Print: Last Summer (1)

£600

AO print

Edition: 20

Last Summer is a series of photographs informed by my experience of infertility. The photographs track the shifts in my perspective over time and I am altered through the act of photographing. The work began on North Island, New Zealand in 2017 and continues in Cornwall.

This is the first image in the series. In New Zealand I was moved to photograph an intergenerational group at the edge of a natural rock pool. Some of them were shading their eyes from the sun in order to watch a camera drone overhead. I was captivated by this unifying gesture. As I took the picture I realised that it was the first time in many years I had been able to look long enough to compose a photograph, rather than look away from a scene I could not recreate in my own life.

The locations at the edge of the land & the action of photographing created a sense of connection to the strangers & scenes that unfolded in front of me. I sought to hold both a sense of distance and tenderness in the work. In photographing from a position of longing and desire the work provides a platform for sharing this underrepresented experience.

‘Stidolph’s repeated exposure to and sharing in the watery landscapes of families at leisure becomes an act of anthropological curiosity – she watches groups interact, registering how they behave individually and together, and also when she is close, how they respond to her and her camera. It is an act of careful circling, waiting, watching, returning, reflecting and re-framing. 

A body, in parts, interjects, essay by Lizzie Lloyd for Synesthesia project, 2021

This work featured in solo show ‘As it is seen’, Grays Wharf Gallery, 2022

Please contact me at info@melaniestidolph.com for queries or overseas posting costs.