You refer to your winning work, English Journey, as a ‘contemporary photographic journey’, what does this mean to you?
My photographic journey embraced the spirit of Priestley’s English Journey, by using the subtitle of the book: ‘Being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England.’ As my journey took shape, another global economic downturn similar to that of the 1930s had taken hold. ‘Americanisation’ and homogenisation seemed to penetrate almost every town and city.
The England I discovered is manufacturing less and had become highly reliant on technology. Celebrity culture and its media stronghold are fast becoming a national obsession.
The perceived threat of global terrorism means new laws have been created, curtailing the freedom to photograph in public places and PR departments are increasingly stringent as to how their organisations are portrayed. However, the open-hearted spirit of people I have encountered whilst wandering across England has made me believe, as J. B. Priestley did, that we work as individuals towards a common goal of cooperation, never forgetting that we are all dependent on one another.