STEPHEN Innes is in revolt. Against style and against preconceptions

about disability, not least those that tend to be projected by the

disabled themselves.

Innes, 29, a disabled photographer, whose first exhibition is showing

at the Project Ability gallery, issued a press statement that has an

edge to it. He declared himself ''fed up'' with the ''hackneyed image''

of disabled people. Exhibitions of work by disabled people, he said,

tended to show what a rotten time they were all having, their work

portraying a sense of anger, rejection, or isolation.

''Well you won't get that from me,'' he stated, though in conversation

at the opening of his exhibition, he confided he was a little concerned

about being seen as stroppy.

''Even still,'' he said, ''getting into the Necropolis at night

through a hole in the gates, and climbing up to the top with tons of

equipment to get a picture of Glasgow Cathedral, while wondering if

you're going to be mugged, does require a certain physical dexterity and

determination.''

Innes's revolt against style is hinted at in the title of his

exhibition -- Dye Hard. Is this Bruce Willis with a Canon? ''Not at

all,'' he laughed, confessing a penchant for ''dreadful puns''. (His

photograph of a shaggily golden Highland bull, which has found fame as a

postcard, is entitled Matted d'Or.)

''My main problem with photography exhibitions is that black and white

has enjoyed a resurgence to the point that it has become de rigueur,''

he said. Innes's favoured form of photography is the colour slide.

''It's such an exacting discipline; one mistake and the slide is

ruined.''

Some of the photos in his exhibition -- a wide-ranging display of 23

pictures -- suggest trickery or clever use of filters: a spectacularly

dramatic night portrait of the Forth Rail Bridge, or the witty and

whimsical Ghost Bus, another night portrait, where the spirit of a

number 62D on the Clydeside expressway has been left imprinted after the

bus has moved on.

Not so. Innes eschews filters. ''They're a pain in the backside; they

give internal reflections and detract from the finished effect.'' His

effects are all achieved by timed exposures: ''that and the inherent

ability of the lens. All my lenses I've known for a long time; each has

a slightly different signature and I know its ability.''

By day Stephen Innes mans a BBC Radio Helpline (''I'm a grease

monkey'') and by night you're likely to find him clambering up a

near-unassailable height in search of his next target, armed with his

indispensable Canon F1n and Mamiya C330. Loaded of course. Dye Hard

indeed.

* Dye Hard, sponsored by Studio Trust, is at the Project Ability

Centre, 18 Albion Street, 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday until March 3.