Three Fishes

There is a deep historiography around winter festivals in northwestern Europe, with traditions that blend pagan, Christian, and Victorian influences being written (and rewritten) about. Photography became a means to explore these traditions in relation to my own experience of the season, capturing moments that felt significant in a process of reflection. The whole process became an engagement with my home, my family, and the village where I live. Whalley (in the county of Lancashire, UK) has a deep history connecting it to significant upheaval across religion, industry and technology over hundreds of years. The village’s crest, three fishes, represents the three rivers that meet there.

“Beginning on Christmas Eve, 2024, I made a  portrait of my mum. For years, she had hosted a family gathering on this day, bringing us together to mark the season. But after a sudden illness that required emergency surgery, this visit carried new weight. As I photographed her, I wanted to convey her resilience, her fragility, and the quiet strength that comes with age. I found solace in the act of making those images, and so I continued—taking photographs each day throughout the Christmas period, not as a strict documentary exercise, but as a way to process the year behind me. A card sent to our daughter, perched on the mantelpiece of her new home—a symbol of love against a backdrop of bare plaster, marking transition and change. The viaduct near our home, carrying trains across the River Calder, evoking history, endurance, and movement. Saplings planted along the riverbanks, representing growth and renewal. A statue of Mother Mary, embodying the weight of parenthood. Slices of freshly baked bread, an everyday metaphor for sustenance and care. The series weaves together personal moments with broader symbols of tradition, time, and transformation.”

“Three Fishes wasn’t about making one picture per day; rather, I sought to create images that captured the emotions and themes I was working through. In bringing them together, I see not only a meditation on the past year but also a recognition of what I needed—stillness, contemplation, and the chance to acknowledge both joy and difficulty. Photography, I experienced, was not only a means of expression and documentation but also a tool for recovery, for making sense of change, and for appreciating what remains.’

Three Fishes can be purchased as a self-published 18-page zine from Unitom :

Three Fishes featureed in the Royal Photographic Society’s The Decisve Moment journal – November edition:

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