A seafaring ancestry and island location influence the work. I have travelled widely and worked in many countries. I have worked on many different photographic genres.
The latest project commenced at the start of the pandemic in 2020. The aim was to capture the enormous increase in plastic waste being washed up on Sherkin Island’s beaches.
I worked on several different techniques before deciding it was essential to record the waste in a sustainable way. I created cameras from cardboard delivery boxes and coffee tins to make the images. Outcomes depended on the light, the exposure times, the humidity, the wind, the shape and the size of the cameras. The results were seldom predictable but often intriguing.
I built on my experience as a chemist to develop the negative images in the darkroom. In keeping with the sustainable nature of the project and the marine environment in which it was carried out; I collected seaweed on the beaches where the images were made and produced my own developer solutions. I fixed the images in salt solution.