Anthony John Ruscombe Poole

I have had an interest in photography since childhood, and I think my inspiration may have come from seeing photographs my dad took on colour transparency film of a family holiday in Malta, when I was four, projected onto a screen. The screen was small compared with today’s big TVs, but gigantic compared with late 1960s/early 1970s televisions of the day. Then, the only thing bigger than this screen was in a cinema. Seeing the photographs projected onto the screen somehow seemed to take us all back to Malta. We could also look at the mounted slides in an individual viewfinder, which was battery powered with each slide lit from behind.

In my work as a journalist, I have, on occasions, also had to take pictures to go with something I was reporting on and I really enjoy doing this. Eventually, I would like to write fewer words and take more pictures and have them published. I have long admired good use of photography in newspapers, which, in my mind, began with the launch of The Independent in Britain in the early 1980s. The generosity of space given by the newspaper to excellent black & white photography brought story telling to life in a way television could never do. I will never forget the front page of the newspaper the morning after the Clapham Rail disaster in December 1988. The way The Independent presented photographs has informed many newspapers’ use of photography around the world since.

I find myself increasingly drawn to landscapes and urban cityscapes and I am also drawn more to long-exposure photography for the aesthetics one can create with this medium, which is unique to the art form of photography. I also enjoy shooting seascapes and images with water and my interest in that started in my early 30s when I went on a sailing holiday off the west coast of Scotland. It was around then that I also learned how to develop my own black and white film, although my dark room skills with printing and dodging and burning rarely gave me the results I was hoping for.

I was born and raised in London and lived in England until I was 34. The Ruscombe in my name comes from Somerset in southwest England, from where many of my ancestors hail. If one goes back a few generations, there was a marriage between the Pooles and the Ruscombes. But, instead of a double-barrel surname, the name was often included among the first names of new generations. There are not too many Ruscombes about these days.

I moved to New York in February 2000 and now live in Riverdale with my wife, Rebecca, and my two best boys Joshua and Toby and our adorable, noble beagle, Buddy.

The copyright of all photographs on this website is held by Anthony Poole. Reproduction or storage without consent is not permitted.