The “Portative Sight” projects consist of a series of photographs made using “found” objects, placed in front of the camera lens to interrupt, distort and alter the captured images. Throwaway, "single use” objects such as plastic containers or cellophane sweet wrappers have been used. Initially, these works were a means to view familiar suburban /urban green spaces in new ways, bringing a sense of wonder to special environments that can easily be overlooked or taken for granted.

 

The projects started during a period of creative block. Having lived and worked in the same parts of London for some years I was becoming somewhat blind to my surroundings and simply wasn’t seeing the world around me anymore. I felt I had begun to lose that almost childlike sense of amazement and fascination when experiencing something for the very first time. I started trying to capture images from lunchtime walks, using low-tech, throwaway objects as a means to view reflections and distortions of the world around me. These objects have so far included a plastic globe shaped bubble bath container filled with water, an old chipped magnifying lens, a reflective tube made of shiny black plastic (packaging), and a series using coloured cellophane wrappers from sweets as a budget, extreme filter.

 

Initially the subject matter was not very consciously chosen and was more a playful investigation of the world around me, and allow me to reassess or “re-see” the world once again. Later, I became interested in the way in which the resulting images captured small elements within larger landscapes and considered that it is perhaps inevitable for city dwellers to cling onto and focus on small elements of nature within a landscape were nature is so fragmented?

 

“Portative Sight Series V” began after reading that during the eighteenth century, spherical glass vessels were so expensive to produce that they were regarded as a prestige object. As a result, wealthy individuals who were lucky enough to own one began using them as devices to view the world in a different way.

 

Travelling through natural landscapes they would hold their spherical glass vessel up to look through it, and admire the scene. The spherical object would both frame their chosen vista as well as distort and invert the view in suprising ways.

 

I was drawn to this idea because I was already interested in the way in which optical devices can be used to create a sense of wonder to a seemingly ordinary scene and by chance I had recently been gifted a spherical plastic bubble bath container. Once used, I refilled the container with water and began using it to document scenes in various locations.