BRISTOL & NEW STARTS

Having lived in and around London for more than thirty five years, the proximity of the capital had become almost an addiction. It wasn’t until a chance visit to Bristol in 2021 the idea of moving began to percolate. 18 moths later we found ourselves in this vibrant, culture rich, diverse city.

Wanting to do it justice, I bought a little Fujifilm rangefinder style camera to document this new to me I’d not made such a change since 1981 and I was intent on recording what I saw of it. These images represent those first years, From life around Temple Meads in the centre of the city to our home in Redland up on Durdham Downs, the other side of the prosperous, bourgeois ever popular Clifton Village, I walked and walked and walked.

From both homes I covered Cabot Circus, Old Market, St Pauls, Stokes Croft, the Docks of course, then up the hill past Hotwells, Kingsdown, Cotham, Montpelier, up over the mist shrouded Downs with so many views of the indomitable Three Sisters, and ever onward

to Henleaze, Westbury on Trym, and so many others districts, venturing out even toward Avonmouth and it’s industrial estates and new build commercial parks. All the time with some form of Fujifilm camera in my hand, later their medium format system.

I think I am done now. I am a person who struggles in a known environment, and while I still take my camera with me often, my expectation of finding anything new is diminishing, so here is a scrapbook of my honeymoon with this city, and now we know each other better, we are comfortable together, we know each other and enjoy our time together in a more sober, not quite so romantic way.