Old Moon

Old Moon is a series of black and white photographs exploring locations along the Cornish coastline associated with 18th-century smuggling.

The work prioritises atmosphere over description, presenting these landscapes as sites where memory and folklore persist through place and time. Locations with evocative names such as Prussia Cove, Pepper Cove and Frenchman’s Creek are approached as both physical and psychological spaces, shaped as much by narrative and association as by their geography.

A non-descriptive visual approach is central to the work. Using analogue medium format film with a restrained, warm tonal rendering, the images introduce a sense of temporal distance. This distances the work from a documentary reading, instead suggesting duration, repetition and continuity within the landscape.

Old Moon explores how these coastal environments hold traces of past activity, not as fixed histories but as fragments of cultural memory. The images occupy a space between observation and interpretation, shaped by atmospheric conditions such as winter mizzle, low light and reduced visibility. Detail is often obscured, allowing form, tone and texture to suggest rather than define.

The title Old Moon references the conditions under which smuggling took place, while also evoking cycles of time, stillness and shadow. The work emphasises atmosphere, ambiguity and imaginative engagement, presenting the landscape as a space where what is seen is inseparable from what is remembered or imagined.

Old Moon

#1 Old Moon (Pepper Cove I)

#2 Old Moon (Prussia Cove I)

#3 Old Moon (Prussia Cove II)

#4 Old Moon (Prussia cove III)

#5 Old Moon (Frenchman’s Creek I)

#6 Old Moon (Coverack)

#7 Old Moon (Pepper Cove II)

#8 Old Moon (Lansallos I)

#9 Old Moon (Prussia Cove IV)

#10 Old Moon (Lansallos II)

#11 Old Moon (Frenchman’s Creek II)