Derelict Christmas …….

derelict christmas 1‘Derelict Christmas I’

On Christmas Day I made a promise to myself…. to start writing down all the things I have been feeling, seeing, absorbing…… and been afraid of losing to a fading memory. I wanted to retain precious moments, and remember them as I truly experienced them… in detail.

derelict christmas 2‘Derelict Christmas II’

derelict christmas 3‘Derelict Christmas III’

I made that decision in a cold derelict house in the middle of the French countryside, alone with just my camera. I had spent the last hour running between the self timer button and a set of broken wooden steps, … taking my self portrait in the half light of a broken window. I stood in just my underwear and an old jumper, the cold from the stone floor stinging the soles of my feet, my hands cut from ripping the twisted vines from the outside shutters ……My feet still ached from kicking at the rotting wood to finally release the fading grey light into the room.

I lent back against the damp walls, flecks of peeling paint stuck to my skin as I watched my breath fill the frozen silence. The reality that this exhausting year was finally coming to an end began to wash over me. This bizarre afternoon had become a small awakening….. I didn’t care anymore whether people would think this was crazy, I guess I was learning that it’s ok to sometimes spend time on my own, to do stuff that inspires me. I have always had a secret passion for wanting to find the hidden beauty in the most mundane things, fragments of magic lost in the blur of city life, light on skin, stolen glances, ….touch. My camera had given me a new perspective, photography had become an unexpected passion that swept me up and still refuses to set me down. It had brought me to this place that in past years I would have walked past without ever knowing what lay inside. It has moved me, changed me, and still continues to affect my everyday.

So this is why I chose that moment as the start of my writing…… The things I can’t express through photography I sometimes need to write down…. Thoughts, emotions, something that stopped me in my tracks that day. As I closed the shutters and pulled on my boots I couldn’t help smiling to myself… this had been a good day. It felt like I was taking my first breath above the surface, after months of feeling lost… the cold, the light, the nervous energy that suddenly filled me, was overwhelming….. but also electrifying. For the first time in a long time I had done something purely for myself and it made me feel strangely alive………. I felt like I had just woken up.

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Derelict christmas 8 (approach 1)
Derelict christmas 9 (approach 2)
Derelict christmas 10 (approach 3)
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Derelict christmas 15All I want is to capture these fractured moments in life and not let them dull with time, so I plan to do this the best I can with these words and my camera., the music below is what I was listening to that day, which strangely fits the mood of the pictures…….. .