Beauty In The Mundane

I've been photographing all my life, but it took me years to realise that the most satisfying images weren't waiting for me in far-flung locations. They were right outside my front door.

These days, I find myself drawn to subjects that others might walk past without a second glance. I am drawn to weathered doorways with their peeling paint and worn thresholds, telegraph poles cutting across an empty sky, abandoned machinery beside overgrown fields, and urban alleyways where light dances in unexpected ways. But it's not just about the intimate details. The flat expanse of fenland under a brooding sky, the quiet geometry of a suburban street at dawn, the way morning fog transforms an unremarkable field into something otherworldly. These broader scenes carry the same quiet beauty when we take the time to look.

I'm fascinated by these overlooked subjects because each one tells a story. A door isn't just wood and metal; it's a portal someone placed, a hidden world behind. An empty car park reveals its sweeping lines and hard shadows when we stop rushing through it. By making these ordinary places and things the focus of my photographs, I'm asking viewers to reconsider what we've collectively decided not to see.

My approach is reactive rather than planned. I let scenes reveal themselves, often while running or cycling through familiar territory. When you can't move on to find something more photogenic, you look harder at what's in front of you. You become attuned to subtleties: light quality, texture, the way a landscape shifts with the seasons and the weather.

What once seemed mundane now presents endless possibilities. Beauty is tucked away in the grit and grain of daily life, waiting patiently for someone to give it the spotlight.

These eleven photographs represent my invitation to see the ordinary with fresh eyes.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is mundanity. It is a question of context. What is humdrum to my particular corner of rural Cumbria would, no doubt, stand out on the Kensington High Street.

I have always believed the job of the photographer is to look beyond the obvious. To see what others pass by without registering. Photography is, after all, the art of observation.

But in the age of social media, landscape photography has become the quest for the obvious. And, as a result, the awesome has become the everyday. Everyone is telling the same story, and some of us are tired of hearing it.

It would be easy to assume there is nothing under the sun left to discover. That's nonsense, of course. But in an oversaturated 'market', what is needed is a shift in perspective. And for me, that is what this project represents.

It was never my intention to thumb my nose at the 'iconologists'. Each unto their own, and all that. And heaven knows the photography world is already full of those who delight in telling the rest of us what we should or shouldn't be doing. But then 'art' never was about following the crowd.

While this project aims to challenge the status quo, its intention is not to establish a new world order, but to offer an alternative. If you ever find yourself scrolling through Instagram, thinking to yourself, "I can't do that", I hope this project helps you realise, you don't have to.

One thing that has been key to my photography has been capturing the impact of man on the landscape, and photographing man made elements, either a completely man made landscape or man made elements within the natural environment. I carried this into the Beauty in the Mundane project focusing on everyday subjects that we might walk past without noticing but when captured in the right light they produce an interesting image, or at least encourage the viewer to ask a question about why something is there, or what has happened to that location.

My normal approach to photography is to turn up early for a sunrise or sunset, find the composition and camp out over a tripod enjoying the light changing around me. For this project I took the completely opposite approach, heading out with just my small Nikon Zfc Camera with a single 20mm Prime lens attached and walked around areas looking for subjects, often in less than ideal light or conditions.

Whilst definitely having a lower success rate than my normal approach what this meant was capturing unique moments, things you pass that might never be like it again, and I’ve really enjoyed this approach.

The final images presented for the project include images captured near to home on the Isle of Wight, as well as on trips within the UK and abroad. I hope you enjoy the images

For this project I planned to step away from the control and technical aspects often associated with landscape photography, by ditching the tripod and working handheld. The images are made quickly and intuitively, responding to the ordinary & easily overlooked scenes.

For this project I have chosen images from a larger series of photos I have taken along the Hadrian’s Wall Path, called ‘Looking for Roman’. As a keen walker I like to combine walking with photography in an effort to explore my surroundings. I have walked small sections of the Hadrians Wall Path, setting out from my home in early in the morning, photographing along the way. What struck me, as I walked east from Bowness on Solway, was the relative absence of the wall along the path. For large sections, the wall, once 15 feet high and 4 feet wide, has disappeared. Whilst it is now a protected Unesco Wold Heritage site, this was not always the case ,and the stonework has over the years, been taken to build nearby churches, castles and houses, the foundations used as a basis for a railway running along part of the route, or just moved as it created an inconvenience for the local farmers. So the trace of the wall is often just an unremarkable ditch in the ground if there is any trace at all, as the once formidable defensive barrier has been absorbed into the landscape.

To me, this seems a suitable metaphor for Britain’s ability over its long history, to absorb different nationalities and customs, whether as a result of war and conflict, or immigration.

This is my personal view of Hadrians Wall. All the photos were taken on or of the Hadrians Wall Path.

Like many other photographers of the landscape, walking is important to me when photographing.Walking allows responses to everything that is there, perhaps to seize on something distinctive about a place & time, grasping at what the world offers.

Photography is a present tense activity.We stop to photograph when there is recognition.A recognition that at this very time & at this place the distribution of elements & the play of light may enable a photograph to be made.It is a moment that can exist for only a short time, sometimes as quick as thought, & be gone just as quickly.

The recognition is instinctive, rarely wholly susceptible to intellectual explanation.It has been described as ‘sense of place’ or, sometimes, as ‘spirit of place’ — that something singular & significant is present, enough to stop for & attempt a photograph.

As individuals we craft for ourselves the meanings & spirit of place.My approach to ‘Beauty in the Mundane’ has been exactly the same as for other photographic projects.I have walked in the landscape.The difference has been in going to places I may not have chosen to go to before, & recognising & relishing their noteworthy patterns & quiet beauty.

As part of my approach to photography I enjoy walking, this can be in allsorts of different locations, at different times of the year. When thinking how to approach this project I decided to be a little more spontaneous and allow myself to discover interesting subjects in what are essentially mundane locations.

To arrive at this sort set of images I have taken a large number of other images along the way, andthen selected my favourite images from that longer list of possibles. These are all taken handheld, as using a tripod on what are essentially walks is restrictive in my experience. I hope you like my set.

For me, the idea underlying this project was always whether it’s possible to take interesting “landscape photos” in an area where, to put it mildly, no-one would ever come on a photography trip.

I think it’s significant that the excellent Fotovue series of photography guidebooks includes publications on Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire and South Wales, but not Somerset. Apparently, almost everywhere immediately surrounding the county has plenty to recommend it photographically, but my home county doesn’t. To be honest I can see their point. Once you’ve bagged Glastonbury Tor and the Low Lighthouse at Burnham-on-Sea (neither of which appear here) you’re pretty well done with iconic subjects.

So, for me, the element of the mundane comes as much from the location in which I shoot as it does the subject matter.

For this project I chose to restrict myself to anywhere I could reach by car within 30 minutes from home. That gave me access to places such as the Somerset Levels (an area of very low-lying, marshy land to the south of the M5 motorway) and also the north coast (think long stretches of sand/dangerous mud, and sea-side towns like Weston-super-Mare, which have seen far better days). Oh and almost everywhere you look, you’ll find electricity pylons stretching out across the land away from Hinkley Point Power Station.

I get a lot of satisfaction in finding subjects and compositions that quite possibly have never been taken before. Some of the photos that follow are truly mundane in nature, others have more classical beauty, but they all faithfully represent my little corner of the photographic globe.