So here I am, physically located on Canada's Sunshine Coast on the Strait of Georgia, emotionally locked into the incredible entity that is my family, spiritually beholden to the unstoppable forces of the West Coast, life's enduring mysteries, and rock music, and artistically drawn to the mystical power of photography. I'm Martin Nichols. I grew up in London, a city like no other, a place so hardwired into my psyche that, despite my having been away since 1982, I feel its pull on a visceral level pretty much every day. But its all good: Im home here, I'm home there...it's all we really want, right?
I've loved everything about photography for as long as I can remember, and whether studying images in newspapers, making my own, or reading about David Bailey's exploits with the Rolling Stones, I always felt that some sort of job in the photo business would be mine for the taking. So how I ended up as a graphic designer instead is a bit of a mystery. One of those things, I guess. I can't complain, that line of work has been pretty good to me over the years; I enjoy it and it's still an important source of income. I've always had this thing for photo, though, and I wasn't always very good (Henri Cartier Bresson said "your first 10,000 pictures are your worst" or something), but I couldn't leave it alone.
I had a nine-to-five sort of a gig many years ago; wasn't me, really. I've always worked for myself since then. Why Burning Sand? As it happens, there was a big fire on the beach here that caught a lot of the driftwood alight not long before we moved in. Truth is, the name actually comes from a line in an Iggy Pop song, but the fire thing fits, one of those happy accidents. The Burning Sand project is a way of expressing my love for the many people around me who provide inspiration though totally unaware of it, and for the swirling energy of the coast itself.
Martin Nichols
Burning Sand Studio
Sechelt, BC Canada
Site design by Martin Nichols (with thanks to stereohype for the grunge bugs). All photography and design © 2010 Martin Nichols. All rights reserved.
