It’s been months since my post. I didn’t even mention the two exhibitions I contributed to before lockdown occurred. They’re a hazy memory now. They were Postcards from Great Britain at Hotel Lion d’Or, Haarlem, Netherlands and the International Winter Exhibition at The Glasgow Gallery of Photography. I had other plans too but, ah, nevermind those.
I started drafting this post at the beginning of May (it’s now almost mid-June). I don’t know what I was going to write about then. The subsequent days all merge into one. Fuzzy, sun and rain soaked, slow, repetitive days. With any spare moment I’ve been growing things with success (plant and seed swapping too) and fixing up gaping wounds that some lowlife scaffolder and builder left behind in the winter. Ever since the season popped into life, I’ve been reminded of what a much wiser woman told me recently; May always feels busy because nature goes wild.
I immersed myself in it when having to quarantine for a couple of weeks. I worked on lumens, cyanotypes and installed solargraphs all with a focus on the natural world. As soon as I could go on daily sanctioned walks I took my camera out and about, aimlessly looking for nothing. The deeper joy came in listening to birds and the silence. When it reopened I started walking around my local cemetery again, marvelling at the cow parsley overgrowth. The world has changed. Even on the darkest days, there is a hint of promise for what might happen.
Here’s a few pictures from the last 80 days.