Artwork description:

The photographs are an attempt to understand pockets of time, not moments or snapshots but sections of time passing. The images are taken at dusk when there is just enough light to hint at features and shapes, but little enough in order that the details are absorbed back into the surfaces that I seek to discover. The camera shutter is left open for several minutes to soak up all the available light and find things in the near dark that I can only imagine are there. I use it to see what I cannot. The result is an image that records the passage of time but in a gentle way, detached from real time experience and the fixation for the hard-edged image.

It is a conscious decision to use traditional photographic techniques to fix the image - methods that don’t even out flaws or faults. The practice and process of using an old camera or an imperfect plastic toy lens, combined with the unpredictability of film in low light, act as a purposeful ritual and a necessary marker in the physical recording process. They enforce a real pause before the shutter is opened. This pause encourages a patience that often eludes me in daily life - a time in which I can ‘feel‘ my surroundings rather than see them.

Materials used:

Ilford archival silk photographic paper

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