CREATURES OF THE WOOD

visual Editing by Chris Page

Mike Rossi began by looking closely at something most of us would probably pass without a second thought: the surface of weathered timber.

Knots, cracks, grain and the effects of age had created their own patterns. But the longer Mike looked,

the less they seemed simply to be marks in wood.

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Faces appeared. Animals emerged. Strange figures and characters seemed to be caught within the grain, sometimes obvious,

sometimes requiring a little more imagination before they revealed themselves.

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The photographs were not about changing what was there, but about recognising it. By isolating areas of timber and removing the

wider surroundings, details that might otherwise have remained unnoticed became the subject of the photograph.

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As with AUTUMN LEAVES, the photographs became the starting point for an ongoing collaboration between Mike and Chris,

with Chris establishing the visual editing that brought them together as a collection.

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Titles became an important part of that process, reflecting the characters and creatures they began to see within each image.

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What began as an observation of timber gradually became something rather different.

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A small world of imagined inhabitants, already there in the wood, waiting to be noticed.