On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:01.134)
Hello and welcome to On Landscape Any Questions? I'm here with our regular Joe Cornish and with our special guest Michaela Griffith. Hello Michaela.

Michela Griffith (00:11.873)
Hello Tim and Joe.

Tim Parkin (00:14.322)
And we've got a few questions from our audience today, but I also want to devote a large part of the chat about your recent writing and photography that I've been taking, enjoying immensely, shall I say, because there's been a book recently, which I only found out about today and I've just ordered. So I've enjoyed that this morning. But I'd like you

Tim Parkin (00:40.696)
Tell us a little bit about how you got into writing because you have a sub stack. If you can tell us what sub stack is and why you started it, I think that'd be a great introduction.

Michela Griffith (00:46.755)
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I think both of you know from my beginnings with On Landscape that I find a certain joy in writing and it often gets put to one side for other bits and pieces. So really I started on Substack nearly a year ago just to try and establish a regular habit. So it's certainly done that. I've been writing a weekly letter or post.

every week. Yes, that's obvious, isn't it? In terms of what Substack is, it was sometimes being described as a love child between a newsletter provider and a blogging platform. And it does, I think, remind quite a lot of people about what blogging used to be like. From my point of view, it has the advantage that I can send it directly to subscribers, but rather than each post sort

just disappear into an archive. They actually build up as a website in their own right of blog posts. There's also an app which allows me to discover lots of other interesting writing and in turn helps me to sort of reach other people. And certainly in the time I've been there, you know, I've managed to grow my audience nearly threefold, which is something I didn't particularly expect to do. I really did go just for the joy of writing.

Tim Parkin (02:15.886)
Really interesting because if you'd been online at the turn of the 2000s, everything was about blogs and everything was about blog circles and all these linked blogs that go together in certain environments. it's gone full circle, hasn't it? It's gone through social media and Facebook and everybody realized all their content has disappeared over time.

Michela Griffith (02:24.483)
Yeah.

Michela Griffith (02:32.479)
Yes.

That's right. And of course, the other big thing with Substack is you can export your email list, you your own content, your own list. You can take it away from the platform at any time. So your content isn't going to disappear, providing you back it up. It started off very much as something for writers, but it's drawn quite a lot of artists and photographers and other creators in. They keep adding new features.

Tim Parkin (02:49.739)
Yeah, so important.

Michela Griffith (03:03.611)
some of which sometimes make you think that they're trying to be all things. But no, mean, particularly if you like longer form writing, it is a very enjoyable place to spend

Tim Parkin (03:17.698)
And your work, Harry Gonjan.

Joe Cornish (03:17.701)
There's no restriction on the length of what you contribute, Michaela.

Michela Griffith (03:25.731)
There isn't, no. They tend to suggest about 800 to 1000 words is a good length for a blog. But it can be shorter, can be longer. There's the option to include voiceovers or other audio. And now you can put video in as well. So people can run podcasts through it as well. yeah. And I suppose the other significant thing

is that it does actually have a facility for people to monetise subscriptions as well to do paid content, which is something that's not particularly straightforward through other means. So it's very versatile. Yeah. And as I say, I I found lots of fantastic writing and writers and artists new to me there.

Tim Parkin (04:16.462)
So what is it that you inspired you to start writing about? I know you used to write a lot anyway,

Michela Griffith (04:22.389)
Yeah, yeah, I'd been, I'd had a six month dialogue with a creative coach with weekly emails and that had ended. So I suppose I missed that a little bit. And you'll both know that periodically I've written just to reflect on what I've been doing photographically, largely around water. It's evolved very much into observations on place, particularly

you know, the small things that are easily overlooked, but the sort of things that really can transform the mood of the day. You know, you go out and you notice something unexpected. And it is, I suppose, as an extension, it's nice to be able to share that with other people. There are the images, but also I'll write around those. In no way is it, you know, descriptive of technique or what's in the images. It's more about the experience

hopefully something that in a way is akin to a visual poem if I dare say

Tim Parkin (05:26.626)
It's a bit like a sketchbook slash poem slash diary.

Michela Griffith (05:30.827)
Yeah, I mean, I started off referring to it as an art journal, but that doesn't really sort of tell people what they might be getting. So I tend to talk about it now as small beauty noticed. And it is very much trying to share moments of inspiration and tranquillity from place that comes from walking around here. And hopefully that it's not just

enhanced my day but might others and I've come very much to value creativity and nature as a place of ease with you know all the challenges and uncertainty that sometimes it's hard to know is there more of it or are we more aware of it but you can feel sometimes that photography and creative activities are a bit of a luxury and I've come to realise that this is what grounds me this is

you know, where I rebalance. So this is what it gives me and potentially through sharing it, you know, maybe I can just brighten up somebody's day a little

Tim Parkin (06:44.518)
This goes a little bit towards photographic practice, which I think both you and Joe have got in common in which the fact that you regularly, almost daily, walk a regular route. Joe, you walk up into the back of your house, into the woodland there. You used to have a river next to your house. You used to walk regularly, Michaela. And now it's the amazing woodland at the back of your house. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is, your photographic practice?

Michela Griffith (07:11.587)
Yeah, I live on the edge of a moss, which is the Scottish term for a lowland raised bog. So the nearest fields are ones that we've over time tried to improve the drainage of. But if you go just a little bit further, are areas, I'm not sure whether they'd be classed as pristine, but they're fairly good in terms of their diversity. I'm over time discovering more.

I'm quite chuffed to have found some sundews recently which I hadn't seen before. There's quite a lot of birch and pine regeneration though as well as some pine plantations and fir. So that gives me plenty of trees around a sort of boggy middle. We're also on the edge of a big house with its sort of policy grounds. So in the past it's been a design landscape

and carriage drives with large trees along those, know, ponds, fields with clumps of trees nicely placed in the middle. And then we've got a big ridge at the back of that for the eastern edge of the Grampian Hills. We're in a broad valley, so the sky is very much part of it. And in winter, I have to say that, you know, the reflected light, once the sun's dropped over the hills, it is quite metallic.

magical, it is a sort of almost metallic light that makes me think of some of those Dutch landscape paintings that sort of capture that so beautifully.

Joe Cornish (08:51.765)
You've been really inspiring. Just this description, I'm thinking, can I come and stay?

Michela Griffith (08:57.355)
Yes, certainly you can.

Tim Parkin (08:58.594)
You should. It's one of the most varied bits of woodland and areas I've seen for a small

Michela Griffith (09:04.043)
Yeah and we only went scarcely even an hour's walk wasn't it just through the pine and then back through the birch. So yeah the downside is it sort of it tends to anchor me and I never really get that much further but I mean photographically speaking you know I'm very happy here indeed it's much richer than where I was before. So I've got water, I've got trees, I've

bits that are quite interesting so yeah not too many midges there are more this year because of the rain but I haven't needed to buy any of your your midge specs yet Tim, I'll keep them in mind.

Tim Parkin (09:45.484)
Not yet, not yet. Yeah, I'll bring some over next time I

Joe Cornish (09:51.903)
The time will come when that's needed, I'm sure. But it's never going to be quite as intense as the West probably, is it? Michele, if I may, just fabulous hearing about it. But it does occur to me that one of the interesting things is just hearing your description of these, the fact that some of the land is managed and some is fairly wild.

Tim Parkin (10:00.462)
Unfortunately not.

Joe Cornish (10:21.321)
relatively quote unquote unimproved. And I think your practice in a well, feel an affinity for it very much because you're looking at nature as a, you know, something that should have its own life and it should also be part of our lives, I feel. it's so, and although there are, it's tempting to think

those sorts of environments are only in Scotland. They are actually to be found all over the UK and in different forms with more or less boggy areas or woodland and coastal fringes. And I think it's great that you're able to at least focus on that beauty and talk about it with your writing because I think that's an important job for all of us is to be part of that reconnection.

process with the natural world and not everybody's in a position to do that but you know as observers and photographers, writers, we are so yeah good on

Tim Parkin (11:28.538)
I think it comes from a different approach to landscape as well. think there's a lot of people who see going out and taking photographs as a task -related activity. I am going out to take a photograph, or I'm going to try and come back with something that I can stick on the website. But I think the going for a walk thing is such a core part. When you read about wildlife and landscape, all the people who write about it just see

Michela Griffith (11:28.611)
Thank you.

Tim Parkin (11:58.21)
that daily interaction or weekly interaction, just enjoying where you are. And then things will arrive because of it. And Kai Thompson asked a little bit about this. He says, how do you approach your subjects? Do you have a plan, an idea, or do you visualize an outcome? Or is it primarily let things happen? Or is it a combination of the two?

Michela Griffith (12:18.199)
Yeah sorry and Kai is a she so I'm going to have to get you straight

Tim Parkin (12:20.792)
So sorry.

Michela Griffith (12:25.507)
Yeah, I've for some time been an advocate of just trying to go out with an open mind and see what happens. I try and stick to that as much as possible. Human nature though, it's always that if you find something that engages you, if you end up with some images you're happy with, you do always want to try and go back and find that. And I suppose

Even though through photographing water, I've learned that it really is never the same twice. Yeah, it's a bit of both. And I do find preconception just gets in the way of it and moods important. You need to be relaxed. If you go out chasing something, the likelihood is you'll end up disappointed and frustrated.

and occasionally I'll go out and I'll think, no, I'm just, trying too hard. I'm trying to force images rather than feel images. So yeah, it's a fine balance, but I'd rather just try and keep that mind open and stay relaxed if I can.

Tim Parkin (13:43.148)
I like the military analogy of having a plan but realizing that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Maybe it's not the enemy we're talking about, but having something to get you out there and doing something as a catalyst to get you going isn't such a bad thing, but it's the rigidity of which you stick to the plan.

Michela Griffith (13:52.419)
Engagement, no.

Michela Griffith (13:58.925)
No.

Michela Griffith (14:02.539)
I think it depends, because I've written a few things recently and in one post I talked about, there's a wonderful chapter title in one of Richard Mabey's books called Feeling Through the Eyes and for me, I mean I love the big view, I love wonderful light, know, in the past that was what I enjoyed but...

It is very much an emotional response to a landscape and I think the more I walk this place, the more I breathe the air, it feeds me, it nourishes me. In a sense, maybe I'm trying to have some sort of dialogue or conversation with it. And if I'm fortunate, it gives me something that I can come back with to sort of preserve the memory in an image

you know, share it with other people, talk about the moment. So, yeah, I'm aspiring to an evocation, I think, as much as a view.

Tim Parkin (15:10.326)
I know you talked about mirrors and windows in your recent post and that concept of how much of yourself is reflected in a photograph, the mirror side of it. So do you flip between the two aspects there or are you trying to develop a more mirrory way of working?

Michela Griffith (15:30.859)
Yeah, I do. mean, in a sense, I got caught out because I referred to the concept of windows and mirrors or windows or mirrors in a previous post and a couple of people picked me up on the description of it as an introspective narrative. What did that really mean for mirrors? And it prompted me to write that post. And I suppose

before I tended to think of it as one or the other and that I'd over time move from windows towards mirrors. But really going back and reading what John Sarkowski had written, he never intended it to be either or it was an axis that we move along. And certainly within the last few months, yes, I can think of things that I photographed that are more straightforward windows.

Others, yeah, it's about me having a relationship with place and how I interpret that. And that's not always in a literal, sharply focused, obvious way. I mean, I've long thought of my images as abstract. then I was also introduced to ambiguous for some of my water images.

Tim Parkin (16:55.894)
Yeah. But Yujo, when you're working, when you have your daily routine at home, working in the woods, do you find that your approach to photography changes in respect to when you go abroad to a location? Is there a different aspect where it comes

Joe Cornish (17:14.325)
Yeah, it's a really, it is a very difficult question to answer completely. think that there is a, I mean, I don't travel abroad that much, but inevitably what I have found is so interesting hearing Michaela talking about the process, by the way, because I think that, you know, I'm of the view that the camera sees both ways rather than mirrors and windows. It is literally that they are two sides of the same coin in a sense that every,

good picture has a little element of autobiography or inward lookingness, but it's also a record of a moment, not place and a specific scene, big or however wide or narrow that scene might be. But to go back to what you were saying, Tim, when you're abroad, inevitably what I think happens is if you're somewhere for the first time, you're preoccupied with just being amazed by

everything around you, especially if it's a new landscape. the photographs tend to be quite superficial because there's that instinct to record, I suppose, just what you see. you don't have, you haven't had that longer term experience that enables you to be more individual. But if you then return to that place, I mean, this isn't always the case. are times when

You get very lucky, very first time you go and you'll come up with something that's really special. I think that now I'm in the habit of when I do travel, I tend to go back to the same places anyway, so that I can develop a deeper relationship with them. And it allows me to be more actually introspective or more personal in the way that I respond. But I guess, you know, without wishing to take it in a totally different direction, I see

that they're actually going to see new landscapes is also part of the stimulus of just learning more about the world and therefore you get more perspective on your own home and where that fits in a way. And there will be similarities in terms of space, form, light, texture, wherever you go in the world. And

Joe Cornish (19:34.643)
And I think we inevitably find that our own preferences will still emerge even in places that we go to for the first time, we'll still perhaps compose using some of the existing patterns of approach that inevitably, we wish it or not, we all have, that we have patterns of seeing. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that's just who you

Tim Parkin (19:49.016)
and

Tim Parkin (19:58.526)
interesting aspect of seeing new places I've not really thought about before the fact that you inevitably especially if someone thinks amazing which is why a lot of people travel to see things amazing the reaction is certain amount of wow whether it's whether it's an obvious wow or a that's quite impressive that is and that reaction sort of overreacts any a lot of other reactions you might have if you're more familiar so there is a hurdle to get over you don't want to get rid of that reaction

That's a fantastic thing to go somewhere and see things for the first time. But it's definitely something that needs to be overcome to start having a normal reaction to it, which is that familiar reaction gets more interesting, doesn't it? It's what you see. Is that something you discovered after the first few months or year of being in your new location,

Michela Griffith (20:52.619)
Yeah, there certainly was an wow moment, you know, and it was very much the trees that grabbed me initially, function of how many there are, you know, relative to heavily grazed peak district. And the time of the year, I feel quite fortunate that I had a month here to actually see it before Storm Arwen came through and basically took out all

Tim Parkin (21:17.846)
Yeah.

Michela Griffith (21:22.305)
shelter belts on the north side of the estate and you know some wonderful old trees and I'm still sad that when I go around these areas haven't been replanted as yet. So yeah there is that and you do find yourself perhaps feeling you've been pulled in slightly different directions photographically. It probably took

two or three months to find some little bits of water and then once again the water was the conduit to see, connecting with the place and seeing with the place and this time it was some old ditches on the edge of the moss that on a track that's little used and is sort of grasped and rushed over and they're very much sort of full of moss and effectively a series of largely ephemeral pools that

go. So that was, I suppose, when I started.

focusing more closely on water again and you know, stop running around looking for every last bit of autumn color or winter structure or and yeah, there's also the slightly more drama of seasons as well. So there are things that particularly made an impression that first year, know, the trees, the autumn color, frost, proper frost, ice, snow, big sky, wonderful winter light.

And I hope over time I don't take any of that for granted. But it is strange that both with the previous home and here, you know, it sounds vaguely glamorous, doesn't it, living in the Peak District or living on the edge of the Grampian Hills. And I consider myself very, very fortunate to live somewhere I can walk from the door. But the sort of things that engage could equally be something that you might find in your local

Michela Griffith (23:26.531)
park or a bit of waste ground or scrub or whatever. As Joe says, nature is there in some form and if you go out and you pay enough attention and look closely, you will find something magical.

Joe Cornish (23:46.175)
I think that's true. I'm not... Sorry.

Tim Parkin (23:46.252)
I'm reminded of a New York photographer who went out taking wildlife pictures and finding all the bits of abandoned car parks and building sites. And then finally found the train tracks, the old abandoned train tracks above New York that had turned into short woodland and bushland in New York. So takes a bit of looking for, I imagine. We'll get to Hank Goosen's question. sorry, joke, on.

Joe Cornish (24:09.915)
Sorry, just to back up what you were saying, really, for example, in London, you'd think, I suppose those of us who don't live in London probably think it's a kind of, well, totally dominated by humans, which it is, but there's even lots and lots of interesting wild areas in the city where, you know, many different bird species, not just parakeets, by the

but can be found. and insects and so on thrive. It is largely waterways and woodland areas, of course. But yeah, and I actually think that's something I'd like to hear more about. you know, when we, you know, maybe future articles and so on is to encourage people who do live in cities to find their bits of wild nature and see what they can do with them because they're really, really, really important.

for so many people in our population who perhaps don't have the opportunities that we are lucky enough to have.

Michela Griffith (25:15.555)
This is what on that subject it brings to mind. We did a feature with Mary Francis, I think it was last year, who almost imagines landscapes and finds them within the stones of the pavement or the walls, the cracks where vegetation and moss and leaves gather. And her work's very interesting in terms of, yeah, literally it's under your feet.

Tim Parkin (25:46.73)
There's a great photographer in Edinburgh called Colin Holmes. He found a little private garden, like with railing around it, but did a project there once. And it's only not a large area, it's like half a couple of acres maybe. But it's fascinating to see how much that produced. Hank Goossens was asking you, how do you stay so driven and focused after all these years and what or who inspired you?

It's got actually a few questions in a row here. We'll start with that one. How do you stay focused or do you stay focused all the

Michela Griffith (26:20.715)
Yeah, I think I have an innate restlessness and I'm not very good at sitting still and doing nothing, so that's one factor. In terms of the main, I think the main driver for the photography is curiosity, you know, it's the what happens if, you know, what might I see around the end of this alleyway as, you know, I disappear to my husband's frustration just

there might be something interesting down there. There's maybe a slight obsessive tendency as well.

Michela Griffith (27:00.931)
But yeah, the interesting thing that I think I've learnt maybe even more so since I've come up here is, know, I worked for 24 years as a landscape architect and it was all about delivering projects, you know, on time to budget within sometimes ridiculous timescales. And without that discipline of, you know, the programme and the completion date.

I'm not always good at finishing things these days. And obviously I've got a lot more to distract me up here and particularly with bringing in other media as well. So yeah, seem to, with time shifted a bit more in terms of the side of the brain that's dominant. I think at the end of the day though, I enjoy it. It feeds me.

Tim Parkin (27:34.722)
Yeah, I can relate to

Michela Griffith (28:01.089)
you know, my little bit of joy and happiness and why would I want to give that up? Hopefully over time what I do may not dramatically get better, but it evolves. You know, I learn from it. I learn about very much place and nature driven these days. Inevitably, you know, we learn about ourselves however much we might have picked up a

first place to avoid being visible. So that yeah it's a combination of those things but you know I'm fortunate to have you know time for it as

Tim Parkin (28:41.688)
Before I back to

Tim Parkin (28:46.946)
Before I go back to Hank's other questions, want to ask about how, for both of you as well, I'll start with Joe actually. How much has nature writing influenced your work?

Tim Parkin (29:00.844)
and how much you read. Is there any particular inspiring?

Joe Cornish (29:05.137)
I actually think that the photography has inspired me to read nature writing, if that makes sense. it's a slightly the other way around. I've been inspired to read great nature writers like, well, let's say Barry Lopez or Robert McFarlane because of Richard, maybe because of the photography. mean, I would, think I,

you know, becoming too autobiographical, I largely became a landscape photographer because I love to be outside and I found solace in nature because I, you know, I also sounded like Michaela and I have something in common there. I always wanted to be invisible. I would have loved that cloak of invisibility and being behind the camera was a way of being protected in a way from other people. But you know, once

realized I could point the camera at the natural world, it then opened up the natural world for me. So the fascination and curiosity that comes with that, then took me to start reading more and more and more. And, and then another people saying, you should read so and so Nan Shepherd or whatever. And, and you would, you know, just get absorbed in that amazing work. And so the ideas are often

I don't think my photography is actually particularly influenced directly by nature writing, but it's certainly the sort of places I might wish to visit. It's more to do with the attitude towards the natural world itself. That's what I've really learned from reading work of the great writers, I think, rather than influencing it directly. But it's very interesting question. It's really nice to reflect on. And I think generally the arts are a great source.

a great resource for us. mean, one of the things that I was interested to ask Michaela about too, is how, you know, if you think of the way that the arts are sort of siloed in a certain kind of way, that, you know, if you're a musician, you play or you compose, maybe not even some, do both clearly, but, and then, and it feels quite separate.

Joe Cornish (31:30.017)
And yet I think that there's so much crossover in between the arts. I mean, I don't sculpt, but I'd like to. certainly would. do paint occasionally and I do draw and write. But photography is still my main thing. I just don't think that the way that the arts, like everything in life, is kind of shoved into pigeonholes and categories.

And in a way, I think that's a shame, particularly in the case of photography, because we feel like we're isolated from the other arts, and I really wish we weren't. Over to you.

Tim Parkin (32:12.254)
You paint as well, don't you, Michaela? You paint as well, don't you?

Michela Griffith (32:14.413)
Sorry.

Yeah, just going back to the point on the books, yeah, I'd say my experience has been very much akin to Jo's, it's this going out for a walk, spending time outdoors photography that probably gave me the desire to read nature and place writing. And that goes back many years now before it really became as popular as it is these days.

In addition to some of the names that Joe mentioned, a recent book that is absolutely excellent that I recommend is Amy Jane Beers, The Flow, about rivers and water. And that's one of the best bits of writing I've come across recently. And another excellent writer and poet who definitely crosses boundaries is composer Richard Skelton.

some excellent writing by him. In terms of media, yeah, I mean, obviously Richard came to mind in terms of working across a number and, you know, I can think of plenty of people that we've interviewed that, you know, are keen musicians or, you know, perhaps art in their backgrounds as well. So I think it's there, I

Some of it perhaps comes down to education, that, you know, we're all encouraged to be productive members of society. And certainly at the time I was at school, that wasn't seen to be art or culture or music or any of that, unfortunately, even though they can be some of the things that perhaps bring humans the most joy. Yeah, the sort of painting, I suppose, along with the handmade books and so

Michela Griffith (34:09.175)
I think it took me quite a while to realise that I'd actually learnt a tremendous amount once I freed myself up to experiment in camera. And I'd been fairly clear at the outset about how I wanted to print the images. And for a while I was quite happy with that. And then I realised, well, what else can I do? And I perhaps started to think off in terms of print embellishment. And I did a

online art course during the first COVID lockdown. And I suppose that was transformative because that gave me the confidence to pick up a paintbrush again for the first time in about probably 30 years. And that was very freeing in terms of, you know, no real preconceptions there about what I wanted to make or why I was doing it, you know. And that freedom from there has to be an outcome

could be shown or could be offered for sale or whatever was very, very liberating. And I think perhaps at heart I'm trying to search for different ways to take the work. These are individual moments that we can rarely go back and replicate. So can I do something that isn't control print? How else can I?

you know, bring other media into what I produce as, you know, monoprints that mix a photographic print with, you know, something done on the gel plate.

I haven't gotten particularly into image transfers, but yeah, how else? it's tied in, I think, too, to the way that I found myself seeing landscape that when we chatted a few years back with yourself, Tim and David Ward, after the lightning talk at the meeting of minds conference, I said I was still feeling that I had to hang on to something in an image of water that was sharp that I

Michela Griffith (36:20.045)
quite being able to leave behind the discipline of things needing to be in focus. And one of the interesting things through looking into the water here is that has now broken down that I've got used to things that are softer. Part of it, I suppose, was at the time switching from a macro lens to just using the long end of a compact lens, which clearly would

focus on something that was reflected from the canopy but everything else would soften.

And I've come to obviously to recognise that, you know, I've gone back from contact lenses to glasses and I've always looked at the landscape through a lens and had that corrected view. And I've maybe just through this place, begun to question that a little bit, which at times has led me to extremely blurry images. And I started off thinking them just as effectively a colour ground that I might incorporate

mixed media, but I've also come to recognise that there's a feeling within those two that they're, you know, almost something from a dream or something that you might see with eyes half closed. So I'm interested to, in terms of maybe some with age, maybe we get a bit softer, I don't know.

Tim Parkin (37:50.592)
I've told you combine those pieces of work. One thing I noticed looking at your portfolio and now a little bit as opposed to maybe four or five years ago is you've got almost a wider range of types of images. You have this quite representative images in there I noticed and then the outdoor photography article, a couple that were straight images, very good straight images, but also

Michela Griffith (38:11.996)
Crap dude.

Tim Parkin (38:18.093)
as you say, some images that are completely abstracted away. How do you decide on, how do you work with those as a group of pictures? Do you think about them as siloed projects in certain styles or you combine those together in a certain project

Michela Griffith (38:35.363)
It tends to be whatever's upsetting me at the time, I think. I again, I don't do it with preconception. Photography feels very instinctive. I mean, we've touched on picking up a camera so that you weren't the subject, which for me goes back to my early teens. But the thing that fascinated me just was the way that it gave you seeing the world

you know, a totally different way. No, I mean, I suppose, perhaps sometimes I think I should be a bit more organised, but I've never really thought about what I do as projects. I just think of them as lines as inquiry. And sometimes, you know, one will call to me more loudly than the other. But, you know, even from week to week, yeah, you know, I might go and I'll look through the grasses

that maybe it's just literally the line and the form and the intersections and they're relatively straight images. Or if I go out and it's breezy, I might be varying the shutter speed and then you end up with something much more fluid. I am always, I think, trying to look for, if I'm not photographing water, something that reminds me of water in some way.

Tim Parkin (40:00.782)
I only ask this because it's a bit of a leading question, because when I've looked at artists in the past, they get interpreted by art writers and critics as this is their period, this is their project. But if you actually look at their work in a sequential view, they're all over the shop. They have multiple projects running at once. They have this and that, they group together in retrospect, it seems. And I was interested whether you did the same thing, and it sounds like that's...

Michela Griffith (40:25.123)
Yeah. Yeah.

Michela Griffith (40:30.839)
Yeah, certainly my brain and what I do is far more chaotic I think than it used to be. Yeah, I do notice that you can spend a while doing something, it might be a way of making marks or seeming writing or whatever and you can think, well, this is pulling me off in a different direction and then a few months on...

you'll be out making an image and suddenly you'll realise actually what you're looking at has echoes of that. So the things that I've done as mixed media that I then realise I'm taking a photograph and the elements of that, but a lot of it is thrown out of focus. But, you know, maybe there are lines within it from vegetation or whatever. That's the other interesting thing, I think, through

the writing and particularly the method of making voice notes while I'm out is that process of thinking aloud. Both gives what I share in immediacy, but it's actually allowed me to connect some of these disparate strands and understand them in a way that I might not have done otherwise. It's easy to focus on making more images, isn't it? And just going out and looking for something bigger, better.

And yeah, actually, yeah, the pro I think of writing as thinking process, I think it is reflective, contemplative for me. But it's hard, though, isn't it? Because you're so close to your own work, you know, you can't always detach yourself enough to perhaps recognise where you're going, if there is an overall direction.

Michela Griffith (42:21.577)
And I guess with writing there's perhaps a discipline of trying to explain something and maybe better understand it. That, know, by trying to take somebody with you maybe you can actually recognise something that's there that you might not have done.

Tim Parkin (42:39.883)
Definitely.

Joe Cornish (42:41.877)
Now that's really interesting actually to hear about because I certainly find similarly that writing is a really important part of the creative process for me. It's as it were thinking, articulating, clarifying, sometimes trying to explain even. And yet I rarely managed to get it down in what I regard as the purest form. I always feel I've done my best thoughts when I'm out walking or sometimes running, jogging.

And I think I must remember that. I I never take a notebook and then when I got home, I've completely forgotten what I thought of. And then it's that, that I regret, but I'm to have to get more organized. And I think that is, is partly just, you know, having up until very recently been very busy with work and gallery and stuff. And now I feel like a bit more time. So I'm really hoping, but that will, that will happen.

But sorry, just to go back to the point, the idea that the words can somehow help you to amplify or open up the photographs in terms of their meaning or their significance. And I wonder how well that works. I hope it does. At least in my own case, I'm just never very sure. I used to think that photographs should just work on their own.

And if they didn't work, then either they didn't work or whoever was looking maybe wasn't bringing the right stuff with them. But I think that words and pictures actually can be fantastic partners creatively. And I certainly hope so. So yeah, interested to know how you feel about

Michela Griffith (44:31.937)
Yeah, think, I mean, the thing I've found invaluable, Joe, is the voice notes on the phone. Because like you, I used to go out and, you I'd think of things and sometimes I'd get home and I'd make some notes and I would remember it, but a lot of the time it would go. And the other thing I've started doing is I've got an undated diary and I just, from the notes I make, I try and, you know, have two or three lines

something I've noticed during that day and I'm trying to get into the discipline of doing that every day. My plan was to do it for a year and so far I've managed and sometimes it's just something you say out the window you know we had a couple of absolutely stunning sunsets either side of the solstice and yeah that but

It's always hard to find time, but voice notes and a few lines a day can sometimes be a key into it. But as somebody said to me, I guess we've got to have a reason to do it, haven't we, to make the time. All these things otherwise tend to get put on

Tim Parkin (45:52.687)
Out of interest, is there any particular artist who use photography and words together that inspire

Michela Griffith (45:59.875)
And...

Well, Guy Talle obviously is quite exceptional, isn't he, in his writing. I mean, the person who probably switched things for me in terms of writing as part of creative processes is Orkney -based artist Samantha Clark. And Sam also has her own obsession with water.

through reading her weekly newsletters. That probably was the thing that inspired me the most in terms of taking it from something that you might read in a book to putting it in a blog or a newsletter. And Sam's now also on Substack as well. and yeah.

Again, going back to Richard Skelton, that's got me into prose poems and reading a bit more poetry.

Michela Griffith (47:12.533)
There's a book by, I think it's Paul Evans called Herbaceous that I'm reading at the moment. That and one of Richard Skelton's both done by Little Taller Books. I'm quite interested in short, fairly dense paragraphs and poems that not necessarily chapters, the structure interests me.

that I find they're things that are relatively easy to pick up and read. And if they're written well, I want to then go back to them and reread them two or three times before I move on to the next. Whereas, you know, unless chapters are short, you don't necessarily get through the whole thing and you lose the momentum. And perhaps that influences me a bit in terms of how I try to write and, you know, what went into the recent book.

Tim Parkin (48:07.64)
Cut a question from one of your Substack readers asking, what do you think your art and photography says about you on that mirror side of things? See if you can interpret

Michela Griffith (48:19.779)
sorry did they leave the name for that? alright okay. ooh what does it say about me? well yeah...

Tim Parkin (48:22.712)
I know I didn't see a name on that one. Unfortunately, sorry.

You want to know who to blame for that

Tim Parkin (48:40.014)
It's like trying to psychoanalyse yourself, isn't it?

Michela Griffith (48:41.953)
Yeah, I don't know is that a question you can really answer yourself? I think it's easier for other people to say but I think, no I mean think it does reflect my curiosity, I think increasingly it reflects my natural myopia that I am drawn to look at things

Joe Cornish (48:48.201)
I think there's a pretty uncomfortable one.

Tim Parkin (48:48.31)
I don't think you can in a way. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (48:54.786)
I think they went, you

Michela Griffith (49:10.611)
I'm usually working down in some uncomfortable position and that's not great for the body, know, a foot or two away from it. It reflects the restlessness, I think, that I keep going back. And this, I don't know, I just seem to have this need to connect with place and here I've talked about...

rooting into place. The writing has helped me notice more here, but it's also deepened my connection and my feeling for place. So I think it probably says quite a lot about innate personality traits that maybe aren't quite for this. But yeah.

Tim Parkin (50:02.467)
An interesting question about the landscape and elements of the landscape is something I've realized while I've been up here is the more I find out about the natural world in terms of plants, geology, the more interest I have in the landscape and the more it engages with me in different ways. I'm not sure, do you get the same thing in the landscape you're in? Botany, the life cycles of things.

Michela Griffith (50:26.551)
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, I've got a bit carried away earlier this year and I ordered about five books in one go that are all to do with peatlands and bryophytes and sphagnum moss and all the rest of it. yeah, it does that in terms of the plants. And last year I started recording birdsong.

But field recorder and this year I'm using an app to help me identify them and yeah, that's very much a part of it or sometimes it might be the sound of the water as well. Yeah, it does it. as Joe was saying earlier, it nudges me to read and understand more about it. In some respects, I think the more closely you look and the more you try to read, the more we realize how little we know and how little we understand.

And, you know, some of the things that I wrote in the book are expressions of frustration about, you know, the fact that other people don't see it in the same way. you know, we very much assume dominion, as I put it, and ignore the fact that, you know, all these other quite wonderful species and plants deserve to be here, you know, as much as we do.

Joe Cornish (51:23.713)
That's so true,

Michela Griffith (51:50.531)
And insects are coming into it as well at the moment, because every time I put my macro lens on and look at a flower, there's some moth or butterfly or fly whatever beetle. And then, you know, I want to know what is it? If I'm going to write to people about it, I'd like to understand what it is. And the strangest part, sorry.

Tim Parkin (52:16.788)
I you get the same joke. I know you get the same joke, don't you? In terms of looking deeper into

Joe Cornish (52:22.749)
Absolutely. I do also read, like Michaela, there's quite a lot of science around it. read Silent Earth relatively recently, it? Nat Goulson, I forget his first name, but it's a fantastic book about insects and how utterly dependent we all are on planet Earth.

For insects, there would be no life as we know it. it just, the more you read and the more you understand and the more you find and connecting with nature, whether it's through photography or reading or just walking, the more I find it seems that human hubris is just, is everywhere. our perception

other animals are in some way inferior to us, just I found absolutely infuriating. mean, it's that that's our value system. And it remains the same. It hasn't really changed in spite of all the amazing nature programs we have on the TV and how much more knowledge there is around. It's still a relatively rare kind of view that anything other than that humans are top dogs and that's it, you know.

everyone else is kind of inferior to us. I just don't see it that way at all. I just think it's, I do think that we are animals, a part of nature and that, you know, for us to have a sustainable future, we need to realign our whole relationship with the natural world or it's very, very hard to see the future being a good one for our children and beyond. So yeah, I think that the more we can, we can,

learn to live with other creatures and appreciate their beauty and their curiosity and their extraordinary adaptations and evolutionary path. Hopefully the better off we'll be because we'll learn to live with nature. think knowledge in that sense is potentially a good

Michela Griffith (54:37.123)
don't think really you can under emphasise how important it is to get people, whether they're adults or children, out into nature. Because yes, we've had all these wonderful nature documentaries and they have become more local rather than purely being exotic. But I think there's still a tendency for people watch them enjoy and say, how wonderful, shouldn't we do this, that and the other? But there's still that, it's there.

and we're here and it's only really when you do connect with nature in place on your own doorstep whatever that might be that perhaps things might shift a little

Tim Parkin (55:20.92)
I've a final question, which is part of Henk Goossens. And that's, what's the next challenge for you? Do you have anything in your wish list that you've not got around to

Michela Griffith (55:32.304)
apart from finishing some things. That's one. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (55:34.978)
Yes, always going to be a challenge.

Michela Griffith (55:41.919)
I obviously, yeah, I want to try and keep working with other media. I don't really know where it will go, but I'm interested in trying to create things that are more individual than a pure print would be. I very much would like to do more books in terms of both handmade and more zine type books that are a bit more

accessible if I get them printed and certainly when I did the recent one on new typography I did see that as perhaps being the first of a number that draw on place here and certainly I think there's going to be plenty of potential content it's just a case of you know sitting down but I mean I wrote in that very much about this idea of you know laying down words is deposition.

very, very conscious of this being a landscape of deposition. You know, after the glaciers pass through, it's a very fluid landscape when you look at it, not just in terms of the water or the moss, but the fact that the landform is, you know, deposition of sand and gravel that were left behind by the fluvial glacial action. So the two, I think, are very much sort

sides of an equation for me that you know the writing and the landscape over time you know I hope will build up to some meaningful accumulation.

Tim Parkin (57:21.9)
Look forward to see where it goes

Michela Griffith (57:24.045)
Thank

Joe Cornish (57:25.173)
Just a quickie, Michaela, to say that not finishing things isn't, yeah, it's a fairly common problem, I think, isn't it, for creative people? And I quote none other than Leonardo da Vinci, who apparently in his life only completed two projects. So you're in good company anyway on that one. Incidentally, if you ever have time, if you think of Leonardo,

I don't know whether you do or not, but I think of him as one of the great figures of art. he has these fantastic drawings of, he was a great draftsman. I that was one the things he was absolutely amazing at. And we think of his pictures of hands and people and horsemen and so on. But towards the end of his life, he spent a lot of time just looking at water flowing and trying to describe

And I think it's really a fascinating thought that, this great mind of the Renaissance actually preoccupied his, in many ways, his last days with trying to understand the flow of water and using a pencil to describe

Tim Parkin (58:38.456)
Thank very much Michaela and Joe and I'll include links to some of the books we mentioned in the article for this. But I'll say goodbye now. Thank

Michela Griffith (58:48.515)
Thank you both.