Frozen in time these photographs depict a world that is rarely seen. Taken at close proximity the subjects are transformed into microcosms of flora, meteors lost in space and time and bubbles of water that look like sea monsters rising from the deep. Sunlight and a fast shutter speed captured all that was needed leaving the rest of the image in darkness.
Emptiness, quietness, stillness, nothingness are just some of the feelings that are experienced when someone has suffered a loss of a loved one. The photographs interpret scenes where it appears nothing moves, we only catch glimpses of movement, giving us a faint hint of life. The photographs were a visual response to my mother's death in November 2014. They were taken in the Women's Hospital Liverpool where she passed away.
My interest in photography led me to experimenting with the idea of the Camera Obscura, courtesy of my son's bedroom. The basic idea was to turn his bedroom into a camera. By simply blocking out any available light that came into the room and cutting a small hole in the material which covered the window, we were able to have a projection of the view out of the back of the house, upside down of course. I then took several long exposures of the projection and rotated it. The final image is a nine minute exposure.
These photographs came about purely by accident, as do many of my projects. Whilst on a family holiday I was taking a group photograph. In my haste to try and take the photograph and catch up with the rest of the party, I altered the zoom while taking the photograph. The result was quite astonishing. During my time at University I was able to create movement through the process of stop motion so the motion was created from looking at still photographs fed through a slideshow. These current photographs were literally capturing movement in a still photograph.
This series of photographs was a visual response to particular urban and rural spaces. I was interested in how light could change a picture and bring about a particular mood. By manipulating the aperture and shutter settings on the camera I was able to take light out of a daytime scene. What is seen are only shadows and silhouettes. Where there is light we pick up traces of shapes and forms, and in the dark we see nothing, only what the mind creates.