EXHIBITIONS

An invitation to exhibit gave me a year to prepare a body of work that I could present.  My initial excitement soon turned to mild panic coupled with a big dose of imposter syndrome!  Knowing that I needed to put together a cohesive collection of images and not just a random selection of my favourite photos, meant that I had to decide on a theme.  The lightbulb moment came whilst watching a recording of an online talk.  The talk was by American photographer Stephanie Johnson, a leading light in the genre of ICM photography (intentional camera movement) and founder, creator and publisher of ‘ICM Photography Magazine’. Although I had briefly tried ICM before, Stephanie’s talk sparked something in me, so much so that I put the video on pause, grabbed my camera, went out to take pictures and started playing with multiple exposures and camera movement.

 

Over the following months, I went out with my camera at least three times a week to different locations within 20 miles of my home near Canterbury, constantly experimenting with different ways of moving the camera, trying movements of varying speeds as well as adjusting the camera settings with various ND filters to block the light and allow me longer exposure times. The success rate was pretty low with the vast majority of photos from each shoot ending in the bin. Over time I started to realise what worked for me and what I was looking for.  I needed the image to retain a certain amount of structure and line to still be familiar but with enough abstract movement to keep it dreamlike and ethereal.

 

With slow shutter speeds the colours often seem much more intense and as you’ll see from my photos I’m a great lover of colour!  I usually blend together two, three or four of the images taken at a scene and experiment with different opacity until I get something I like. I am not aiming for my images to look realistic but hope that the viewer will be able to connect with the pictures and maybe feel some of the atmosphere of the moment.

 

I’ve been out in all weathers working on this project. I got soaked to the skin in the pouring rain many times whilst trying to protect my camera under my coat between shots. Some were taken in gale force winds hanging on to railings - then I didn’t have to move the camera as the wind did it for me as I snatched photos! But I’ve loved every minute and would recommend working on a project to anyone who felt in limbo with their photography.

 

All images in this exhibition were taken in South East Kent in 2022/23.