Visual Koans and the Practice of Stillness.
There is a long-standing tradition in Buddhist poetry of stripping away the noise of the world until only the quiet truth of the present moment remains. In Zen practice, a koan—an unanswerable riddle or paradox—serves a very specific purpose: it is designed to short-circuit the analytical mind. It forces you to let go of perceived ideas, stop naming and judging what is in front of you, and drop into direct, pre-verbal awareness.
When I stand in a landscape with a large-format camera—whether along the salt marshes of Essex or anywhere else the light leads—I am pursuing that exact same stillness.
The Discipline of "One Picture"
In an era of digital saturation—where we can shoot hundreds of safety frames, burst through a scene, and adjust everything in post-production—I choose to shoot medium and large-format film, adhering to a strict single-frame discipline.
I don't take multiple frames of the same subject. I take one.
Part of this practice comes from the sheer physical reality of the medium: large-format film is slow, heavy, technically demanding, and expensive. But more than that, it is a deliberate philosophy. Relying on a single exposure requires absolute mindfulness. You have to settle your mind, read the light, check the ground glass, and commit entirely before the shutter ever trips.
There are no safety nets.
Non-Attachment and Letting Go
This way of working demands complete non-attachment to the outcome. You set up the camera, execute your craft with deep intention, press the cable release once, and accept whatever the film captures.
If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't.
By abandoning the desire to control or force a specific result, the photograph remains raw, honest, and unforced. It becomes a genuine record of a single, unrepeatable interaction between light, air, terrain, and time, rather than a manufactured composite.
Experiencing the Landscape
Whether capturing quiet coastal mudflats, open skies, or subtle inland terrain, my work strips away temporal clutter to focus on pure form, minimalist space, and gentle tonal gradients.
These images aren't meant to be analyzed, decoded, or tied strictly to a geographic location. They are simply an invitation to pause, breathe, let go of your internal monologue, and inhabit the space.
Selections of works from my limited edition series are available as archival prints and featured in my latest photobook. To hear about upcoming private views, including the Christmas Flat Show please sign up to my mailing list.
