I bought a painting this week. It’s called ‘my love for you’.

I collect art. Sometimes it’s photographic, other times it’s paintings. I feel my life is richer by having art around me. And I’d much rather it wasn’t my art, as that is just what I do. So having other people’s art around me enriches me.

Anything that takes me to another place, is high currency in my book. This painting by Paul Barnes does this.

But there is a back story, and one I feel I must share, as it will perhaps be an insight into my photography and my life these past 13 years since I left IT and started to run photographic tours and workshops.

When I first started out running trips, I struggled a bit. I was extremely nervous meeting new people. Having to look after a group of folks for a week is a demanding job, and if you feel you don’t have the social skills or experience of doing this full time: trust me: it’s overwhelming.

A dear friend used to write to me each Sunday night before my workshops began, more as a good omen, to wish me well. I had found that her writing to me, helped me deal with the stress I was dealing with. I found I would not sleep properly before a workshop because my mind was running at 100%. She did this for about 5 years. That just shows you how much of a dear friend she is to me. She kept that up for so long.

Anyway, what has this got to do with this painting?

Quite a lot.

When I started out, one of my early-day trips was to the Assynt region of Scotland. It has been a personal favourite location for me for over 20 years. I grew up around this area photographically speaking. As an amateur I came up to Assynt at weekends, and when I first offered workshops I would run them at the Ceilidh place in Ullapool.

There is a room in that hotel. Room 4. For years they put me in that room. It is a budget room. If you don’t know this, every time you go on a workshop or a tour, the workshop leader doesn't get the best room. He takes the cheap room. Because it helps him make a living.

For me, room 4 at the Ceilidh place is that room. It’s not bad. It’s just that it’s not as grand as the rooms my participants get to stay in. In some ways, it has become home. I doubt that the Ceilidh place realise this. But that room has become engrained in me as part of who I have become this past decade.

In that room there is this painting of a dog by the artist Paul Barnes.

I have stared at that painting for over a decade. Usually around 3am when I cannot sleep, for worry about how the hell I’m going to look after six strangers for the week ahead.

So last week while I was at the Ceilidh place, I asked Jock - the owner, if I could buy the painting. I feel I need to own it. I feel I’ve earned it. I feel it has been with me through thick and thin, through my early years, and through all the troubles / doubts and worries I have had. Sadly Jock said no for very understandable reasons. He said ‘the painting of the dog by Paul Barnes? I love it, if the hotel got sold tomorrow, it would be the painting I would keep’. I respectfully understood where he was coming from.

So I chose to go looking for something to fill the gap. Something to fix that hole. Something that would allow me to look at it, and KNOW, what I KNOW, about the last 13 years. Of all the trials, and tribulations that I’ve experienced on running my workshops. Paul Barnes work is represented by a gallery here in Edinburgh and I saw this painting. Stylistically, it has all the earmarks of the dog painting (I wish I could show you), that I have stared at for over a decade. Sepia toned, a bit dreamy, out there, his work is consistent. Beautiful and dreamy. He is a lovely artist.

And now, I own this. And it makes me happy. Because each time I look at it, it is not only beautiful, but it symbolises my life this past 13 years.

Shouldn’t all art do something to that level? Regardless of our own circumstances, all we know is ‘I need to own this’.