Dear Kairos - Shortlisted for Arles Prix du Livre

Putting a book out into the world comes as a real relief. The period in which it’s released isn’t always filled with the great sense of joy and accomplishment that you might imagine. The real beauty of it is knowing that once it’s in the world that countless people can encounter and engage with your creation. They can judge for what they perceive are your intentions, or they can dig into the layers that you put between the pages. Take it or leave it. By that point, it’s not up to me. Which makes it all the more rewarding when something you’ve made gets recognised by total strangers, people who have been drawn in by elements within the work that has encouraged them to dig deeper.

Getting nominated for prizes is far from my motivation for making books, and this one is a real surprise, because I had no idea that my publisher had submitted it. What a treat to be acknowledged alongside so many other wonderful publications.

Check out the really quite extensive list of books that have been shortlisted here.

(Thanks to Sarah for the portrait, one day the world may get to see more of what a stunningly talented creative person she is.)

Listening is risky

Do we ever dare to actually hear what we have to say to one another? Or are our minds so preoccupied with ourselves that we aren’t really listening, not because we don’t want to, but because we’re afraid to. 

Listening is risky. It involves an investment of emotional energy, of empathy and understanding that perhaps in that moment we don’t feel equipped to offer, but if we don’t, we miss out. We might even be missing out on the most important thing that that person will say all day, maybe even all week. It might be a coded cry for help, an admission, an apology or something that goes on to inform the relationship, but we won’t know unless we listen and admit that if we do, there might be consequences. 

Often listening is all that’s required. As an external processor, my wife knows that more often than not, all I need to do is verbalise something and that’s enough, to let the thought out and move on from there. However, sometimes we are required to actively listen and then act accordingly. It’s all too easy to hear something and park it away as if it was never said, but the foundation of a relationship and caring for someone is to have a level of responsibility for them, and sometimes that involves the risk of actually having to do something about what they’ve told you.

I’m speaking to myself as much as to anyone else, my brain seems to fizz around with so many of my own thoughts that it’s hard to switch off and not assume that whatever I’m hearing has to inform my own preoccupations. For me, I need to pursue ways in which to slow down, quieten my mind and be open and receptive to what people want to say, because how can we care for them if we don’t listen to what they have chosen to tell us.

This article is taken from my May Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

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Dear Kairos - Out Now

My new book ‘Dear Kairos’ is out now! I’m so excited that you’ll all get to hold a copy for yourselves!

Over the next few weeks copies will find their way to regional bookshops, but for now you can get a copy directly from the publisher. It will also be available next weekend at Offprint London (Turbine Hall at Tate Modern) from the Skinnerboox table.

Purchase from Skinnerboox here.

Dear Kairos - Launch at Fotograpfia Europea

I was very fortunate to be invited to present at Fotografia Europea to talk about my new book ‘Dear Kairos’, winner of the FE+SK Book Award 2023. The book will be published by Skinnerboox and be available to order in the next few days.

Boredom & Epiphany

I’ve recently been reading ‘The Courage to Create’ by American psychologist Rollo May. In a similar way to reading John Berger’s writing on creativity, he manages to put into words so many of the unconscious elements involved. It feels both affirming and inspiring to read what feels like a timeless assessment of what it means to create, not solely within the arts, but within the realms of science and maths, any discipline that involves a sense of discovery, of trial and error. 

One of the key elements of the creative process for me is the way in which the conscious and unconscious worlds unite, something which May analyses as a moment of ecstasy involving the whole self. Ecstasy is not merely a moment of hysteria, but that of ‘ex-statis’, an intensity of consciousness which fuses the division between the person and the object, a freeing sense of standing out from a prior understanding. 

Perhaps those heightened moments aren’t a daily occurrence, but his allusion is that of a heightened state, something which seemingly out of the blue offers clarity, a sense of seeing the world more vividly than before. As an artist, this is what I labour for, not as a means of gaining a temporary high, but that sense of purpose and breakthrough which allows for a greater understanding of the world. 

May goes on to dissect the notions of the unconscious meeting the conscious and how ideas can seemingly pop out of nowhere, but only if the groundwork has previously been laid. He draws a link between the fruitless graft, the research and testing which seemingly always comes before the moment of revelation, which more often appear when we are disengaged from the activity itself. 

Nick Cave alludes to this in his recent book of interviews with Sean O’Hagan when he comments that boredom is next to epiphany. I don’t think he necessarily means a religious moment of enlightenment, (although maybe it can feel like that at times) but more in the sense that these moments of inspiration do seem to appear when we are disengaged and doing something mundane like having a shower or doing the washing up. Our brains need space in order to process and invite these ideas in. We’re all aware that we can fill every moment with relentless scrolling, so perhaps it’s about taking more control over those habits in order to create space for our ideas to flourish. 

I thoroughly recommend reading both the Rollo May and Nick Cave books as a means of understanding more about the creative act, and in particular how the conscious and unconscious worlds can unite and blossom to generate something more fruitful and beautiful than we could otherwise fathom.

This article is taken from my April Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

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Nearest Truth - Group K Workshop - Athens

Later this spring I’ll be joining Raymond Meeks, Federico Clavarino, Myrto Steirou (Void Books) and Brad Feuerhelm to run the Nearest Truth Workshop ‘Group K’ in Athens. The workshop will result in a collective publication which I’ll be designing, to be published by Nearest Truth Editions.

I’ll also be hosting a launch for my upcoming book, ‘Dear Kairos’ during the workshop on 20th May at the gallery, IFAC Athina.

19-24, May 2023, 5-Day Workshop - Athens, Greece, IFAC Athina

“Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding the inconvenient edges of things, places, and other people. Edges are implied at the end of things familiar. They create definitions, both good and bad. This workshop will be devoted to confronting the seams of things, the borders between two finite propositions, and their in-between points of convergence. The remit is simple: find, interfere, observe, and document any edge between two parallel possibilities. There are no limitations, just intentions.”

“The results of this workshop will culminate in a portfolio/book with all parties to be published by Nearest Truth Editions in the late autumn of 2023. On-site, we will collectively print and produce individual versions of the portfolio for participants to take home. We will employ scanners, small prints, Xerox copies, glue sticks, and different papers. We will use local copy shops, and participants will be encouraged to bring new materials, printing substrates, etc., to the table.”

You can find out more and apply here: www.nearesttruthworkshops.com/photoworkshop

Radio 3 Play - Kafka's Dick

I had the pleasure of being invited by Naked Productions to photograph the cast for their latest radio play, Alan Bennett's drama Kafka's Dick, a play about the nature of fame, and how reputation is gained, with an all star cast featuring Toby Jones, Jim Broadbent, Fenella Woolgar, Mark Heap, Don Warrington and Jason Watkins.

It was a real treat to meet and photograph them all, to ask Mark Heap about his part in one of my favourite shows, Look Around You, and chat to Toby Jones about Detectorists and how good This Country is.

You can catch the play on Sunday 2nd April at 20:30 on BBC Radio 3.

Not being sure about uncertainty

We can find out anything we want, whenever we want. As a child, if I wanted to find out a fact I couldn’t just google it, I had to either look it up in a book or ask someone I knew. Not only are the processes of reading or conversation far more mentally engaging (the chances are I would have found out far more in terms of the context of the fact), the lack of an instant answer required me to hold onto the burning question until I had the right means to ask it. This is an invaluable filtering process by which the question would decide for itself whether it was important enough to remember, and occasionally I’d work out an answer for myself before I had a chance to ask something.


We are also living through an age which asks us to be certain. Politically, culturally, relationally, we are pushed towards polarising opinions over topical issues for which we are deemed to be on one side or the other. The internet necessitates instant responses, so the space and time for consideration and nuance feels like it is no longer there. 


The space for uncertainty is slowly being erased by technology and our political climate, which in some ways, I really don’t mind, because I find uncertainty deeply stressful. I crave completion and order, knowing that tasks are done and things are in their rightful place. Living with uncertainty wears me out, but I have to remind myself that creatively and spiritually, it’s quite often when I’m within that uncertain space that I’ll find out that there’s a deeper vein of interest than I originally considered. Sometimes it’s necessary to wrestle with the uncertainty in order to break away from the path we would have otherwise taken to find a greater freedom. That isn’t always pain free or easy, but it’s a means to learn and grow.


I remember as a teenager having a conversation with a youth leader. I arrived with an abundance of huge burning questions that I wanted answers to in order to set down the foundations of my life (we all went through that right?!). We sat for hours discussing all these topics which I presumed, as an older and wiser person in a position of leadership, he would have all the answers for. His response to so many of my huge questions was simply, “I’m not sure” or “Let me go away and think about that and I’ll come back to you." It was the most freeing and beautiful response he could have given. I wanted certainty, control and solidarity, but in his wisdom, he knew that often the truth is in the searching, within the not knowing. It’s where belief, faith and trust are required, not as a test, but a step into that which is unknown as a means of growing and learning. 

He didn’t offer me certainty because life doesn’t either. In fact, the mystery, beauty, elegance and coincidence of life seem to happen when I step out onto the path less trodden, when I remove predictability. As uncomfortable as it can be, this freedom gives me space to listen to what my heart is yearning for, to what my body is asking of me, to consider what I’m feeding myself and in return how that all reveals itself within how and who I am.

This article is taken from my March Mailout, which also features some of my latest cultural highlights.

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Textures & Surfaces

Rather than writing something myself this month, I’ve decided to share an excerpt from ‘The Passengers’ by Will Ashon. It’s an exquisite collection of responses from anonymous members of the public from across the UK, offering individual perspectives, experiences and secrets, things that unite us, things that make our lived experience unique. I've no idea who the author of this quote is, but it really resonated with me. I highly recommended picking up a copy of the book.

"There's a quote that I really like and I can’t remember who it’s by, but it’s by a snooty foreigner who said that the English don’t like music, they just like the noise it makes. I think that completely describes my relationship with music. I have no understanding of music, but I do like the noise it makes. And I feel the same about photography. I don’t understand photography in a way that a university-educated person might, but I like the way it looks, and I don’t think that’s a flippant thing to say about either of them, actually. The thing I like most about music is its timbres - it’s the textures, it’s the surfaces, it’s the way that this incredibly abstract art form can change your state of mind and get you into worlds that don’t exist. Just a load of waveforms in the ether. And exactly the same is true of photography, whether it be abstract or not - patters on a screen or a piece of paper, textures and colours and things that are not that dissimilar from sounds can get you into a space that nothing else can."

"One of the things I say about photography is that if it’s not better than being there, it’s not worth it. So if it’s just a record of an instant, if you’d been there you would’ve seen that. Fine, great, there’s a place for that. But photography at its finest is when it adds something that ind of wasn’t there-although obviously it was there cos it’s just a photograph. When you put things in a frame, when you cut around experiences, that makes it different. It’s about the totality in a way, isn’t it, That everything in that picture is meant to be there. In the same way that everything in a piece of music is meant to be there, even if it’s improvised and there’s accidents and all the rest of it. There’s still a reason why those fluffed notes are there and that’s part of it. And the same for photography. It’s absolutely fine for it to be messy round the edges, or wonky, or whatever. It’s an editing process."

"In a photograph, or in a piece of music, all well-created textures are beautiful. You can take a photograph of something horrible and you can make it beautiful through the textures, and the same is true of music. You can get some really harsh, horrible sounds and you can mash them together in some horrible ways, and it has a beauty. And if you can hold the space, as it were, then you can enjoy and appreciate the texture of any photograph - any good photograph, whatever that means. And I guess, if you wanted to be philosophical, you could say the same thing about life, although obviously it’s an awful lot harder when it’s punching you in the face and it hurts than when it’s a piece of paper, or some waveforms. But there is a beauty to all of it, even the stuff that really seems like it isn’t."

This article is taken from my February Mailout, which also features some of my latest cultural highlights.

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FE + SK BOOK AWARD 2023: The Winner

I'm very pleased to share that I'm the recipient of the Fotographia Europea + Skinnerboox Book Award 2023!

My book, 'Dear Kairos' will be published in an edition of 500 with Skinnerboox and will launch during the opening days of Fotografia Europea, in Reggio Emilia on 28-30th April.

A huge thank you to the jury, Chiara Capodici, Tim Clark and Milo Montelli for selecting my book dummy.

Dear Kairos is a very solid and well-constructed work. It is an attempt to reflect through a sequence of images on the deeper nature of photography, using a place as a pretext and as a starting point to carry out an investigation into the role of the photographer and how this can influence the determination of external and internal events. The way in which the images dialogue with each other allows the viewer to be an active part in the flow of the sequence and to question himself in turn about his own role, consequently also generating an important reflection on the relationships between the photographic medium, representation and the passage of time.

Now just the small matter of getting it ready for printing! 

Fotografia Europea 2023 - Award Shortlist

The book dummy of the work I’ve been making in Athens, titled ‘Dear Kairos’, is one of ten books to be shortlisted for the FE+SK Book Award. It’s a privilege to have my work selected and the prospect of having my work book released with an established publisher such as Skinnerboox is something I’ve aspired to for a long time.

Look Photo Biennial - Final Weekend

This weekend is the last chance to see my exhibition at Spinners Mill, Leigh, as part of Look Photo Biennial 2022, run by the wonderful Open Eye Gallery.

Originally commissioned by The Washington Post for an article about peat bog restoration in Lancashire, the story featured on the front cover of the paper during Cop26!

“With the warming world impacting every corner of the globe, a sea change is necessary in our attitudes to nature and our place within it. One of the challenges of the changing climate is its scale and complexity, which requires us to connect our everyday lived experience with events unfolding on our screens in distant, disparate parts of the world.”

Thanks to Open Eye Gallery, Spinners Mill, Mario Popham, Charlie Booth and the guys at Then There Was Us for making the show happen.

Dave Heath - 'One Brief Moment' - Review for ASX

Over the past 6 months I’ve invested a lot more time in my writing, constructing essays for my book projects as well as for my monthly newsletters and I’m delighted to have been invited to write photobook reviews for American Suburb X.

One Brief Moment published by Stanley/Barker contains a series of portraits taken on the streets of North American cities in the 1960’s by Dave Heath.

“These may be brief moments, but the democracy of the street gracefully allows the individuals here to be connected with one another and, to us, a sensibility greater than that of any single moment. Together, it is a sea of expressions, glances, and gestures that seem to carry the mixed weight, confusion, and expectation of the decade.”

You can read the full review on American Suburb X.

Will Ashon - Book Cover Designs

I’ve recently begun playing more with design elements within my work, experimenting with how I can present imagery in combination with text as I work towards some upcoming photobook design projects.

As an experiment, I wanted to attempt some redesigns of the cover of Will Ashon’s ‘The Passengers’, a book that I’ve been enjoying reading, but I wasn’t particularly won over by the original cover.

Interview with Nearest Truth/ASX

Over the past year I’ve had the privilege of speaking regularly with Brad Feuerhelm, a friend and mentor who is guiding me through the creation of my book of images made in Athens. We recorded an interview for Nearest Truth/ASX, which you can find on his Patreon (paywall). I’m hoping I’ll be able to confirm a publisher for the work in the next few months, so watch this space.

Exhibition - East Manchester Young People Photography Workshops at Manchester Central Library

Manchester Central Library is currently exhibiting a set of images made by the young people of East Manchester.

Made through a series of workshops that I ran without youth groups last summer, the exhibition includes a beautiful selection of street, portrait, still life and landscape photography, all made within their local communities and exploring themes of family, hopes, fears and their response to the city that they call home. It’s wonderful to be able to share the exhibition with people of Manchester and I am extremely proud of all those who took part and contributed to the show. A huge thank you to Chris Macintosh for enabling it all to happen and inviting me to be part of the project.

Forwards

The nature of the work I make has inherently involved me with events in the past. It’s certainly within my nature to deal with what has passed and the requirements of here and now rather than consider the future, but after so much change and turmoil in my life over the past few years, I feel I’m now at a point where I want to look forward, and I can’t help but feel I’ve got too many options.

When I look back and consider what led me to where I am (professionally, geographically, relationally), it seems as though the decisions were barely made, simply a timeline of where I was and where I am now, but that of course isn’t true. Every big decision is preempted by a series of smaller decisions, which are influenced by how people respond to us, dismiss us or invite us in and I think it’s important to consider how our paths may have been different. That’s not to suggest any regret about the decisions that I’ve made, but it can be a significant help in making decisions about the present and the future. 

What felt like mistakes or failures in the past, over time, turned into life lessons. The priorities which we once held shift and change as our world changes around us and our thoughts and feelings evolve within us. The straight line that we may perceive we’ve lived along doesn’t have to carry us forwards in some sort of predestined way, we have the autonomy to choose, to prioritise and imagine how life could be better, not only for ourselves but for future generations. 

This experiment is carried out beautifully in Paul Auster’s 4321 (thanks to Klaus Pichler for the recommendation), detailing 4 different versions of the same boy’s life, evolving in tandem through the book as internal and external forces influence the paths that he takes. It’s a fascinating read (albeit a long one!), that invites the reader to consider how life can be different to what we know it to be.

I undertook my own experiment a couple of weeks ago as I went out to take photographs, as I do every year, at dawn on 30th December, the anniversary of my father’s passing. This year, I decided to return to the location which I first visited on the 30th back in 2013. I wanted to sense what it would feel like to be back 10 years on, to consider what has passed, changed, how I see the world differently. 

In terms of making any photographs, I felt trapped by the past. I couldn’t escape the images that I made ten years ago and as I slowly climbed the hill, the view felt dull and lifeless. I couldn’t help but feel like I should be somewhere else. As much as I wanted to return and reflect, I had the need to explore something beyond what I had explored before. I got back to the car feeling slightly dejected, without much to show for my early morning efforts, but as I drove away I crossed the river and felt compelled to stop. I took 10 minutes to explore the riverbank and the combination of light, mist and the flowing river resonated. 

What I was looking for wasn’t at the top looking down, it was down in the valley. I didn’t need to return and replicate, I needed to respond to the now, to trust my instinct and allow myself to explore.

This article is taken from my January Mailout, which also features Granta, Jack Whitefield, Detectorists and my interview with Nearest Truth/ASX.

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Working in, from and through adversity.

Since moving back to Hampshire in the summer, alongside a decent amount of childcare and house moving admin, I’ve been editing and compiling new book edits. As much as I enjoy experimenting and making these, I’m looking forward in the new year to starting on a few ideas that have been ruminating for a while. I’ve been considering what my drive for those ideas is and reflecting on what has led me to make the projects in the past. 

Although perhaps not the reason for the creation of a project, the common theme is adversity. The personal work that I’ve created on my own is heavily influenced by the losses that I’ve experienced over the years, but even within the collaborative projects that I’ve been part of, whether that’s music or photography, so many of them have been made amidst an atmosphere of struggle. 

The sense of having to overcome the scenario we find ourselves in is a powerful thing, and for the creative people that I’ve worked alongside, it’s often the driving force behind making something that they want to make, but need to make. It’s not a hobby that happens to have become successful, it’s something that only comes into being if you put yourself into it, to show whoever we need to show that we can make something beautiful out of pain, difficulty and stress. It’s something that may well cost us along the way, but that sacrifice is a vital part of the creative process.

When I played in bands as a teenager, the mentality of us against the world was inbuilt into what we did. We felt misunderstood, and collaboratively we found a way to create something that felt more than just a means of venting, but something true. We thought we had something to push back against, something to prove, and I think that DIY mentality has carried me through the projects I have made until this point.

As I consider embarking on new projects, I need to ask myself whether simply constructing and developing a project because on paper it looks like it would create something interesting is enough. In my experience, that isn't necessarily conducive to creating something honest and true. I'm more comfortable with reacting and responding to a scenario than generating something from nothing. I’m very fortunate to have been granted very stable ground upon which I can live and raise a young family, and perhaps that contentment doesn’t necessarily lend itself to making meaningful art? 

I’m not suggesting I need to wilfully create trouble for ourselves, (although there are many case studies of artist’s that I could delve into here), but continue to consider how I relate my interior world to the exterior world that I experience, and to find the points at which those engagements offer inspiration, depth and beauty that can be harnessed and shared.

This article is taken from my December Mailout, which also features an end of year playlist, Paul Graham, Allan Salas, LOOK Biennial, Philomena Cunk and Moth Club.

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