I guess what started my relationship with photography, initially, was really home movies and family portraits and the contrast that existed between them. My nan got a video camera when I was young and she had that thing basically glued to her. Making family films about anything and everything! She’d set up the projector for movie and slide nights when ever I stayed with her; a bed sheet pinned to the wall, lights down and freshly popped popcorn, mixed with moments of awkwardness and raucous laughter. There was always something free and natural that occurred in nan’s movies, that looked starkly different to the family portraits that also occupied her home. The portraits looked forced, unnatural and disconnected.

I never really wanted to be a photographer, all my dreams revolved around music, being a musician and songwriter, but my pragmatic side took over and I decided I needed a “fall back” career – so I studied photography and that was the start of a new beginning. When I began making images I wasn’t really sure what images I did want to make, but I knew that I didn’t want to make images that looked like our family portraits. I was hoping for connection and engagement. It took me a long time to find it.

We all understand that ‘truth’ is so subjective.

We are all creating our own versions of truth, our personal propagandas. What I prefer to look at in my work is the politics of a person’s representation and their collaboration, consent and contribution to how that representation is pictured and then presented. Making sure it’s as close to the version of ‘truth’ they wish to share.

The viewer is always a contributor of meaning to the work – online, offline, IRL. They are the last element in the creation of the image event.

Dreaming. Scribbling. Researching. Responding. Testing. Re-testing.

If the idea’s got legs, then I get very very nerdy and start project managing the life out of it. Developing Gantt charts, participant call-outs and information sheets, risk assessments, securing venues/public locations for potential outcomes, funding/budgets etc, etc. Once this is done, I have a pragmatic road map that covers all the big boring things and leaves me the room and the opportunity to just flow and focus on the making of work – which is a deeply intimate and collaborative process. The potential hurdles can be catered for and adjusted in the timing and plan. Although, my “crystal balling” definitely didn’t foresee any bloody global pandemic affecting the PHOTO 2020 [now PHOTO 2021] roll out… so it’s not a foolproof process.

Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism by Ariella Azoulay

Reasons to be cheerful

It’s a website put together by David Byrne. The byline is “A recipe book for solutions. No dietary restrictions.”

Lately, Lucinda Williams has been on HIGH rotation.

“People Have The Power” by Patti Smith

I’m “attempting” to work on a PhD, so time is mostly spent reading/writing and navel gazing. For me, the new world order of COVID-19 is not motivating in the slightest. I’m not rushing to create something new or artistically exorcise the beast from my psyche. I’m also avoiding all calls to join the “productivity porn” wagon that’s demanding we create-create-create! Rather, I’m doing more self care, being gentle to myself and my community. Sitting in the moment.

Although existing in the vulnerable category as a chronic asthmatic, I am thinking through ways to continue a practice in isolation, when the way of physically being with and relating deeply to women I work with is potentially in the past for the foreseeable future.

Rituals – long early morning walks with my dog, Bailey, where I breathe deeply, watch the light dance, and imaging the world isn’t as it is; while he sniffs and pisses and happily exists in the moment.

Other rituals – MANY coffees.

There’s always a million ideas for projects that are floating around in my mind, tagged on scraps of paper, written in note books, waiting for their time. Some are fleshed out, others skeletal. For me, projects kind of “raise their hand” when the time is right, some continue, others get put away.

Not to listen to anything my future self advices.