I'm still at it. The still life photographic project. I spent so much time researching the theoretical discourse, the histories and contemporary practice that I'm invested in the form. And because I find it difficult I embrace the challenge. Although I'm not wholly attached to originality above all else it would be desirable to find some kind of niche in my practice. Recently I changed locations, from the back garage studio to a room in the house. The summer light was too high and harsh and also too extreme in dynamic range over the course of a day with the arc of the sun. So I moved to room where there's a large window, a good north light and  more space to set things out. There's quite a lot of clutter involved in still life photography, at least the way I do it. As it happens this is the start of the season for excellent light back in my garage space. The frosted glass window is smaller but as the sun lowers lightly and is less intense there are some wonderful casts of light at certain times. When it's too dark is a good time for long exposures using the pinhole camera. 

I started tethering properly with this tentative new series. This is where you hook up the computer to the laptop so you have a generous view of your composition. I have to say it helps to judge lines, margins, light and of course depth of field. The two images I'm showing were taken with a Sony A7r3 and a Voigtlander 50mm F2 APO-Lanthar lens which is by far and away the best lens I've ever used. This is a manual lens which has excellent fine-detailed focusing capabilities in combination with the Sony body. With these tools I've been working to define compositions either by a thin sliver of focus, the circle of confusion, or by defining an accurate hyperfocal distance (using a phone app and a tape measure) to try to get the whole show in focus.

This is called The Boat and the Lighthouse. Initially I had no intention of seeing these simple compositions as anything other than studies in form - shape, colour, light, distribution - but on my first attempt at juxtaposing various objects I began to see the overall composition as something else, a representation of a narrative, however tenuous or abstracted. The other thing is that the objects are taken partly from the domestic environment (in this case a handbell) and partly from the forest, these being the environments in which I work from day to day. I'm very pleased with the concept and ideas behind this this though the challenge from now on is to find enough domestic objects with sufficient 'resonance' to create some kind of secondary representation along with the woodland found materials. As you can see the point of focus is at the stern of the 'boat'. With these wide aperture images there's a huge difference in how an image can speak to you depending on whether the out-of-focus field is towards the front or the back of the frame. This particular choice the direction of travel with respect to the boat. I leave the viewer to judge. A minor point is that I'm pleased with the high key nature of this photograph. It wasn't intended or post-processed as such. I don't tend to do very much in post production because I want to get as close as possible to what I want in-camera. Not much point in having a good lens if you're not going to put it to best use.

These are two takes on what I've called Eve and the Serpent, based on the same narrative concept as the previous image, though here the reference is Biblical or even mythical. I think that in both cases the use of composition (obviously) and depth of field (less so) help to offer entirely different readings of the image. The first has Eve, another small handbell, somewhat sheltered by what might be read as a cave or a tree. She's perhaps unsure or afraid of the serpent . Here I would say that the serpent is the protagonist, approaching. The tree or cave is not entirely in sharp focus but it's defined enough to make it and Eve the combined subject. In the second image Eve has emerged from the shelter to confront the serpent. Both shelter and serpent are more or less equally out of focus which places Eve clearly at the centre of the narrative. Which works best? Let me know your thoughts. Maybe both would sit well on different pages in a photobook. Decisions, decisions. Finally I think that such readings become more evident or welcome because of the introduction of what we might call a human figure, albeit in in the form of a brass bell. 

​There'll be more on this as I work my way through other combinations and narrative ideas. Thanks for reading.

There are five or six forest walks that I do regularly. These are the primary sites of my landscape art. I carry out my inspections, have a quiet word with the trees as befits my position, track the wildlife, keep a keen eye on the state of the paths, formulating various punishments for horse riders, make notes of littering and so forth. The forests have become more interesting the more I walk them and ever more intriguing when I leave the path and head into the depths, which I do more frequently, to take pictures, to film, to think. They're all within less than an hour from my house but I'm not going to say precisely where in case I'm forced to go full redneck on hordes of idiots with camper vans who find out and decide to drive around like plague zombies, choking up the back roads or dumping their litter.

One such walk I call the fairy walk because children and their parents have decorated the trees along the lower half of the walk with small wooden house shapes. These have painted-on doors, windows and other features My daughter tells me that this is also done in and around parts of Galway in the west of Ireland. I can see how young children might imagine their hand-made houses to be a way for the fairies to get in and out of the tree. I used to imagine such things when I was very young.

​But now I'm old(er) and before me lies the serious business of making something photographic out of this walk, a walk with its own baked-in narrative. Further on we find small bridges, swings, a gnarly tree, a hut with other wooden structures and enclosures for kids to play. Sadly the hut will have to go because people were making fires - never a good idea in a forest. I mentioned narrative and this is the key to such a project. It's not really about telling a linear illustrated story as such with its plot or dramatic action. In a photographic series the trick for me is to tell a different kind of story by means of the play of forms or colour or depth of field (which are forms themselves), along with the techniques of the photobook learned from accomplished artists. For example, what should follow this image? Should it be on the same page, double spread or overleaf? Then there's the question of getting the framing right, or mixing formats - landscape with square with nearly square because of the need to crop. You'll get the idea from some of the test shots I've gathered together into small groups. Did I ever say that I find photography difficult? Maybe it all falls into place with experience.

I love photobooks (did I mention I have a couple of zines for sale?). I also love visiting photographic galleries but the two experiences are entirely different. On the one hand a day out to the gallery, a social experience, a chance to be sniffy about curators, a coffee and a cake afterwards. On the other hand you get all the prints from an artist's project in one book, often with text (for better or worse) and layered on top of the art in the photography is the art of sequencing which in the best photographers can be as pleasurable as the images themselves. It's an aspiration. So at some point I'd like my Inspector series to find its way into print but there's still a way to go.

​Patience or rather time is important in a project like this, whether it comes from virtuous patience or less virtuous procrastination. In my case it has meant that I've seen the walk from all angles and in all weathers and now I can risk saying that I know what I want.

Here's an excerpt from my photography log earlier this year.

20/4/21
..then I went on a very good walk to put into practice some of the ideas I picked up from bits of research, eg photobooks. I did the whole circuit which is a lot (100 photos). Got everything I wanted and more, though I could do more on the ‘empty subject’, for example a fence with background, then something busy in the vicinity, then back to details around the fence, as if the eye was roving (this type of photobook sequencing will be understood better if you watch Alex Soth on his YouTube photobook series)..

​There’s always a problem with something when I do photography (actually when I do anything involving decision-making and creativity) and here it’s primarily the depth of field. For these initial shots I used a Fuji X-T3, an excellent mirrorless camera which has a cropped sensor. The lenses are sharp with excellent rendering and they offer some fine distant blurring as you can see from some of the shots but now, having seen the work of some of the large format photographers and some who use very good lenses on a full frame digital cameras, I want to be able to get a sliver of the overall deep field in focus and to move this back and fore till the subject or subjects has the prominence required within a well structured photo. To this end I’ll re-photograph the entire walk, or most of it, using a recently acquired Sony A7riii with a Voigtlander 50mm F2 APO-Lanthar (manual) lens which is probably the most excellent photographic experience I’ve ever had. I wanted initially to replicate some of the shots using a Zenza Bronica ETRS which is a medium format film camera but might wait till late autumn or winter to make my own monochrome prints in the darkroom, possibly as gifts or for round the house. Of which more later.

Yes I know, everything's on the left. Some need reversing.

I've been back and fore to the forest in all weathers - walking, sitting, thinking, filming and snapping and now I have a 5' film in its final stages. Not being a 'proper' professional film-maker I lack knowledge about how to establish an effective workflow. Not that it matters too much. I begin with ideas and concepts along with various pieces of imagery in my mind which then need to be realised as film. One thing I did was to mix colour imagery with monochrome, to differentiate elements of the narrative. I'm sure there's a rule somewhere about that sort of thing. The sound comes and goes as the project develops, as do the words, spoken or written on the screen. As with many art forms there comes a point when you see the living work, the organism, as complete unto itself. Rather than go into a long essay about ideas I thought to share some of the text I want to include in the film, along with some stills. I will say however that most of my conversations with a forest end up in confessions, apologies and remorse. We haven't really looked after our forests very well if the truth be told.

you have no need for words

and yet you are a talking book

you ask for nothing

you the cryptic host

and me the guest, the parasite

your toppled elders have the priest's ear

inviting apology, remorse, confession

with a sigh