebook

OK, I'm coming clean, and I think it's only right that I do it publicly and nationally in this magazine.

I have been having a secret affair. It's been going on for about four years now but has been far more serious in the last two. Initially she modelled for me and I would visit perhaps once a month spending an hour or two in her company, sometimes making successful images sometimes not. She's no supermodel, nowhere near as glamorous as some of the others hereabout and although I regularly photograph them, she is the one I go to the most. Just over two years ago, following a health scare in the family I found that she was the one most able to help me come to terms with the stress and strain. I started to visit her more regularly, often just to sit, to spend time clearing my head of the jumbled thoughts and problems trapped within. She would quietly listen, never offering any advice but never the less allowing the tensions to fall away.

Beinn Lora, from Dunstaffnage