It’s good for the soul to immerse in art like this now and then. With just six months left of my studies as I hurtle towards my final major project (no pressure), I’m soaking up inspiration wherever and whenever I can: art, music, literature, even by deliberately getting lost in unfamiliar towns just to see what I find.

Studying photography over the past two years has changed me in ways I didn’t expect. A chasm opened; a deep love for imagery and the stories behind it. Learning to communicate visually, alongside my natural pull towards writing, has been huge. It has shifted how I experience the world, how I process things, how I make sense of my own place in it.

Anyway, enough of the deep stuff, back to Bristol and its brilliant, well-supported arts scene.

Sian Davey’s ‘The Creative Body’ at Martin Parr Foundation

Sian’s work stays with you, doesn’t it? It doesn’t just document people it feels them — a charge that lingers long after the viewer has walked away.

The gaze of her subjects is what struck me — direct, unflinching, even challenging — often filled with something unspoken.

There’s a rawness to the work, a sense that the relationship between photographer and subject is just as important as the image itself.

What I love most is that nothing feels forced. It’s not about chasing perfect compositions or grand moments, but about authentic, textured, human truth.

I think about this a lot in my own work, how to get past surface-level aesthetics and into something deeper.

Seeing this exhibition has made me want to lean into that even more, to trust the rawness of a moment rather than trying to control/shape it, to focus less on perfectionism and more on connection.

Royal Photographic Society — documentary exhibition

A short walk from Martin Parr Foundation, the Royal Photographic Society currently hosts a stunning showcase of new work from its documentary members.

Ruth Toda-Nation’s Love is a Life Story hit hard in its poignant telling of her elderly father and his friend, Mary, during and beyond COVID.

A deeply personal look at love, care, and resilience, at a time when the most vulnerable were left to navigate a world that often felt like it was shutting down around them.

Other standouts:

Tamsyn Warde’s On These Magic Shores, a nostalgic series about childhood summers. I could practically smell the river water as kids swung from homemade tree swings in the heat of summer.

Michael Knapstein’s Midwest Memoir, a beautifully uncanny reflection on the American Midwest.

Brian Morgan’s No Safety Net, a sharp, urgent message for a troubled world.

Rinko Kawauchi’s ‘At the Edge of the Everyday World’, at Arnolfini

Final stop of the weekend: the Arnolfini, with its riverfront setting and cool cafe bar. The perfect place to reflect and munch on a pastry before stepping into At the Edge of the Everyday World, a three-floor journey through Rinko Kawauchi’s work.

I’ve always been drawn to Kawauchi’s photography. I was lucky enough to experience her work in Arles last year, and my interest in her ethos and style has continued. Her images feel like fragments of a dream, fleeting moments, filled with light, fragility, and an almost meditative stillness.

There’s a dreamlike quality to her work, but it’s not detached it’s deeply present.

I felt that familiar pull… an urge to slow down, to notice more, to see things properly.

The exhibition included over 30 of her photobooks, beautifully arranged to show how her perspective has evolved over time.

Themes of care, identity, and sustainability run through her work, but what struck me most was how she captures presence, not just the physicality of a moment, but the emotional imprint it leaves behind.

I’ve been thinking a lot about restraint in my own work and how the quietest moments can often hold the most weight.

Kawauchi’s work reinforces that for me. Her images are about suggestion, nuance, detail - beauty in the glimmer - atmosphere… the space between things.

Seeing this work now, so close to my final project, is a reminder to trust my instincts. To lean into subtlety, to let images invite rather than explain everything.

A weekend well spent, immersed in imagery, stories, and ideas.

Where should I visit next?

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For the females, a quiet rhythm, their cooling hats are plumbed into machines [to avoid hair loss], which churn out chemotherapy in varying strengths and doses.

Young and old, sad and happy.

How do they manage this? I wonder. But, of course, they don’t - they have no choice. The act of enduring becomes automatic, like breathing in and out—beyond control, yet still awe-inspiring.

It’s art that meets them in their fear — music through headphones, literature through books, the culture of the family that meets their gaze in recognition of the symbolism of what is coursing through their veins.

Mum takes the chemo well: a bag and a half, delivered intravenously through a cannula that was difficult to place.

We suck boiled sweets. She rolls her eyes at the more chatty patients behind her regulation face mask.

I can’t help but notice those around us—their individual stories forming a quiet hum of resilience.

The process feels hyper-normal once you grasp it. Plug in for treatment. There’s a quiet choreography to it all — unplug for the loo, start again and … wait…

Mum is afraid but almost giddy, a strange euphoria flooding her veins. I know I’d feel the same, for now I dissociate— her needs are primary.

The MacMillan volunteer hands out hot tea from a silver trolley in cancer-branded cups. He deals in Wagon Wheels, shortcake biscuits, and jokes; making us smile because that’s “the kind of guy he is.”

My mum sips her tea between cycles, her hands steady but her fingers fidgeting with the rim of the cup.

She is calm, though I know the fear is there. It strikes me how survival can look so ordinary, folded into these small, unremarkable gestures: a sip of tea, a shift in a chair, a shared glance. Nothing dramatic, yet everything is.

Three hours later, it’s done. We leave the ward, stepping out into the ‘real’ world that feels anything but. We head home to wait, braced for the Christmas list of side effects that may or may not come. There is nothing to do but wait—and we do.

Day 8 begins on Monday, but for now, at 48 hours post-treatment, we breathe a sigh of relief, hopeful that the worst is not yet to come. Her body will tell us, but only in its own time.

It feels like waiting for a storm. The skies are calm now, but we can’t shake the sense of something brewing. And yet, we take comfort in these fleeting hours of normalcy.

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Here’s a whistle stop tour of the key exhibitions in photos.

Fragile Beauty at V&A Museum (until 6th Jan, 2025)

Siân Davey at The Photographers’ Gallery, Soho

Letizia Battaglia at The Photographers’ Gallery, Soho

Deborah Turbeville at The Photographers Gallery, Soho

Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) Photography Centre: https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/photography-centre

The Photographers’ Gallery: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk

I’m looking for recommendations for exhibition now and in the future. There seems to be fewer and fewer events in the north at the moment.

Can you recommend any must-sees?

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One of those challenges is my (new) camera being stolen in Paris a couple of weeks ago, complete with the SD card that contained my project photos - nope, not backed up.

I’m working hard to reimagine the imagery but this time against a deadline, which is always helpful!

In the meantime, here are some colour shots from a moment’s respite to bring much-needed energy to my Substack :)

Hope you like them.

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There are some places and scenes that instantly thrill you as a photographer. When everywhere you look is a perfectly framed photograph. This is the feeling we chase.

The baroque architecture, glazed emerald tiling, towering ceilings, mosaic floors, and terracotta detailing combine with the faded beauty of exposed walls, bare floorboards, peeling wallpaper, and stripped-back laths, like bones laid bare.

Here I share some of the photos taken of this stunning, but melancholic, building.

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Share Thought Jam

whispers of sun, clouds drift by

traces fade in sand

Well, maybe just a few words…

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Which is your season of choice?

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