Lockdown Books

With a major exhibition postponed until after the lockdown and my teaching the postgraduate students at Aberystwyth University School of Art confined to virtual tutorials and getting about to photograph restricted, I had to do something. Periodically I like to shuffle through my mountains of contact sheets to review older stuff to see if there is anything I have passed over that may be of interest.

One aspect of my work that hasn't been seen a great deal is the urban documentary work that I make when I am travelling about on other projects. I began to assemble, edit and sequence these photographs made over quite a few years and put them together in book form. 'Innocence of Eye' resulted from this. 

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/innocence-of-eye

A large format 11" x 13" hardback book with approximately 50 images made in several countries. They reflect my fascination with the everyday and sometimes prosaic moments that evolve around us every day. 

Machynlleth, Powys, 1976

 It, along with the other two books will be published when the planned exhibition opens at Ffotogaleri y Gofeb. 

With this exhibition in mind, which will consist of a selection of black and white landscape work from several bodies of work spanning three decades I envisaged a book to accompany this. While there have been exhibition catalogues for almost all of my exhibitions, a substantial collection of this work has not been seen together.

'The Expressive Land' is a large format, 11" x 13" book with approximately 100 images from my work in Wales, England, Ireland and Sardinia. While the flavour of each of those regions is different, the book explores and juxtaposes many of the common themes that occur in my work. Many of the images in the book will feature in the exhibition when it opens. 

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/the-expressive-land

Another aspect of my work that hasn't been seen much but has been there, in the background for many years is the ongoing series of still life images of plant forms. All the specimens are gathered from my garden at different times of the year as seems appropriate and then either photographed in black and white or colour also as appropriate.

These images have been building up for many years and again, this period gave an opportunity to review, edit and assemble into a large format 12" x 12" hard back book with over fifty images, both black and white and colour. The images reflect both the beauty and the imperfections of nature on a smaller scale than we usually observe in the wider landscape. 

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/silentium