Spring Fever Part 2: Perspective Shifts

Tiny floral fireworks

I'm still gawping at spring, like a little boy running around in a field for the very first time. Muddy knees, bright sensations. I’m transfixed. The colours are changing every day.

And the glow. The landscape feels like it’s actually glowing.

‘Spring Bursts’

I’ve noticed my perspective is changing.

It’s blossom season here and if you scan the horizon there’s a burst of colour on every hill. Tiny floral fireworks.

In London I built an entire world around photographing street ephemera. Anything unusual or off kilter. I pieced together stories from the rubbish people left behind. Beautiful shadows on concrete, mysterious scribblings, any ‘accidental art’ within a ten mile radius of my home.

It was a long-standing creative project but also a comfort blanket. Making sense of the chaos by constructing narratives.

This was the mainstay of my photography for years and I mostly shot with a wide angle lens. Wide angle, in non-technical terms, means zoomed out. It captures more of the scene and has that quality where it feels like you are ‘there’.

I’m long-sighted and I love being able to shoot from a distance but everything in a big city felt so close and vast.

My world is now hills, moors, commons and forests.

I’m naming cows, noting down where mushrooms grow and discussing dry stone walling as if I definitely understand dry stone walling.

This is my tribute to spring and the ladybirds who announced it.

This morning when I left the house they were everywhere. On nettles, on wild garlic and later on my face.

I remember a day last year, also in spring, when the ladybirds were shocked out of hibernation. It was uncharacteristically warm and triggered a great awakening.

We took our lunch outside that day but retreated after thousands of them dive-bombed us. All drunk, woozy and confused.

‘Lady Garlic’

‘Wall of Nature’

‘To the Pub’

‘Claude’s Reflection’

‘Violets and Silhouettes’

‘Jurassic Spring’

‘Blue is Endemic’

‘Red and Green’

Here’s to the ladybirds who sang to me today and to their tiny world of colour.

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More from my Spring Fever series:

Part 1: Tiny Worlds of Colour | Part 3: Butter Fields and Alien Worlds

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