stories

Coldwater swimming is seeing a giant resurgence currently, as we recognise how regular exposure to cold water can invigorate not only our bodies, conditioned to such indoor living as they have become, but also our minds. My recent personal project, Thalassophile, features this month in The South Coast Journal which published its third edition ( click to view a digital version ) The cover image of Claudia and her beloved Buki, a bearded collie, we captured in February at The Witterings where they are fortunate enough to have a beach hut.

Visiting the sea in autumn and winter is my favourite time to take along a camera. Capturing exuberant horses as they gallop across the sands, it’s a genuine bucket list activity for me. Swimmers celebrating a birthday in salty, invigorating style together. A daughter assisting her Mother rehabilitate after surgery. Runners treading soft miles across the sands, small folk learning to fly their octopus kites and build castles in the sand. Dogs hounding one another in raw & usually boisterous (!) canine delight in the shallows.

It’s a magical, moving picture, the beach, with the ocean as a sometimes wild, sometimes dead calm backdrop.

The portrait of Claudia and her collie holds a particular poignance. After we took this portrait, Claudia had it printed and framed and sent to her mother’s care home in nearby Winchester. Claudia never saw her mother again; she died during lockdown in April. The framed print was at to her Mother’s bedside when she passed peacefully and it gave Claudia great solace to know this. I’m pleased to have enabled this comforting moment for them.

My children and I are partial to wild winter swims along the south coast. Especially when followed by a hot flask and something tasty. We’ve braved the waters plenty this month. I took my youngest along to meet Claudia and Vince at their beach hut, to deliver them a copy of the magazine and to have a swim with him also.

Thalassophile will exhibit in the New Year.

In the meantime, work continues albeit within a second lockdown phase.

I’ve a new Collection of giclée prints to release which is very exciting; I’ll share news of this here very shortly. These will be available for sale online and at selective outlets which I’ll share once prints deliver here to me.