At the Still Point of the Turning World explores themes of community, belonging and the passage of time through a single ancient, deeply rural English landscape. Photographed in their village homes, the portraits capture some of the longest-term residents of Ampleforth, on the edge of England’s North York Moors and Lucy’s home for twenty years.

Long-time locals are portrayed with vintage wallpaper images, evoking a timelessness that may stir our memories and invite us to consider an under-represented and stereotyped age group (Guardian, 2020) - one that we all hope to belong to. Interwoven portraits, landscapes, still lifes, oral histories and archive images take us from across the valley to the homes where stories that have shaped these residents begin to unfold. Betty lived at Rose Cottage for 69 years, having moved to the village to work as a milk maid on her uncle’s dairy farm, delivering milk by horse and cart. She speaks of her precious lion, the female having been destroyed in the bomb attack during WWII. Jean was born in the village in 1923 and lives in the house her parents built next door to their grocery shop. We see her as a young girl on a rocking horse with her father and sister, and meet her beloved friend ‘May’ who went with her ‘wherever we possibly could’ including trips in the car to the sea at Scarborough. We see the photographer reflected on the curtain in Jean’s long-disused grocery shop window.

The work was supported by a DYCP grant from Arts Council England.

Selected portraits will be exhibited at Scarborough Art Gallery’s East Coast Open 2025, from 17 May - 13 September 2025.

Three portraits were exhibited at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Photography Prize 2025 Exhibition, February - March 2025. The work was awarded the Solo Show Prize by Vanley Burke (the ‘godfather of black British photography’), which will be held in 2026.

The work was awarded the Shutter Hub FORMAT25 Portfolio Award in March 2025.