This week I am looking at a current piece of my own work and, while I don't wish to say too much about it yet, give some indication of the work that goes into a sustained piece.

Over two years ago I started a series based around the lives of older men. For the last ten years of my working life I had been a bit of a nomad working in senior positions, firstly as a Director of a national housing association for older people and then as a senior consultant for a branch of the Department of Health that linked commissioning practices across health, social care and housing together (or we hoped it would!). So I had been based in London and travelled across the UK with work companions as diverse as I was.

Whilst on friendly terms with my workmates I saw them infrequently and they all lived a good distance away. This meant that, upon retirement, I had few ready made friends apart from local family and people I had known previously and managed to keep some links with. My children moved away and my marriage ended at around the same time but I had things to keep me busy and opened and ran an art gallery which had always been a dream of mine. Without that interest I could have been at a bit of a loose end. I also realised that there were few ways in which I could use the knowledge and skills that I had acquired, specialist as they were. Additionally (and this has continued to happen as I have aged) attitudes towards older people can become dismissive. The lives of many men of my age have been  defined by the work they do and those they work with. Look at all those working men's clubs! One of the first questions you are asked when you meet someone new - "So what do you do?" It is a question that places you, for many people, in an educational bracket, an income bracket, a social bracket and marks out your territory, and possibly their's with you as well. So what happens when you start to say "Retired".

I began to talk to older men about their lives, by which I mean people beyond retirement, and to make images based on the things they told me. Older people are often referred to as over the hill and so the title of the work became clear to me.

I hope to finish the work with around thirty pieces over the next year as the pandemic retreats and we gain more freedoms. So far around twenty images have been made and others are inside my head. I decided early on that all the work would be mono and that I would be my own model. It is harder work than I thought and I have sometimes had to enlist others to help me by pressing the shutter, although investment in a remote timer has been well worth it. I think through the intention of each image and plan it carefully seeking out a suitable landscape or waiting until the weather is right. I have decided at the moment against placing any titles against prints, instead allowing people leeway to use the metaphors as they wish to interpret the work. Having said that the image below was waiting to be made for some time. I knew exactly where I wanted it to be taken and the tidal and weather conditions. I also knew that I wanted to incorporate the futility of Canute's gesture into the picture but steered away from a throne and crown! So ideas are there in every photograph and this sample is there for your interpretation. Let me know what you think 🙂