So how did Emulsion come about? What was the inspiration?
I guess you could say it was something that I've been meaning to do for a long time now. I kept all my photos in boxes here at home in the loft and garage, and for years when I glanced at the boxes and files it made me think, 'there's probably a book in here somewhere - one day, when I have the time'. And that time was suddenly put upon me early in 2021 when I was laid off from my job at CSG, when I was told that BMX was no longer significant to their business. Their words. I was like, "What?"
So anyway, I had to do something, along with trying to find a new job of course... Also, BMX lost another good human around that time - the news about Dave Beveridge just hit me hard as well, and I figured one way of marking these riders, the likes of Dave, Scott Carroll, Jason Davies, Mirra, and too many others, was to have their riding in a book of some sort. I also talked to the people at MIND, the mental health charity about the project, and got them involved. And so here we are, practically a year later, we have a photo book that's somewhat bigger than I originally envisaged called Emulsion - basically, it features the people, places, and events that shaped BMX in the UK through the heydays of the underground years of BMX, from '87 to 2004.
Your brother Chris had done the design work for Ride BMX (UK) magazine back in the day; how was it partnering up with him again for this project?
Just the best. He's great to work with, not just saying that 'cause he's my brother of course – I've worked with many designers over the years and still, hands down, Chris is the best. He's a Photoshop genius, a layout perfectionist, has the best creative ideas, and the honest process of working together and so on was just great. It was reminiscent of the old magazine days for sure, back at 4130 Publishing with Ride BMX and everything else we did, but in a way, this was better, because with this photo book we kinda had more freedom...