Jake Williams

I can hardly remember a time in my life when I wasn’t practising photography-it’s been a lifelong passion for me long before I went to Bournemouth and Poole College of Art to study it. There was always the creative spirit to be nurtured. You have the chance to turn your little creative acorns into a forest, while catching those little moments of pleasure whenever and wherever they appear. It’s a way of expressing the unexpressible, of mining those veins of gold in the unconscious. As Rilke wrote, ” where I create, there I am true”.

However fast the world moves, photography can allow us to stop and look around for a little while, to explore the play of poetry, place and history. Pay attention and the world around you starts to speak…just be still and listen. You can rush around ticking off all the usual tourist sights, you can take as many selfies by statues of 18th century Scottish Enlightenment philosophers as you want and why not? But there are so many more enchanted things patiently waiting for us, however unsettling they can seem-everything has its season. Sometimes the past quite literally resurfaces. The river keeps on flowing as the seasonal wheel turns.

The subject and the history of Edinburgh, WW 1, wherever or whenever you may be, are a jumping off point for further explorations. The ripples keep widening, as they did while I walked through the rain by the Water of Leith and Spring turned to Summer. The recent past seems at once close and unimaginably remote, but via thoughtful looking, we can get to know it a little more. In the words of Paul Hill, “remain curious”. That’s the best two words on photography I’ve ever heard. It’s all you need really. Though I do have a special place in my heart for Harry Callahan’s “there are no rules in photography. That’s why it’s so much better than baseball”. The second sentence rarely gets quoted, sadly.

Locations: North West

Categories: Abstract, Architectural, Fine Art, Landscape, Nature