Past visits and new thoughts

Though lockdown restrictions here in the UK are slowly being lifted, indoor entertainment and foreign travel are still limited by Covid. As a result, I’ve been searching again for diversions at home - often in front of my computer playing with images. I sat down the other day to browse through old photographs looking for forgotten gems from past journeys and the images I’ve developed from them.  

It is extraordinary how memories of certain things, often glimpsed only briefly, stay with me. Such glimpses frequently lead to images that end up at the heart of my work. Those shown here were initially developed in Photoshop Elements following a trip several years ago to Pennsylvania to see very dear friends whom we have known for more than 50 years. 

During our visit, we all drove to the Delaware River to walk along its banks and to see a beautiful old iron footbridge. It was a hot and gloriously sunny day and the structure of the bridge was casting fascinating shadows onto the bridge deck. I took a multitude of photographs. 

In the intervening years, I’ve since developed quite a few images for stitching from those photos but so far, none has figured directly in any completed  work. Here, I was especially playing with colour and with the arching, draping lengths of cable that holds up the suspension bridge and its superstructure. 

There is still more development to go but I think now that sections of these images will find their way into ongoing work for Inhabit in Stroud in September via cut and overlay - and probably a change in colour of the bright blue areas to something that is easier to integrate with other images.  

These are my favourite photos in the original un-manipulated archive of the visit to Pennsylvania from which the images were developed. 

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Seeing these photos again brings back such happy memories. How I long to be able to escape on such trips when it's safe to travel again. 

The glimpses I catch on my travels are the fuel for so much of my work. It seems that the novelty of seeing the new is vital for me. Without the possibility of feeding this wish for novelty, I may have to look closer to home for inspiration in the future. 

This will be a change for me - and maybe not a welcome one.