Michael graduated from the University of Brighton with a degree in photography and now lives in Berlin, Germany where he joined Stattlab, a non-profit, analogue photography collective.
He started taking photographs of elderly couples during their ballroom dancing practice in a local community hall. The resulting pictures were vastly different from what he expected and since then, he has been fascinated by what the camera captures, especially the things you fail to notice or understand at the time.
He prefers analogue photography over digital because it slows the process down and “choices have to be made in the moment without the luxury of delaying decisions”.
His series “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory” is dedicated to a close friend. The loss of his friend coincided with his growing interest in photography and changed the way he approached the camera. When he first heard about his death, he found himself staring in shock, trying to make sense of what happened and realising that he had been staring at the same thing for hours.
He regretted not taking more pictures of him. “My driving questions became; how do I try and photograph something no longer present? How do I photograph how something feels? These photographs are of my surroundings at that time, areas deeply familiar to me. I worked alone as each image felt as if it was an opportunity for slow and deliberate remembrance.“