Photography, connection and creative fuel

A photography focused adventure to Bristol where I consider emotional weight in imagery.

Last weekend was an indulgent one, spent exploring exhibitions across Bristol with friends from my photography MA.

It’s good for the soul to immerse in art like this now and then. With just six months left of my studies as I hurtle towards my final major project (no pressure), I’m soaking up inspiration wherever and whenever I can: art, music, literature, even by deliberately getting lost in unfamiliar towns just to see what I find.

Studying photography over the past two years has changed me in ways I didn’t expect. A chasm opened; a deep love for imagery and the stories behind it. Learning to communicate visually, alongside my natural pull towards writing, has been huge. It has shifted how I experience the world, how I process things, how I make sense of my own place in it.

Anyway, enough of the deep stuff, back to Bristol and its brilliant, well-supported arts scene.

Sian Davey’s ‘The Creative Body’ at Martin Parr Foundation

Sian’s work stays with you, doesn’t it? It doesn’t just document people it feels them — a charge that lingers long after the viewer has walked away.

The gaze of her subjects is what struck me — direct, unflinching, even challenging — often filled with something unspoken.

There’s a rawness to the work, a sense that the relationship between photographer and subject is just as important as the image itself.

What I love most is that nothing feels forced. It’s not about chasing perfect compositions or grand moments, but about authentic, textured, human truth.

I think about this a lot in my own work, how to get past surface-level aesthetics and into something deeper.

Seeing this exhibition has made me want to lean into that even more, to trust the rawness of a moment rather than trying to control/shape it, to focus less on perfectionism and more on connection.

Royal Photographic Society — documentary exhibition

A short walk from Martin Parr Foundation, the Royal Photographic Society currently hosts a stunning showcase of new work from its documentary members.

Ruth Toda-Nation’s Love is a Life Story hit hard in its poignant telling of her elderly father and his friend, Mary, during and beyond COVID.

A deeply personal look at love, care, and resilience, at a time when the most vulnerable were left to navigate a world that often felt like it was shutting down around them.

Other standouts:

Tamsyn Warde’s On These Magic Shores, a nostalgic series about childhood summers. I could practically smell the river water as kids swung from homemade tree swings in the heat of summer.

Michael Knapstein’s Midwest Memoir, a beautifully uncanny reflection on the American Midwest.

Brian Morgan’s No Safety Net, a sharp, urgent message for a troubled world.

Rinko Kawauchi’s ‘At the Edge of the Everyday World’, at Arnolfini

Final stop of the weekend: the Arnolfini, with its riverfront setting and cool cafe bar. The perfect place to reflect and munch on a pastry before stepping into At the Edge of the Everyday World, a three-floor journey through Rinko Kawauchi’s work.

I’ve always been drawn to Kawauchi’s photography. I was lucky enough to experience her work in Arles last year, and my interest in her ethos and style has continued. Her images feel like fragments of a dream, fleeting moments, filled with light, fragility, and an almost meditative stillness.

There’s a dreamlike quality to her work, but it’s not detached it’s deeply present.

I felt that familiar pull… an urge to slow down, to notice more, to see things properly.

The exhibition included over 30 of her photobooks, beautifully arranged to show how her perspective has evolved over time.

Themes of care, identity, and sustainability run through her work, but what struck me most was how she captures presence, not just the physicality of a moment, but the emotional imprint it leaves behind.

I’ve been thinking a lot about restraint in my own work and how the quietest moments can often hold the most weight.

Kawauchi’s work reinforces that for me. Her images are about suggestion, nuance, detail - beauty in the glimmer - atmosphere… the space between things.

Seeing this work now, so close to my final project, is a reminder to trust my instincts. To lean into subtlety, to let images invite rather than explain everything.

A weekend well spent, immersed in imagery, stories, and ideas.

Where should I visit next?