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Tim Parkin
Amateur Photographer who plays with big cameras and film when in between digital photographs.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
Michéla is a contributor to On Landscape (click to see her other articles), interviewing many featured photographers for the publication and she has just launched an exhibition at the Joe Cornish Gallery in Northallerton. Tim caught up with Michéla to talk to her about the exhibition and the project behind it.
TP: You have an exhibition starting today (6th June) and this is the preview. Tell us a little bit about the exhibition itself
MG: It’s called ‘Moments of Confluence - a River's Song. It’s featuring a body of work that I’ve been developing over the past three years, all of which are within walking distance of my home on the border of Derbyshire and Staffordshire in the Peak District.
TP: We’ve featured some of the images before in the magazine?
MG: Yes that’s right and in some respects the story has been shared in On Landscape from very start of the idea to reviewing things after a year. So the images that are on display are some of the ones I’ve spoken about before. It’s nice to have the opportunity to show it as a body of work
TP: Moments of Confluence is the title - how did that come about? Titles are difficult aren’t they?
MG: They are tricky and it proved a little bit harder than I thought. I thought it would be a little bit easier looking back at some of the things I’d written. One or two of the things I’d come up with initially seemed a little bit contrived and I drew a bit of a blank! Suddenly ‘Moments of Confluence’ popped up and I still don’t know where it came from. You worry a bit sometimes that you’ve seen the idea somewhere before and someone else has perhaps used it but I couldn’t find anything.
It seemed to suit the project not just in literal terms - I was dealing with an area where a couple of streams were meeting with the River Dove - but in terms of our relationship as photographers with the land, the light and with our cameras. Then, also, in terms of how showing art brings us together as people, it’s an opportunity for dialogue, so it fits the exhibition as well.