This journal brings together my ongoing adventures and photographic explorations.
Much of this work begins on walks with my two mischievous dogs, Eli and Dotty. This is when I really have time to slow down and notice what’s around me.
I love exploring how our open areas are shaped, not just by weather and seasons, but also by the histories and the stories woven into them.
Estuary is a small, informal and ongoing photographic study of my local stretch of the Bristol Channel. Drawing on the aesthetics of 19th-century Impressionism and experimenting with light, movement, and long exposures. I want to transform the play of tide, weather, and light into soft, painterly abstractions. Dissolving detail to reveal mood, movement, and atmosphere.
My aim is to capture the Channel not as a static landscape, but as a restless, living presence, continually reshaped by time and tide.
A few years ago, I became very unwell. I struggled deeply with anxiety and depression, which gradually caused me to withdraw from my life and all my responsibilities. This went on for years, with the depression slowly stripping away my sense of identity.
One day, I found myself in the garage, cigarette in hand, staring at an old, rusty road bicycle. My father, who I was living with at the time, encouraged me to fix it up and bring it back to life. Reluctantly, and with what little strength I had left, both mental and physical, I began the process: cleaning, removing rust, repairing parts. To my surprise, I finished it. I rode the bike. But then, just as quickly, I slipped back into doing nothing.
That was when my father gave me some money to buy another vintage bicycle that needed work. For the next few months, this became a routine. Each project gave me something to focus on, something to care about. Little by little, I started to feel better. My mind began to reopen. I was learning, improving, and rebuilding not just the bicycles, but myself.
Over time, I realised I had fallen in love with vintage Roadster, the craftsmanship, the history, the nostalgia. Restoring these bikes, along with a few other factors, truly saved my life.
But there was still something missing from my repaired life: photography. I realised it had been three years - perhaps even longer, since I’d last picked up a camera. In that time, I had abandoned my art completely. I wasn’t a tortured artist; I was simply an absent one, leaving my creativity at the door.
Fortunately, the vintage bicycles saved me once again. They gave me a reason to reach for my camera, to capture their lines, their details, their stories. Through them, I rediscovered the joy of creating, the art I have always loved.
