Echoes Of Home In A Distant Place

Photographer Steve Blacksmith is unsettled by the familiar in the Falklands

Steve Blacksmith (and his camera) recently spent a Summer month in the Falkland Islands whose isolated farms and wildlife enchanted him. This exhibition of photographs is not, however, a travelogue but a visual meditation on the similarities between the Falklands and parts of the UK (especially the Scottish islands) - and, of course, their subtle and unexpected differences.

“Everything that is not Port Stanley - namely isolated farms - is called ‘camp’,” says Steve. “Surreally ‘camp’ has its own time-zone, an hour ahead of the capital. Being there is like being in a parallel universe. An alternative existence that is aware of us whilst we are mostly unaware of it”.

Steve Blacksmith is well known locally as the Chair of the Halifax Scientific Society (the exhibition is certain to reflect something of his ornithological interests...) but he is also a painter and illustrator who was taught in the 1970’s by Willi Tirr for his Dip A/D at Leeds College of Art.

Held in the Photography Gallery.