The past seen through memory

Memory and photography are inextricably linked-sometimes indistinguishable from one another. My interest is in the way that memory is inexact and how it changes over time, often without us realising it. Rather than try to recreate the past as it was I am interested in expressing the essence of the memory of the past in my images.

This set of images evoke my time spent on the beach as a child, not as it actually was but how it seems now, complete with the distortions that memory creates. Beautiful days of sunshine, the fascination of life under the water, the distance from one end of the beach to the other, and the fear of being left behind are all part of the story. Records of childhood often include ‘snapshot’ photographs that record outward physical realities but cannot retain the sensation and feelings experienced at the time, or remembered later. I seek to convey the mind’s retelling of the past.

As well as carefully selecting the perspective and scale it is the light that is crucial to the sense the photographs give.