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 Brand new to Steemit I am a 57 year old photographer and I am based in Cornwall in the UK. A couple of years ago I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis so I am now changing my commercial photography direction due to the affects of my illness and planning on expanding on a part of my business that I can still do. For many years I have been supplying the photography required by painters and artists involved in the art world for websites, books, limited edition prints, cards etc.

St Ives is famous for its artists and still attracts much attention with the Tate Gallery St Ives now adding kudos and popularity to this popular holiday destination. I have had the pleasure to work with quite a few painters over the years, some not so well known and others more famous and some who have now sadly passed away like Sir Terry Frost, Wilhelmina Barns Graham, Sandra Blow and John Miller. I will expand on this part of my work as time goes on.

Although sorry not to be able to do all the commercial photography I was capable of I don't feel sorry for myself life is too short, sometimes we just need to adapt to survive and I am grateful I was abled bodied for much longer than some, MS strikes at different ages and in different ways.

My mother was a journalist and author Judith_Cook">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Cook she passed away a few years ago now but some of her books are still in print. One in particular I have particularly enjoyed is To Brave Every Danger, a book following the epic life of Mary Bryant of Fowey a highway woman and convicted felon, her transportation and amazing escape from Botany Bay. It was optioned for a film before her untimely and sudden death, but it was eventually shelved after its own strange story surrounding the copyright which has quite recently come back with myself, two sisters and brother. We hope to to regain some interest in this book with its potential starring female lead and fascinating story very in vogue if any film makers are out there. I am still selling an occasional Cornish landscape photo like this photo for a 2018 calendar

www.evocativecornwall.co.uk and I plan to shoot landscapes again. Cornwall is beautiful and wonderful views are not far from lay-bys, car parks and my car, this one close to Godrevy car park taken a few years before I was ill but I can still get there.

I have always been interested in politics and even more so now I am disabled and discovering how harsh the system is first hand on the sick and poor in the UK and recently was forced to drag the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) through the national media to get them to wake up

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dwp-disability-benefits-cut-fit-for-work-multiple-sclerosis-simon-cook-walk-sleep-balance-i-daniel-a8209691.html

I was for a few weeks prevented from working by the DWP I am on temporary reprieve while the DWP get ready to waste more money by putting me through the whole process again. So to sum up I am going to be sharing my photography past and present, my journey with MS, some political opinion, maybe a little on the world of tractors and share a few tales like the time I was with the Queen Mother in Westminster Abby and knocked over the tray of glasses, mortifying at the time and my future plans.

Thanks to my middle son @samcook for getting me off Facebook!

https://www.cornish-images.com/