After-life

Recent prints and information

2010-10-03T20:00:00.003+01:00

I've been asked for more info on this series recently and am currently in the process of fulfilling a mailing list in order to send out a small catalogue of images and postcards.
Email if required.

My main site has more on my new series Off - season.

Thanks for looking.

And then there was a book.....

2010-06-01T21:02:00.001+01:00

Resplendently book shaped and sized, perfect for any occasional table.

Book introduction

2010-04-02T18:53:00.002+01:00

Whether or not you believe in fate or predestiny, there is a certain order to life.

We are born in a place to which we have no input, except possibly the timing, and we die in locations either unexpected or dedicated to this function. There is very little in the planning stage or scope for individuality. There is a sense of structure in this normality.

For the people in this book, there was a break, a choice: an ultimatum borne from reasons of stricken finance or crumbling relationships, a life encapsulated in a written note and ended at points picked for purpose.
These places are the empty tombs for lives that were self designated for termination. No fate to run its course or decisions to work out over time, no planning except for the end. The only concern here is the way out.
Except this exit has a difference.
A full stop to one existence, a reboot into another. A place selected not only for the end but also for the post-life, the next identity, a whole new fabricated beginning.

These places hold secrets for a story, a full circle defined by choice. We are all expected to remain who we are from the cradle to the grave yet these spots on the landscape were the catalysts for lives that changed within moments. From one filled with dread and little hope, a dead end, to the next brimming with hopeful belief and aspirations not yet fulfilled.
The ones who were successful disappeared, reinvented and got another chance to start fresh against fate.

And then there are the others, the ones who failed...

Seaton Carew, County Durham

2010-03-31T18:38:00.007+01:00

When one sits back and ponders over a simple fact: am I worth more dead than alive, then the cogs upstairs can rotate in strange directions.

John Darwin and his wife, Anne, made the decision that he was worth considerably more, £250, 000 of life insurance more so in 2002 out he supposedly went in a canoe from the beach at Seaton Carew and was never seen again.
That was the plan - two sons devastated by the news, "It crushed my world", a wide and lengthy sea search without success, a teary eyed wife shocked by the 'reality' of her husband's demise.

A life as John Jones began in Cumbria but unable to live apart, Darwin moved back to Seaton Carew living in a bedsit next to his former home and hidden by a secret door. Here they devised ways to sell off their assets and move away with the monies claimed, and move away they did to Panama to start afresh.
It was here that something happened, maybe a pang of self-doubt, remorse or a perhaps a moment of clarity but a return journey was made and John Darwin / John Jones handed himself in to British Police and the truth started to leak out like a rapidly deflating balloon.

For the interested, there is more information here

Gorleston, Norfolk

2010-03-29T20:51:00.004+01:00

I had some issues with this one and mulled it over many times before finally getting in the car and driving the 300 or so miles down to Norfolk.

The problem was with how serious Mike Cilgram was regarding his fabricated suicide and whether it constituted an attempt in the first place.
When Cilgram's wife left him, he came to the decision to leave a pile of clothes on Gorleston beach and follow this with a telephone call to the police reporting a naked man walking in to the sea. The response he was hoping for from his wife as he hid himself away seemed to be aiming towards an instant outpouring of devotion and regret concerning their separation.
It didn't, she divorced him citing that, "there's no guarantee he won't do something like this again."

I decided that whether he was serious or the act was a prank that went too far from a decision originally tainted, it didn't matter to me either way. These images and their corresponding stories are not mine to judge and as I slept in the back of my car waiting for sunrise, I knew I couldn't understand the reasons behind many of them and why should the sands of Gorleston be any different.

A technical interlude

2010-03-28T21:30:00.005+01:00

It was apparent fairly quickly when I started looking in to the whereabouts of these places that colour might not be the way to go. I'm a firm believer of the wise words : colour is good for colour but everything else is black and white.Especially in this pleasant isle, the overpowering colour of landscape expanse is green, some brown, and a lot more green again. If you are looking for that then no problem but with this series, mono was the only option.

I was using mainly Ilford FP4 at the time I started this in 2008, which is a fairly slow ISO 100 - 125 film with smooth greys and also relatively fine grain. I moved more to Fuji Acros later which is the same speed but when scanning has a clarity that is, in my humble opinion, second to none. I now shoot predominantly Fuji films especially the Acros / Neopan black and white negative stock.

At the beginning I had a Mamiya RB67 which I used exclusively with the 50mm Sekor C lens. Unbelievably sharp optics and a great camera to handle. Coupled with my trusty Minolta light meter and rudimentary Zone technique, I believe the Mamiya is as good a medium format camera you could get to grips with and use.

However during the series I came across an auction held by the London Metropolitan Police Forensics Department for a number of Pentax 67 bodies, lenses and other assorted bits.
I picked up a couple of the 67s and a good assortment of lenses - my favourites being the 45mm, 55mm and 90mm.
This camera is superb - possible to handhold yet with a neg size perfect for serious scan and enlargement. Looking like a colossal SLR my hands are already ergonomically trained to hold and search out its simple controls. With the TTL exposure meter on top, it is also possible to use without a separate light meter although I'd always recommend taking your time with this like all medium / large format cameras.
Street candid grabbing, while possible, is not the primary remit of these beautiful behemoths.

Beachy Head, East Sussex

2010-03-22T20:53:00.003Z

"I came to throw myself off Beachy Head. But in the dark I could not be sure of killing myself. So instead I am going to drown myself by swimming straight out from here."

Many suicides claim Beachy Head as their place, there is a telephone here operated 24/7 by the Samaritans and church helpers walk along the edge looking for possibly jumpers.
Therefore it seems only fitting that this place, like the Severn Bridge, should also be a place for a pseudocide to earn gravitas for their pretend death.
Here were the intended final gasps for Anthony John Angel who killed his wife and children in 1975 almost a decade after leaving the above note and swimming out and down the coast. Angel, now reborn as John Allen then came in to dry land, dressed, broke in to the local golf club and made off with spoils to help start the new life. His was a serial life of crime - the interested can read this - and it was much later in Manchester when he was recognised and his former existence slowly unravelled.

Here was the resting place for Fiona Mont in 2000. 'Britain's most wanted woman', a former public schoolgirl and Conservative politician's daughter, she was allegedly involved in a £300,000 computer fraud the year before. In order to build a new life on the continent relieved of the fates of the former, she left her car with the keys in the ignition at Beachy Head and disappeared.
She was believed to have returned with a family to the UK in 2004 but with the police warrant expired nothing else is certain.
Here was the location for the discarded remains of Simon Carroll's life. A supposed cross-dressing accountant who vanished with £500,000 of his employer's money in 2007, the legacy amounted to a car, a hosepipe, an empty vodka bottle, a bottle of pills and a laptop.
He possessed two passports and with only one ever accounted for, his new start as well as his whereabouts are still unknown.

Ayr, Ayrshire

2010-03-19T20:17:00.002Z

"Please don't tell my wife or children where I am".

David Gibson, churchgoer and insurance salesman, from Stranraer in Scotland realised that the end was nigh after taking the policy monies from his unsuspecting customers.
With a trail of unanswered questions following him unravelling to show a fifteen year history of taking what was given in trust, his answer came from a car left in Ayr harbour.
With notes for his family explaining his intended suicide he disappeared. His flaw came by using his credit cards in the following weeks and the police became suspicious.

In June 2004 he was imprisoned for twelve months and when free attempted unsuccessfully to rebuild David Gibson within the Stranraer community.

Immingham, Lincolnshire

2010-03-14T09:31:00.002Z

200 miles away in the Midlands was where Graham Cardwell wanted to be reborn.
In September 1998 he started the process at the mud flats alongside the Humber river with a pile of clothes - the harbour master reasoned that a new existence would help him cope with what he believed to be the onset of cancer.

His wife and three children knew the reasons but not the falsehood, believing him to have died out on the estuary's banks. Surprise must have been one of the emotions felt when he was found under an assumed name eight months later in the Midlands.
After explaining his actions to the police, he was allowed to remain in his new skin and left to live the life chosen.

Severn Bridge, South Gloucestershire

2010-03-14T06:39:00.002Z

When Thomas Osmond decided to draw a line underneath the papertrail of his life, he decided upon the known suicide spot of Severn Bridge to sever the connection.
He left the note explaining he intended to kill himself by throwing Osmond off the bridge and in March 1995, the day before a court hearing where he was to be tried for sexual offences, the new start as Stephen Williams began.

By absconding from the justice system, a police office became suspicious and continued to search for Osmond / Williams. Three years later he was found living in Bristol close to the bridge and when sentenced he was handed seven years.

Danes Dyke, Bridlington, East Yorkshire

2010-03-05T21:28:00.002Z

"Daddy had gone to Jesus and Mary singing to all the children."

"Forgive me for what I have done. I have disappeared and I'm ashamed of it. I'm sorry I have got to do what is best. My life is over."

Suicide notes left behind by Mark Bailey to be picked up and passed on to parents, partner and young daughter. Notes from a suicide never meant to happen, notes to signify the break to a new life.

He left the messages, an empty bottle and shed clothes in 2008 - the pretense of a drowning in the sea began.
The newly created existence unravelled shortly when the call to say the remnants had been found came from Bailey's own phone and he hung aroung to ensure all was taken seriously.
From Rotherham in South Yorkshire up to Danes Dyke, Shane Dowling lasted one day until his final breath ended at Goole train station. Picked up by police, Bailey's former identity was resuscitated and for the final act was given 12 months to think through his actions.