'The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.' ~ John Muir

Embodied poetry is in large part an evolution from The Cycle Diaries, which drew heavily from the interrelationship between existentialism and movement. Christopher is interested in developing an integrated methodology of poetry into storytelling initiated by a connection he feels, in particular, to woodland areas of Dartmoor’s Teign Valley where he grew up. The woods are depicted as liminal spaces in fairy tales opening the way for personal transformation, often as a place of danger as the character leaves the familiarity and safety of civilisation, which he finds intriguing. Visually, he aims for an implicit sense of mystery and melancholy, similar to that captured in early cinema's silent black and white movies, while considering the Japanese concept of 'ma' (negative space) to explore absence among form as an integral part of the subject. He takes a notepad with the intention of complementing each picture of various scenes, sketched through the written word while taking long walks laying the basis for a poem or haiku, which sort of mirrors the technique of shooting an image in RAW before post-processing. The spontaneous nature of the walk, in a high contrast woodland environment, required some patience and experimentation with various camera settings before settling on shooting in manual with ISO set to auto so he can still use exposure compensation to capture a cinematic effect. When presenting text with the images, he prefers to use an Art Deco style of font (such as Limelight or Broadway) to reference early cinematic influences, which he also feels add to a kind of tension between nature and modernity. He hopes to exhibit a body of work in 2027.

(Future projects: Christopher is becoming increasingly interested in absence as both an all-too-human preoccupation, our belief in God, for example, alongside its haunting beauty as a consequence of the capitalist system we live in, the latter of which he plans to explore through photos of abandoned boats and buildings close to where he lives on the Devonshire coast.)

River Teign (Dunsford Nature Reserve)

dead leaves
pass by
rock

Bridford Wood

shadows cast over
broken twigs on woodland path -
the afternoon sun

Christopher is also exploring embodied poetry through silent, monochromatic films.