It Took Me Years to Understand What I Was Photographing

For most of my life, I thought photography was about making beautiful pictures.

The older I get, the less I believe that.

Over the last few years I’ve found myself searching for something deeper. Not just in photography, but in life itself.

In 2023, I lost my father.

Before that, I had sold my business because I wanted something more from life than simply working to create money. I wanted time. Time with my family. Time to be present. Time to build a life that felt meaningful.

Instead, life became more complicated.

My daughters are growing up.

My mother is getting older.

My wife and I have faced disagreements about what is best for our children.

We moved countries. Then moved back again.

Concerns about Isabelle’s development. Concerns about Sofia’s future. Concerns about opportunities, family, stability and what kind of life we can create for the people we love.

It often feels as though the moment one problem is solved, another appears in its place.

For a long time I have carried the weight of those responsibilities.

Like many parents, I spend a great deal of time thinking about the future. What is best for my children? What am I willing to endure to provide it? How much time can I spend with them while they are still young? How do I create a childhood they will one day look back on with happiness?

These questions have occupied my thoughts for years.

And somewhere along the way, they found their way into my photography.

I began spending more time walking with a camera.

Exploring woodland.

Exploring the countryside around me.

Trying to understand what it was I was actually looking for.

At first I thought I was simply photographing places.

Then I thought I was photographing trees.

Eventually I realised I was photographing something else entirely.

Time.

The passing of it.

The loss of it.

The way it changes people.

The way it changes places.

The way it changes us.

I carry a deep sense of grief for things that are gone and things that are changing.

For my father.

For the years of Sofia’s childhood that have already passed.

For the difficulties she has witnessed that she should never have had to witness.

For the knowledge that my mother will not always be here.

For the uncomfortable truth that none of us escape time forever.

At the same time, I feel an enormous sense of gratitude.

For my daughters.

For my mother.

For the opportunity to still be here and paying attention.

Because that is what photography has become for me.

A way of paying attention before moments disappear.

A way of slowing down long enough to notice.

A way of asking questions I don’t yet know how to answer.

Over the last year several long-term project ideas have slowly emerged.

At first they appeared unrelated.

One about my daughters.

One about my mother.

One about trees.

One about the land.

One about returning to places that shaped me.

It was only recently that I realised they were all connected by the same thread.

Time.

Every project is really an attempt to understand our relationship with it.

To understand loss.

Change.

Memory.

Love.

Endurance.

Mortality.

And perhaps, if I’m lucky, how to make peace with those things.

This website is where I will share that journey.

Not because I have found the answers.

But because I haven’t.