Triptych
Sequential
Images
There is a singular vision to these multiple images, triptychs and polyptychs - A singular vision using multiple frames exposed sequentially which I have used to explore and respond to landscape and its relationship to man, the forces of nature and to myself.
The subject common to these photographs is the coast. Forever changing with the passing of time and tide, yet forever staying the same. A dirty beach can look clean, a clean beach can look as if it has just been created. The passing of six hours can dramatically change the coastline, so that it is unrecognisable from what was remembered. Some coastline is mercilessly eaten away by the sea whilst others grow, but often the sight of years is needed to see these changes.
The coast, any coast, is somewhere that brings only good memories, childhood holidays, naivety, freedom, adventure, excitement. I long to get to the coast sometimes just to be able to see for miles without interruption to be able to see infinity and also to be able to look back in time. Standing on a beach can be such a timeless event. The hugeness, the space, fresh air but also the power of the sea, the biggest moving, almost living, thing we're ever likely to see.
The beach will always be a wilderness, with the sea as your view, because whatever happens the tide will turn and wash it always. Even a dead, polluted sea could be beautiful just because of its vastness and the play of light and shade from a cloudy sky.
I'm nearly always disappointed with photographs as factual evidence of what was seen, because so much more was seen and your other senses have a major influence on memory. But as a representation, a concentrated part of what you see or want to see, photography is an excellent medium.
Some of my images follow the tradition of seascapes by artists like Turner and Gustav le Gray, describing the power and magnitude of the sea and the play of light and shade. Others deal with an exaggerated perspective gained by using very wide angle lenses to give an image that could not be seen with the naked eye.
These images are my memories of specific times, places and trips. They are a visual documentary, or travelogue, of where I have been, what I have seen and how I have felt. I photograph on impulse using the available light. All light has its own beauty.
I photograph what I see, when I see it to record a real memory, rather than 'faking' my memory with a pre-ordained time of year, day, weather condition or light.
My photographs aren't manipulated in the contemporary sense but simply juxtaposed or joined digitally; old memories are stirred to create new dreams, unseen, unexplored, fictional landscapes. I hope these images might be seen as transfiguring something which is a common memory for all of us into something glorious.
