Bird To The Air

Bird To The Air began without intention.

I carried a 35mm camera with me everywhere, photographing whatever caught my attention as I worked on other projects and continued to develop my understanding of photography and colour. The photographs accumulated over several years, made without any clear idea of what I was looking for or what they might become.

When I eventually had the films processed, I was disappointed. Returning to the photographs the following day, without expectation, I began to see connections. Together, they revealed an instinctive language of colour, an attentiveness to people, places and objects, and a way of looking that felt entirely natural to me. The photographs were made before I understood what they were about.

I printed the work myself in the darkroom, discovering how the photographs changed through the process of printing. It became another way of understanding how I saw, and of allowing the images to find their place within a larger whole.

Through looking, returning to the images and allowing connections to emerge, I began to recognise a body of work I had never consciously set out to make.