September 2024, No.6 Photograph

A long and necessary pause from exhibiting and selling work has given me time and freedom to develop my practice. In 2022, my old camera finally gave up the ghost. I announced this on Instagram and Lubaina Himid CBE RA who I was most privileged to have as a tutor during my fine art degree, got in touch to say to she would like to buy me a new camera. Lubaina's support meant I could buy a high end Leica camera and this has been life changing for me. I've been experimenting with different photographic techniques including the cyanotype process discovered in 1842 by Sir John Herschel. I'm also producing one-off photograms in the dark room through a series of multiple exposures on high quality paper. I live in a small village overlooking the Irish Sea. The incoming weather and dynamic tides have become my focal point, much as they were for JMW Turner who visited Morecambe Bay in 1816. He made a number of sketches and subsequent watercolours here. It has taken me many years to eschew a tendency to wander off creatively in all directions and to instead opt for a narrower point of focus. The pressing subject of climate change has certainly helped fix my attention, especially as I witness first hand the increasing number of storms year upon year. My house overlooks the Irish Sea and I spend my days out on the cliffs or down on the rocks. This year I have been documenting the rock falls and comparing the incredible shifts of some larger rocks (weighing over a ton) with photographs I took back in 2016 in precisely the same area. The changes are dramatic and yet while the figures on climate change are startling, there's this humbling awe and wonder at the power of nature and the transience of life.