The Gathering

My latest photobook project is called The Gathering. It began with a particular place and time (or season) in mind: an exploration of snow accumulations and ice aggregations on and around the Elbow River in Alberta, Canada. I made repeated excursions to the same places, thrilled by the subtle changes the wind or water currents could make in the natural shapes of freezing water. Given the varied meanings of the word gathering, I realized I could, and should, augment these locally made photographs with images from other times and places and expand the project’s scope to reflect on emotional, social and other physical dimensions of the word. 

Some alternative gathered sculptures at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, England.

Connecting words and images

Finding a photograph of a welder working to bring metal together, a forester felling a tree, or an artist weaving beads on a loom inspired new visual plays on the word. I began compiling a list of alternatives, as a word cloud, much as I did with my book Social Camouflage, a sequence of socially distanced photographs made during the bleak lockdown of the COVID pandemic of 2020, when physical gatherings of people were lost. 

Connecting people and places across forty years of photography

The words and images danced together, sometimes with photographs leading the way. On other occasions, the synonyms stepped in to help me find or create new visions. This collection brings together scenes, situations and portraits from over four decades of photography while working, living in or visiting Argentina, Canada, England, France, Iceland, Namibia, Peru, Scotland and the USA. A narrative association of words and images that connect gatherings of people and places, thoughts, materials and energy.

Diptychs and sequencing

The sequencing of images in The Gathering is based on pairs of images, or diptychs. In some cases, these come from a close proximity of time and place, a subject that fascinates me deeply in photography. Elsewhere, there are visual links, through colours, composition or juxtaposition, that allowed me the bandwidth to connect events, happenings or observations separated by many kilometres and years.

A series of volumes

at the Athabasca Glacier inThe book The Gathering has been divided into smaller volumes to make it less expensive and more accessible. The cover of the first one features a swimming pool in Jaén, Cajamarca, Peru. In the book, this is paired with an image of explorers on the ice of the Athabasca Glacier, Alberta, Canada.

In another example, I associated a gardener mowing the lawn in Haworth, Yorkshire and a pod of pelicans in Huanchaco, Peru. I hope that you can find your own connections there!

Betula Books

I am preparing to make a short print run for purchasing. Please contact me if you are interested in a copy, which I plan to make available soon via Betula Books.