Restless light traces move around ‘randomly’ within a defined area, occasionally spilling over the boundary as though they have an intent to escape their confinement.
I see these images as a metaphor for how we live within our own confines, seemingly unable to break from our established paths.
Studies of the shoreline; shapes in sand; human traces; light, shade and texture.
This is a selection from a wider body of work from this ongoing project.
These images have been produced using an ‘alternative printing process’ called Argyrotype. Each print is hand made and unique.
I set myself the challenge to find the simplest subject, and to find a way to photograph it in a visually interesting way.
The grid imposes a rigid composition creating tension with the subject itself, whose nature is to not be constrained.
In terms of process I can tell you that each dot is unique and I spend a lot of time carefully dropping water from a syringe onto thick water colour paper and then photographing them from above.
Try as I might, I have found it impossible to get hundreds of droplets to conform to a strict grid layout! So there is some post processing involved to ‘encourage’ droplets into place.
My aim for this ongoing project is produce grid images for square numbers up to 144. Though you may see that occasional mishaps leave an extra tiny unexpected droplet, hence the 146 droplets image. I’ve chosen to leave these in.
A selection of images from the first of my trio of projects dealing with loss and hope, which together appeared in my book I Am Not The Rain, published by Kozu in 2020.
Many of the images here were made in a churchyard close to my home and feature weathered gravestones.
Prints were made using the Salt printing technique.
The second of my trio of projects dealing with loss and hope. These images were created in the days following my eldest daughter’s death.
The final set from my trio of projects dealing with loss and hope. The images in I Am Not The Rain were produced as I was coming to terms with personal loss.
The set takes it’s name from the idiom ‘into every life a little rain must fall’ and is the title of my book published by Kozu in 2020.
This series is an artistic response to my youngest daughter’s anaemia (Diamond Blackfan). One of the impacts of her condition is that she doesn’t produce her own red blood cells. In order for her to live a normal life, she is transfused every four weeks. To date she has had well over 100 transfusions.
These camera-less images are produced by scanning perspex sheets smeared with a mixture of paint and blood. The resultant scans are overlaid in photoshop to produce a final image.
In 2017 BBC3 made a documentary about my daughter, which you can watch here.
I photographed Canterbury Cathedral over several years until 2019, seeking to capture mystery and traces.
