Yateley Camera Club resumed holding an in-person annual exhibition in spring 2022, after the previous two editions were stymied by Covid. Although I'm normally more at home with projected images rather than print ones, I decided I should sign up to do two themed print panels, as I had done in 2019 with Fluid Dynamics and The Professionals. This time, the first plan which came to mind was to take pictures of some of my seashell collection - an idea which had been rattling around in my head in one form or another for several years.
In my earlier idle ruminations I'd planned to take straightforward documentary images of each chosen shell species, but by the time 2022 rolled around and I actually got down to work on the project I'd realised that this would produce a rather dull end product, so instead I got my favourite macro lens and pushed it up close to the specimens to focus on small areas, producing images which explore the intricate details of the shell's geometry rather than showing the entire shape, sometimes producing a rather abstracted effect. I also chose to backlight the shells to bring out their translucency. This was achieved with a setup where I cantilevered a glass shelf off the edge of a table, sat the shell on that with the camera pointing directly upwards from a short distance below the glass, and a large soft light source improvised above (and therefore 'behind') the shells.
More than any other photo panel I've produced, Ghosts of the Tide involved endless deliberation over which photos to include in the first place, where to place each one in the 3x3 display grid, and even which way up each one should go. The shot of a spider conch (genus Lambis) ended up unused because it lacked the sense of an inner glow which I managed to capture in the other nine images.
Incidentally - and this is less to do with the photos and more to do with the shells in general - I've been asked before 'What kind of crab would make that shell?' But for all of the specimens used in this project, and indeed any other spiralling shell, the answer is that there was originally no crab involved. These are all sea snails. Which means that despite its artisanal intentions, this print panel ends up being yet another case where snails have made their way into my art. I don't think I'm doing that on purpose, it just happens.
Towards the end of work on Ghosts of the Tide, I had a last-minute fit of inspiration for my second panel, so the shell pictures ended up being exhibited alongside Vessel & Hand.
My other four camera club print panels remain intact and could be displayed again at a moment's notice. Ghosts of the Tide, however, does not; as of spring 2023 I still have all of the prints, but seven of them (all except the first two, Hexaplex cichoreum and Murex pecten) have been removed from their mounts so that the mounts could be reused for my later panel Garden Textures.
