Some happy news – I’ve had scans and ultrasounds. Prodded, poked and examined and finally I was told I’m in remission! I’ve completed my final round of injections. For now and hopefully for the rest of my life I’m done…
Sketchbook daily
Last December I felt like I wanted/needed to get a regular, figurative drawing habit in my sketchbook. All this abstractifying with my Prussian blue project has been and continues to be absorbing and wonderful. But the pictures are evolving and more realistic…
Jardin extraordinaire
So much and so little has happened over the past year that everything I’ve experienced in that time is actually more a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey … stuff. Indeed, recently I found scans from a film roll I shot last summer…
Going deep
Have you heard of Depth Year? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you spend a year going deeper, not wider in your life. You can read the original concept by David Cain here, but if you want the…
A dream within a dream
I spent about 4 months with this particular roll of film in my camera. Inconceivable! This time last year I burned through 17 rolls in the same 4 months. Through the brain fog and chaos while I was floating around…
I am the fire
“Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes…
Prelude to the past
“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this…
The view from over here
“Remember your name. Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.” – Neil Gaiman,…
The river
“Water is another matter, has no direction but its own bright grace, runs through all imaginable colours” – Pablo Neruda I live by a river called Hers. And it is hers – hers but mine too – Mother Nature, The…
Quiet rooms and mountaintops
That place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can…
Finding the light
I’ve noticed how I look for those beams of light piercing through interiors. Maybe it’s because there seems to be so much darkness in the world right now. We’re dark cloud’s people and it’s always good to welcome in the…
About a Pig
Mary, Rosie, Billy, Buster, Willy, Poco, Figgy, Serge, Teddy and Stephen. Every guinea pig I’ve had. Now I have none. Stephen passed away at the end of last week. It was horrible, sudden and shocking. Up until 6 weeks ago…
cabanas en los arboles
Ever wondered how it feels to be a bird? Yeah, me too. Trouble is I’m a bit acrophobic, how do birds cope with peering down? Early October I found myself in this beautiful forest. I think I maybe even ‘found…
I’m possible
I mentioned in my last blogpost I’d got a crappy polaroid camera – a cheap, plastic 80s one but Oh.My. I loaded it with some black and white film from Impossible Project and that’s where the magic happened. I’m in…
Derailment
I’m just going to tell you exactly what I told Cherry. She wanted to know how my Sept went. Oh, it started off great. I had all sorts of fresh and new exciting ideas. But one week into Sept and a sharp,…
Seasons
Last time I wrote on here we were heading full throttle into all that summer promises, and it scrubbed up good, my friend. I spent my days with my family here, fitting in work and friends and a whole bunch of good…
Looking back 2
This is my beloved Spotty horse. He’s not actually mine you understand, but he is my leitmotiv. I’ve photographed this appaloosa so often over the years, that I feel some sort of kinship. The above was the first time I ever…
In the dark
This week a very official man with a brief case came round, and I was feeling anxious. Not a big deal, but I am a serial worrier. As soon as he stepped through the door he smiled and said he…
Theatrical
I recently went to an exhibition, “Costumes en Scène” featuring costumes, wigs, make-up and props from the Theatre, Opera and Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse. Exquisite tutus and ballet shoes from Swan Lake and Don Quixote: The shadows cast by a War…
Looking back
Yesterday I posted this photograph up on Instagram as a #throwbackthursday and thought I’d like to expand on it a bit here. I took this back in 2012, at our village fête. Every village in France has it’s annual get…
Brasserie du Quercorb
One day my friend Jayne rang me…she and her husband Paul own a craft brewery in the local town of Puivert, Brasserie du Quercorb. Tomorrow is brewing day she said, perhaps I could come along and take some photos? She pointed…
Mis-takes and out-takes
Sometimes you have the One That Got Away and sometimes you have One That Didn’t Get Away But Everything Was Wrong. When I took this picture I was driving up the little lane that winds up from my village into the hills….
How it works
While sorting out our books recently I came across this gem. An original Ladybird ‘How it works’ children’s book from 1970, recently revived for Ladybird book-loving adults.Of course what makes this one so special is it’s the camera, and I suppose it…
The elephant in the room
Chained circus elephant, France 2015 | Mamiya DSX | Ilford Delta 100 Recently I read on the excellent Brain Pickings an article about John Berger’s Why Look at Animals? that prompted me to buy the book. Aaaand now I’m back to…
Mérens of summer
A little over a year ago I photographed some Mérens horses for the first time. I got in touch with stables that were happy to let me come to photograph their horses; Christel understood my wishes and left me and them…
Reading the tea leaves
2015 was a time of moving around, picking things up and putting them down. A feeling of restlessness that needed to quiet down had been bubbling under for a long time and I needed a challenge and a breaking of…
Reflections and inspiration
Lately I’ve been a little concerned that I’m photographing Milla quite a bit. Like, if I want to improve my portrait skills, surely the logical thing is to take photos of a diversity of people. But you have to work…
Château de Camon
Pentax K1000 | Ilford FP4+Back in December I went into L’Abbaye-Château de Camon (soon to lose it’s circumflex) in the next village from me, for something. Luckily I had my camera with me and was blessed with gorgeous winter sun….
Lost in a Forest
The honest truth is I’m a bit of an idiot. 7 years ago I began to shoot film again, and in those days blogging was where it’s was at. The photo below was one of the first I took then,…
Book Club Shoot
Just before Christmas the members of a local, English-speaking book club had their Christmas lunch. Instead of meeting up at a restaurant they went for a pop-up style of get-together at Domaine de Capiès. Wise move. Capiès is owned by Tilly…
New Ghosts
For quite a while now I’ve been seeking out old, undeveloped but exposed rolls of film. Mostly I find them in junk shop cameras that I have to buy just to get the film out, and often the cameras are…
Trio of hound
Bit of a dog thing going on round here lately. Satie the Italian Greyhound tripod lives with my friend Kate, she calls him the runty dog, He may be small in stature but he’s huge in the personality department. Kate…
Luna
Luna is my dog. She’s adorable, but probably the most brainless dog on the planet. There are three outcomes in her brain; hopefully food, or something is a game, or else she’s in trouble. In my experience with dogs, it’s…
A year of sundays #2
I’ve been a bit slow with updating my Year of Sundays project and there have been a couple of changes too. First, I have switched from Kodak Gold 200 to Fujifilm 200. It’s far easier for me to get hold of here,…
Porto
Earlier this month we had a few days in Porto. It got off to a bad start; I was tired, hungry and irritable and we got horribly lost arriving at the metro on a rainy, grey Sunday evening. Our airbnb was in…
A year of sundays
I did an photographic audit, if you will. Two things I realised are 1) I don’t print anywhere near as many photographs as I should. I mean, give me a slow stroll through a proper photo album over a quick scroll through a…
