1984 Project on Infra Red Film
Freshly digitised with additional content
20 monochrome photographs available as 60x40cm prints

This series of photographs taken in 1984 around Oxford and London is a reflection on English Manners, a cod historical portrait in three chapters. In Eden we see humankind coming to terms with nature, feeling the textures yet still dominated by the wonder of it. Next there is the golden age of Elysium, as lords and ladies we have arrived centre stage and our garden is lush, we possess it and are nearly overcome by the romance of it all. By the time of Entropy we certainly are overcome, domesticated and confused in the roles we know too much about, there is only a struggle to try and move pointlessly forward. While some may see in this a cry for lost freedom, a harking back to the comfort of an English Christianity where all is in it's place, a closer look should assure us that there is a measure of irony in this idyll as well as a strong suggestion of sexual fantasy. Finally, in the post-modernist age of entropy we can never be too sure what a photograph may signify...

Or at least that is mostly what I wrote in 1984, and it still seems relevant now. Some of the photographs were made into postcards by Portfolio and were on sale at The Photographers Gallery.

All pictures taken on Contax cameras using Zeiss 28mm and 45mm lenses with Kodak High Speed Infra Red 35mm film, developed in Agfa Rodinal. With many thanks to the models Helen and William.