Exploring the thresholds, traces and liminal states of littoral space alongside personal connection to, and place within, the seascape, Ebb/Flow is a handmade book that metaphorically considers the transitions and sense of self associated with the seascape.

Focusing on the dialogue between land and sea and the liminal state of the foreshore as it is reclaimed by the sea and relinquished to the shoreline with the ebb and flow of the tide, the images consider the the sense of timelessness and constancy of the sea, juxtaposed against its state of flux: a discourse on the ‘traigh’(Gaelic for both ebb and beach) – permanence and impermanence, inextricably intertwining this littoral space that is sometimes water, sometimes land, experienced through the layers of human perception. Enduring beyond human observation or presence, unconstrained by, and indifferent to, the manmade construct of time.

Introducing seawater into the development process embeds the sea itself in the images, the salt crystallising on the negatives and leaving its mark in the final image; while seaweed developed images of artefacts collected along the strandline and photographed in the studio signify traces of the shore, devoid of colour, infused and ‘brought back to life’ with seaweed itself – printed onto tracing paper to overlay images of the shoreline itself.

Seawater, seasalt, seaweed and cyanotypes of strandline artefacts are embedded in the fibres of the handmade book cover alongside tactile seaweed imprints.

The layers of memories and knowledge in our subconscious as part of our place identity are signified with maps, nautical charts, tide timetables and polaroids on acetate and tracing paper overlays, illustrating how memories shift and fade and transfer, the indefinitive nature of cartographic and geographic boundaries that shift with the tide, and our perceptual experience.

Inserted into the book is a small concertina pull out examining the threshold of crossing the North York Moors at the point at which the sea can be glimpsed, including pinhole imagery taken between spring and neap tides on the Moors and on the coastline.

The book can be viewed both forwards as Ebb and backwards as Flow, deliberately using the vernacular rather than technical terms, beginning with the lowest ebb of the tide and working towards its highest flow and vice versa.