Above: 'Suspense'

During a period of depressive mental ill-health in 2014/15 I decided to attempt to help alleviate my condition by moving away from work which I felt had become too introspective. Essentially, an attempt to stop taking myself and my work too seriously and to spend more time looking 'out' rather than looking 'in'.

This collection of pictures, which I continue to add to, are glimpses of everyday scenes that just crop-up unannounced usually when I'm doing something else; I don't go looking for them, I just make a picture when they happen. 

This is very different to the considered and often intense approach of my previous work. When taken from their context, 'spliced out' from the bigger picture by the camera's frame, the results can appear comical, absurd - and sometimes, somehow unsettling? They are 'ordinary' situations transformed into 'something else' by use of framing and view point.

Inevitably, it became apparent over time that the pictures and how I chose viewpoint, framing & subject matter, continued to reflect something of about my state of mind. There is still potential for personal interpretation on my part and that of a viewer. Like the old psychological ink-blot 'Rorschach test' the pictures can still be 'read into' based on individual experience or state of mind, acting simultaneously as both 'mirrors' of and 'windows' on the world.

 I couldn't escape my shadow but I was able to appreciate the light again.