What Tyranny Is This is the first image in Landscape of Lament, and the first I made in Ireland for the series.

The title comes from the early days of grief. After someone you love has died, the weight can feel so oppressive that it seems tyrannical. It rules everything, and you have no say in it. When I stood on the footbridge at Mizen Head and looked down at those rocks, they felt like a mouth ready to chew me up. That was exactly what those first weeks felt like.

My dad had always wanted to visit certain places in Ireland, and I’d planned to take him. He died before I got the chance. So I went anyway, and I kept his photograph on the passenger seat for the whole journey.

I set off from Tollesbury in the camper van and drove to Fishguard to catch the ferry to Rosslare. I spent a few days with my mum’s family in Wexford, then made the long drive down to Mizen Head, the south-west tip of Ireland. Next stop America.

It was my first time there. There’s an old Marconi station on the headland, and Marconi has a connection close to home: the world’s first radio factory was in Chelmsford, just down the road from Tollesbury. I didn’t go for that, though. I went because I wanted to stand at the southernmost point of Ireland.

A footbridge crosses to the Marconi station, and that’s where I set up the 5×4 Linhof field camera. The rocks hang over the sea like teeth, and through the gap you can see Three Castle Head.

I carried on up the coast and parked up for the night. The next day I drove into Kerry and round the Ring of Kerry, one of the places my dad always wanted to see and never quite got to.

The print
What Tyranny Is This is available as a strictly limited edition of 5, plus 2 artist’s proofs. Each print is 30 × 24 inches, printed on Archival Photo Rag, and comes with a hand-signed, numbered and embossed Certificate of Authenticity.

See the project, Landscape of Lament
View the limited edition print