My work explores themes of wilderness, escape and time. Working predominantly in series, my work seeks to examine the relationship of our digitally driven and screen based society to the natural world which surrounds us. The images celebrate the beauty of nature, and I use digital post-processing to better represent my own emotions within the picture. By using a screen to capture my own escape from it, I find the creative process begins all over again.
Time is an ever present theme within my work, as it is with all photography. Whether it be a representation of the effects of time on the landscape, or the suggestion of our insignificance in the face of it, I use, capture and manipulate the passing of time as a tool to create my images. Often I use long exposures to enhance both my own visual aesthetic and to distance the image from the reality of the scene.
I aim to show that a landscape can be perceived not only by the physical way we make use of nature, but also through the phycological projections we place on the country that lies outside of our cities and towns. Inspired directly from my own admiration of nature, I hope the audience will find some new appreciation for the natural world that sits beyond our concrete streets, where true experiences can be found by putting down the phone and stepping off the road.
The work is a progression of wider fine art photography practices, influenced by photographers such as Ansel Adams and Joel Tjintjelaar, and painters Mark Rothko and William Turner. These artists have influenced my own visual style, in particular the use of gradients; manipulating the fall off of light to better serve the emotion of the subject. A focus on minimalism is developed from a need to organise the chaos found in the natural environment, and is predominant throughout my work.