Breakthrough
I’m a bit of a scavenger, always have been.
In recent years, this has bled into my arts practice.
Derelict buildings, detritus washed up in bays and on the seashore. These are the places I wander in the hope of seeing something I want to add to my collection of ‘found items’.
My collection is eclectic and includes natural and man-made objects such as leaves, insects, bleached bones, industrial debris.
From time to time I would photograph these objects in situ. But I was increasingly dissatisfied with the results I was getting with digital photography.
So, I took my treasures home. And they gathered dust – some serving as occasional props in the arts practice I tried to build based on digital photography.
2014 was a year of revelation. I discovered wet collodion photography. The feel, the smell, the tactile nature of this process recalled for me the feeling of handling the objects I wanted to preserve photographically – with each of them I had experienced a unique sensory experience. Wet collodion is equally a sensory experience.
My early results were crude and in some respects disappointing. But even then I could see that I had found the medium through which I could express the character of my found objects.
In recent years, this has bled into my arts practice.
Derelict buildings, detritus washed up in bays and on the seashore. These are the places I wander in the hope of seeing something I want to add to my collection of ‘found items’.
My collection is eclectic and includes natural and man-made objects such as leaves, insects, bleached bones, industrial debris.
From time to time I would photograph these objects in situ. But I was increasingly dissatisfied with the results I was getting with digital photography.
So, I took my treasures home. And they gathered dust – some serving as occasional props in the arts practice I tried to build based on digital photography.
2014 was a year of revelation. I discovered wet collodion photography. The feel, the smell, the tactile nature of this process recalled for me the feeling of handling the objects I wanted to preserve photographically – with each of them I had experienced a unique sensory experience. Wet collodion is equally a sensory experience.
My early results were crude and in some respects disappointing. But even then I could see that I had found the medium through which I could express the character of my found objects.
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