Influences
'Feelings of Place' —
Inspiration for my work comes from a 'feeling of place'; a feeling of identity and an empathy with where I am. A feeling that goes beyond familiarity to a deeper level of 'belonging'. In the past few years I have tried to capture these feelings of time and place, wherever I have lived: Australia, Norfolk, Southsea, and now Birmingham.
Feelings of place can be experienced in different locations or countries
or even at different times. In the Southsea
images I have used digital manipulation in a very deliberate way, with
the intention of changing the mood, atmosphere and even the 'time' of
the pictures. As a place, for me, Southsea has an almost timeless quality
which brings families back each Summer to enjoy the very things that families
have enjoyed for decades. Perhaps for them too a feeling of place exists
here, and family memories are built around the pier, the beach, seafront
and looking out over the Solent. Sunrises, sunsets; high tide, low tide;
storms or flat calm; sunny days, rainy days and days when the fog has
been so thick its almost impossible to see at all. The reality may be
a pier that is weary and in need of paint; the tide might have washed
up all manner of flotsam and jetsom and out in the Solent a naval warship
may be at anchor.
The work strives to show that a photograph can be taken one step further - from the reality of what is - to what we may like to remember, either from our past or in the future. All this can be conveyed in picture form with the aid of image manipulation in a way that a photographic image can not do. It may provide a glimpse of our own childhood perhaps - or the notion of giving to another generation that feeling of simple enjoyment.Watch any child on the beach, with a bucket and spade or fishing net and how many of us can recall immediately the pleasures we have experienced ourselves. A feeling of place is revived or born at that moment in time.
The same idea is central to the Norfolk images - those brief days of
Winter in the countryside when hats, coats and boots are pulled on and
the intrepid set out to enjoy thebracing air and the brief hours of daylight.
Trees are in their Winter splendour, either gaunt and dark or iced with
frost and snow. Underfoot it may be muddy and wet or frozen solid; better
still, it could be covered in snow! Children will race ahead to 'squelch
or slide' and return with bright faces and muddy knees. Overhead skeins
of geese may fly, and as the light fades the temperature drops like a
stone. Wending home, little people need to be coaxed and cajoled and cold
little hands held. For everyone there is that feeling of elation as the
lights of home come in to view and the anticipation of a warm fire and
hot cups of tea only moments away. The trees have taken on different shapes
and now appear almost to menace against the darkened sky. Again that feeling
of time or timelessness is evoked and with it a feeling of comfort that
some things are constant.
