My wise friend Sally told me that once you put something out into the world, you can’t really take it back. The internet is such a weird place now. More than 10 years ago I was naively publishing just about any crappy picture, wearing my heart on my sleeve and not caring who read it. These days barely anyone reads blogs and I put very little out into this space. Recently Nick Cave said ‘as artists, you have a duty to put art out there’. He said this in response to a question about writer’s block. He’s an exquisite, rare human with a smart in-built editor and intuition for moving, poetic truth. Currently all I want to do is delete things. I wish it wasn’t this way. I am trying to be more like you, Nick.
I took today off work and promised myself not to look at emails. I didn’t want to think about anything other than the scraggy feral cat in my garden and whether my frogs would make it through the summer. I went to visit a stump of this local(ish), much loved tree which was felled last week. And then I had pangs of nostalgia for the days I’d visit the park and just sit on the grass, looking at it. The tree had run its beautiful course in life and it felt macabre to admire its broken, majestic trunk.
Things are still and purposeful today. I can smell jasmine as I watch a (rescued) climbing rose spring out bright pink immature buds. My beans are growing and there’s tomatoes on the way. I’ve ordered some rolls of film, wondering when I’ll get back into the swing of making pictures. Since my last (unplanned) stint of waiting rooms earlier this year I’ve lost some of that urge to shoot. It hit me hard and I needed time to stop and watch tadpoles every day, to pick raspberries and to be present.
Having said that, last month I received an exciting commission to take pictures at Abbey Road studios for the arm of Universal Music producing soundtracks for TV and film. That was pretty special.
Here’s a few snapshots.
