In the same river twice.
Since a collaboration with poet John Armstrong about relationship with landscape and the question “when did your relationship with landscape start?” my personal work has lead me to explore places I used to play as a child, in particular a local river where I would, having donned my welly boots go fishing for sticklebacks, bullheads and eels with small nets and hands, free from parental constraint.
Getting in the river again made me consider time, it coincided with the birth of my first grandchild and turning 50 which only added to the contemplation.
Much of the river is the same as it was as a child and so the veil of memory is thin when I'm there, sometimes I am the boy and this life has been just a thought and then I'm back as the man but the connection between the two is bridged in the flow of the water. The Heraclitus quote “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man” came to mind but rather I am in the same river twice or maybe the river is the conecting point.
All the images are long exposures and mainly hand held. The long exposures reflect the passage of time, I love to stretch the moment, to step out of how we perceive what we call time.I move the camera while the image is being taken, sometimes following a line I want to enhance, sometimes walking in or by the river. Other times I hold the camera at arms length, this makes my had shake, something I've got from my father, when this happens the specular highlights in the water become swirling complexes reflecting my physical vibration into the image.
