Before September 4th 2000 I barely had any interest in photography whatsoever beyond that of the candid snap shot taken of some embarrassingly drunk relative or other at one of many dutifully attended family functions. Though from that date onwards many things were set to change me in a way I could have never imagined and my new found passion and respect for photography was to be one of them.

September 4th is a special date set firmly in my mind each year for a number of reasons; my birthday being one of them, but fundamentally the other is the date I was diagnosed HIV+.

I moved to Paris on the 20th of December 1999 with a hat full of stars and daydreams, not to mention a recent HIV negative diagnosis. With wide eyed optimism and a good bill of health I was invincible, and felt every inch the daring young thing as I started upon my new life, no mean feat at the grand old age of thirty four I can tell you. By New Years Eve of the same year I had been struck down with a very bad cold, which I just put down to the stress and strain of winding up my life in London in preparation for my move to France. I watched the countdown to the new millennium on the TV wrapped in the duvet toasting the New Year in with a mug of hot milk. Thick with cold and night nurse I breathed a mentholated sigh of contentment as I watched the Eiffel Tower explode in unadulterated luminous splendour; unaware of the war my body was raging against its uninvited house guest.

When spring had finally managed to show its face after a winter of torrential rain and hurricane force winds my condition was still very much the same. I had seen numerous doctors all of whom could not diagnose what was wrong with me. It was not until I had started to develop a rash on my body which, accompanied by the continued inflammation of my glands made me decide I had to rule out at least one possibility by booking myself a HIV test at the local GUM clinic, which brings us back to September the 4th 2000.

As I think back to that metro ride from the clinic that day I really could not tell you how I was feeling. All I remember as I sat there looking around the carriage at the people sharing my journey home, was how I gazed from person to person thinking, ‘Can they see it? Can they see what I am carrying inside of me’ and to be honest with you up until a few years ago I truly believed my HIV+ status was visible to others, the same way most of us would be self conscious of a birthmark or scar.

I returned to the flat around midday, all around me the streets were buzzing with the midday bustle of café cultured Parisians and the hordes of ‘Kodak moment’ hungry tourists so I entered the cool interior of the apartment and did what any self respecting English man would have done abroad in a time of crisis, and made myself a nice cup of tea.

It was at this moment of solitude that the magnitude of those mornings events truly began to sink in, ‘I had to bookmark this day in some way’ I remember thinking. As I looked around the room my eyes fell upon my partner’s camera, so impulsively I packed the camera into my bag and set off on a day of exploration. The images of that day seven years ago were to reveal no great mastery of the camera, but the way I felt as I took those pictures was indescribable. All I can say is the energy that pulsed through me as I took those first fumbling steps was one of healing and warmth; also oddly enough I felt a real sense of inner peace and calm.

Over the last seven years photography has played the part of lover and friend in my recovery to good health, as therapeutic as any holistic medicine, it has given me a forum to express my feelings and gives me the opportunity to take those who view my work on that journey with me, and when I look back at my portfolio of images I can remember everything about the space a particular picture filled upon capture, the taste and scent of the air, the luminosity of the day but most important of all is the emotion of connecting to something so organic and familiar to me. Like a nursing child returning to the bosom of its mother, I realise, only then in the essence of that moment, I am home.