T. James Stanfield

A jazz saxophonist embracing the bebop tradition, a growing aptitude for photography developed in parallel to a four year Bmus university degree programme that laid the groundwork for his now long term technical study of jazz icon Charlie Parker. With music and photography very much constituting a twin heartbeat, both artforms have enjoyed existence in equal measure, with his passion for photography to no lesser degree diminished by his musical prowess.

A professional musician from the early nineties, the potential for photography lay waiting in the wings, germinating steadily for several years before he eventually picked up the camera. Inspired by works by Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Frank Horvat, to name a few, his interest began through the lens of an exhibition at London's V&A Museum of post war fashion photography curated in the early nineties. A love for the medium later broadened into a fascination with observational photography embodied in strikingly emotive works such as Enfants de la Place Hébert, 1957 Robert Doisneau which proved inspirational for the style that later became his preferred genre. Fascinated as a youngster by books of landscape photography on display in many of the art bookshops that lined the Charing Cross Road in London's West End, this early spark was kindled by his winning first prize in a county competition in the mid nineties with a 35mm winter landscape taken from a 35mm roll of film which had been his first foray into photography.

Borrowing the only camera he could lay his hands on, a sudden imperative provided the ignition by which to act upon the creative urge to acquaint himself with the camera following an overnight deluge of snow that had thickly carpeted the woodland scene nearby to the family residence. A full immersion into photography began several years hence during a period of European travel where in a welcome break from university he traveled through Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, having previously spent a season as an artist in residence at George Whitman's Shakespeare and Company on Paris’ rive gauche. The tenure had provided an inspirational springboard from which he was able to experiment, negotiating a learning curve in part facilitated by growing friendships with a group of professional photographers which was ultimately to prove invaluable.