Photography as a medium traditionally records a single point in space at a particular point in time. With this project I aim to subvert this idea to produce images which record a journey through the landscape over an extended period of time. My intent is to represent the sensory overload I feel walking in woodland and reflect on how a journey through the landscape is a succession of encounters with various scenes which become an imagined idealised landscape in my memory. I hope to evoke the way my gaze constantly wanders while walking in woodland, never settling on a single view for long being unable to take in a wide vista in the way that one can in a more open expansive landscape like the coast. The final images serve as a record of points of interest I’ve glanced at during my travels and how the scenery changed throughout my journey. I hope that these multiple exposures convey the atmosphere of the landscape as well as the moods it invoked in me. Although these images are technically each a single photo, produced by combining anywhere from three to six separate exposures in camera, I think of them as collages of my interactions with the landscape. Each of the images is created in camera on a single walk, usually over a period of an hour or two. Additional exposures are overlayed on top of each other to fill all parts of the frame with interest and build up a dense collage.

About

I grew up in Bridgend, South Wales near the Glamorgan Heritage Coast and have many happy childhood memories of time spent on its various beaches and clifftop footpaths. It was along this coast that my enduring love of the great outdoors was born. After leaving school I went on to study geography at Bristol University, a subject I chose because of my fascination with the natural world. Soon after graduating I bought my first mobile phone with a competent camera inbuilt, in the days before these were completely ubiquitous. This marked the beginning of my love of landscape photography as I would take photos on walks in the local countryside and coast. I soon bought my first DSLR and began to go out with the express intention of making landscape photos rather than these being a secondary consideration to the walk itself. Over the years my style has shifted away from representational vistas towards the more abstract. I now mainly practice three distinct photographic techniques; intentional camera movement to create abstracted simplified views particularly of woodland, using a telephoto lens to isolate details of the interplay of light and water on the surface of rivers and making multiple exposures to create layered collages. I currently live in Monmouthshire, South Wales near to the Gwent Levels, Wye Valley and Forest of Dean which provide ample inspiration for my work. Most recently I've primarily been focused on creating multiple exposures in camera while out walking in local woodlands and wetlands. I usually travel light only carrying a small mirrorless camera, zoom lens and travel tripod. My intent is to record the sensory overload I often feel walking in the nature and reflect on how a journey through the landscape is a succession of encounters with various scenes which become an imagined idealised landscape in my memory.