I came by my interest in photography honestly, in the time-honored phrase; my father was a well-known fashion photographer. (A selection of Don Honeyman photos from his 20+ years at Vogue can be seen at Trunk Archive.) He left Vogue to form his own advertising studio when I was a teenager, and just starting my own interest in photography.

It led in a different direction from his work. And my father never set out to guide how I saw things, nor did he offer any formal instruction. His influence was there, but it was more subtle. One very effective move was to insist that I buy my own camera, quite properly refusing to let a teenager wander around London with any of his working tools. At the same time he gave me unlimited film, and free run of the studio darkroom (off-hours, of course), including all the paper and chemicals I might need. By necessity, I learned it was possible to work within the limitations of a very, very cheap camera. I also learned to make something of the resulting negatives.

But I did not want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I’ve made a career in another field entirely.* My “day job” has kept me on the road quite a bit, though, often to places tourists ignore. As a result, I’ve had some of the privileges of a photojournalist. And photography has been my best recourse when I didn’t want to think in words.

Looking back, I can see how my apparently unrelated kinds of work overlap more than might be obvious. For instance, both my street-photographer leanings and my other work demand an acute interest in timing. A more mundane common factor is that I never wanted work that would have me commuting to the same place every day; and my pictures too reflect a street photographer’s preference for being out and about.

Having been able to pursue these paths in parallel has been a great pleasure. I hope you enjoy the examples presented here.

 

Chris Honeyman

*If you care about that, feel free to type my name along with “negotiation” or “mediation” or a related term in a search engine.