Shifting Presence: Exploring Who We Become

One of the questions that has fascinated me for many years isn't really about photography at all.

It's about people.

Not who we are, but how we change.

Think about the different versions of yourself that exist every day. The person you are with family isn't quite the same person you are at work. You're different again with close friends, with a partner, or even when you're completely alone.

None of those versions is false.
They're all you.

As life unfolds we're continually shaped by experience, relationships and circumstance. We adapt without really noticing it. Looking back even a year or two, we often realise we've become someone slightly different.

That continual evolution became the starting point for Shifting Presence.

Watch the artist talk about the ideas behind Shifting Presence.

A Visual Language for Change

When I first began developing the collection, I knew I didn't want to photograph people.

A portrait immediately becomes about one individual.

I wanted something more universal, something viewers could recognise themselves within.

Instead I began working with a simple vessel-like form. It became a metaphor for the self; a container for experience rather than a representation of a particular person.

Repeated throughout the collection, the form changes, overlaps, separates, twists and reconnects. Sometimes it appears fragile, sometimes confident, sometimes almost weightless. Its relationships continually evolve, much as our own do throughout life.

Although each image is abstract, they often feel strangely familiar. People rarely describe seeing objects. Instead they begin recognising emotions, conversations, relationships or moments from their own lives.

That's exactly what I hoped would happen.

Finding Meaning Through Abstraction

I've always been interested in transforming ordinary subjects into something unexpected.

Whether I'm photographing weathered walls, flowers suspended in water or natural forms, the aim is never simply to record what is in front of the camera.

I'm interested in creating enough distance from reality that we stop recognising the object and begin responding to the idea instead.

Shifting Presence continues that approach.

The images sit somewhere between abstraction and representation. They don't tell you what to think. Instead they leave space for interpretation, allowing each viewer to bring their own experiences to the work.

That's one of the things I enjoy most about conceptual photography.

The photograph becomes the beginning of the conversation rather than the conclusion.

An Ordinary Object, Seen Differently

People are often surprised when they discover what these forms actually are.

They're balloons.

Nothing more complicated than that.

The challenge wasn't finding an unusual object. It was discovering how an ordinary one could become something entirely different through photography.

Using multiple exposures, movement and layering, the balloon gradually stopped behaving like an object and became a visual language. It no longer represented itself; it represented ideas.

For me, that's one of photography's greatest possibilities.

Reality becomes the starting point, not the destination.

The Collection Continued to Evolve

Like the ideas it explores, the collection refused to stay still.

The earliest works in Series One: Emergence are fluid and translucent. The forms drift through space, overlapping one another in ways that suggest uncertainty, possibility and becoming.

As the series developed, I experimented with different approaches, but it wasn't until I began working with chrome balloons that something changed.

The reflective surfaces transformed the work completely.

The images became more structured, more symmetrical and more self-contained. Reflection itself became part of the concept, introducing ideas of balance, duality and self-examination.

In Series Five: Reflection, the forms often appear to confront themselves. Opposing elements exist simultaneously: movement and stillness, connection and separation, confidence and vulnerability.

Looking back, it feels appropriate that the collection itself continued evolving.

After all, that's precisely what it is about.

Living With Shifting Presence

Because these works are abstract, they rarely reveal everything at once.

The longer you spend with them, the more relationships begin to emerge. Shapes that first seemed purely formal begin suggesting movement, conversation or connection. New interpretations appear over time.

That makes them particularly rewarding to live with.

Rather than demanding attention, they quietly encourage repeated looking.

And perhaps that's true of people as well.

The more time we spend with someone, the more we realise they're never entirely fixed.

Neither are we.

Continuing the Conversation

Shifting Presence remains an ongoing body of work.

Like identity itself, it doesn't really have a final destination.

Each new series becomes another way of exploring how we move through the world, continually adapting, continually changing, continually discovering new versions of ourselves.

Perhaps that's why I continue returning to it.

Because none of us ever really stops becoming.

Explore the Shifting Presence collection.

Watch the artist talk about the ideas behind Shifting Presence in the accompanying video.