My eldest sister always tells me ‘you come home for a Holiday Bruce’. Because I spend a lot of time away in many different countries and landscapes, and I’ve been doing this for fourteen years. In a way, I feel that these landscapes have become my home.
I have often spent many years returning to the same place. More out of a desire than a need, and because I have felt there is scope to grow. For a long while i have said that if you find the right landscape to suit your current ability, it tends to show you the way forward, and give you room to grow. Rather than go to brand new places all the time, I prefer to repeat places, and let them get under my skin. For example, my relationship with Iceland is now almost 20 years in the making. Patagonia is slightly older at 21 years. These places are like magnets to me, and they have not only kept drawing me back : they have taught me so much.
I feel it’s about time to do some kind of review of my photography. There is now enough established time in most of the locations I’ve visited to collate them into a book. But I’d like to do something that is more than just collecting images together in one publication. So I’ve been sketching out a possible format, and letting it simmer in my mind for a while. I think I am going to write about the relationships I have with each place, and how I think they have influenced me over the years of returning.
Right now, I’m not entirely sure I can do a next book. Printing prices shot right up by around 40% over the past few years due to…. you guessed it… covid. Supply issues have caused a bottleneck everywhere, in many industries. So I’m starting to make enquiries, to find out how feasible it is to produce a nice hard back. It may be some time, but I am hoping I can do something for 2024. We will see.
Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what I’m thinking.
For me, I enjoy this part of the process very much: It is good to dream, to visualise, and to take some time doing this ‘dreaming and visualising’. I enjoy it very much.
I often find when I let things sit in the back of my mind, that they tend to slowly move into focus, become something more tangible, and ultimately, I find that this kind of thinking tends to steer me towards where the project in mind, needs to go.