At last...

Seems like ages since I had a chance to get out and actually take some new photographs. This weekend I managed it at last, with a trip into the Lancashire hills. And at last it feels like Spring is finally coming, after a long hard winter.

Springtime 1, 2011

Springtime 2, 2011

Springtime 3, 2011

Springtime 4, 2011

Surfaces

Cicatrix Caementicium, 2009

Evolving from the Dis/Integration project, and serving as an adjunct to the location-specific concept of that series, I am also working on another series with a more general exploration of weathered and deteriorated surfaces away from the salt water and ozone infused air of the North Sea coastline. 

Barn Door No.2, 2011

This series also moves away (in part) from the abstraction in destruction, to examine and evoke both the geometry of the surfaces themselves, and also the interaction of the corroding surface and corrosion itself with other elements. 

The Passage of Time, 2010

Objects and symbols, in juxtaposition or in symbiosis, create a contrast or enhancement which invite us to examine the process of deterioration, and remind us of our inevitable involvement in that process. 

Turn Left, 2011

While we talk at length of how the human race is destroying the planet which is our home, these documents of decay call to our attention the inescapable fact that, in an individual sense, we are all ultimately destroyed by natural phenomena, and our unnatural obsessions only hasten that process on a personal, but also a global scale.

Light and Brilliance

What I did this gloomy February Sunday afternoon. A treasury featuring the incredible depths of talent in the UK based photographers of Etsy.

Look, click and comment here.

Actually, that's not all I did this gloomy Sunday...but the other thing is staying under wraps for now. All will be revealed in due course!

Muse in Shoes

She is a deep and powerful source of inspiration to me.

She Stumbled, He Caught Her   2011

Artistically and personally. Mind and soul. Essence.

She Jumped, She Flew   2011

She is beautiful and sublime.

She Walked Into Her Future   2011

Dis/Integration

This ongoing photographic series evolves from an interest in surfaces under stress, weathering, deterioration and decay. Dis/Integration is an exploration and exposition of the process in which distress and decay in themselves create beauty.

Dis/Integration Series 1-6

The UK's East coast, where I live and where all these images were captured, is an area where the elements are acting dramatically on the coastline and landscape.

The sea is rarely angry here, but its formidable power is still felt, as erosion gradually but inexorably eats into the land. Whole villages have disappeared, and the predicted rise in sea levels mean large areas are expected to succumb in the future. The coast is studded with man-made attempts to hold the sea at bay, but the task is futile.

Dis/Integration Series 7-13

The weather is rarely extreme here. We are sheltered from the atlantic storms which batter the western coastline. But sometimes, when the wind swings around, the weather comes straight from the arctic circle, or the winds scream across the European continent from Siberia, turning our coast into a desolate, inhospitable, but still beautiful place.

Dis/Integration Series 14-16

And with the weather comes destruction and decay. An unstoppable decomposition of the manufactured and also the natural world, a constant reminder that everything created is ultimately destroyed, that birth is the beginning of a journey with only one possible outcome, that despite the advance of civilisation and technology the power of nature remains always outside our control.

Dis/Integration Series 17-19

So, the question becomes whether we despair at our lack of ability to control our ultimate destiny or that of our creations, or accept the transience inherent in our existence and celebrate the moments we experience and the beauty within them. The Dis/Integration series is an invitation to experience every moment as fully as we are able and focus on the things we can control instead of the things we can't, in the knowledge that our time is short. 

Find the complete portfolio here.