Notes from the studio and the road — on fog, patience, printing, and the slow business of looking. Written between frames, never after the fact.
There is a window, maybe forty minutes, when the sun has not yet reached the valley floor but the sky has already given up its black. The fog moves differently then — it doesn't drift, it breathes. I have learned to stop setting up and simply wait for it.
A black that is merely dark is a failure. The blacks in a print must have mass — they must feel like something you could press a thumb into. It takes me three passes to get there, sometimes four. The paper resists; the paper is always right.
A single source is a discipline, not a limitation. It forces a decision: where does the light enter, and where does it leave? Everything else is arrangement. The sitter does the rest — I only choose the moment they stop performing.
The dunes reward stillness and punish haste. I walked the same ridge each morning for three days before the wind laid the sand flat and the shadow fell exactly where I had imagined it. One frame. That is the whole trip, and it is enough.
Colour tells you what a place is. Monochrome tells you what a place feels like. The day I understood that was the day the work became mine. I have not made a colour frame since, and I do not miss it.
Occasional notes — never more than once a month, never marketing. Just the work and the thinking around it.