Smoke: a strange fascination with smoke and smokers

I don’t smoke. I always thought that I hated cigarettes…but now I’m not so sure. Don’t get me wrong I know they are dodgy things that will eventually give you all kinds of nasty conditions, but over the last few years I’ve discovered that I have developed a strange visual addiction to them. If this all sounds a little confusing then I will elaborate.

In almost all English speaking countries smoking has been outlawed in most public places. On the other hand in Japan smoking is alive, well and having a big party. Cigarette advertising and cigarette vending machines are everywhere, you can still smoke in bars, and in most restaurants you can smoke anywhere as most don’t have separate smoking areas. All this has meant that there is a large smoking population and as a result people smoke everywhere.

I have discovered that, for me as a photographer, there is something quite intriguing about smokers. I think it’s a mix of their intense focus as they inhale, the way the smoke disperses into the air, and how sometimes smokers can lose themselves in the moment, especially if they are alone. As a result I’ve noticed that a lot of my images feature smokers, smoke or cigarettes. This has all been an unconscious thing for me, and it wasn’t until I started looking through my back catalogue of images that I started to see this pattern.

Subsequently, I decided to do a blog entry highlighting some of my favourites. The purpose of this is not to in any way promote smoking (I hate being the victim of second hand smoke), but rather it is simply to show some of the different sides of it through my images.

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