Phil (Philippa) Starkey
Throughout a tumultuous childhood, the landscape gave me beauty and hope every time that I thought there was none left in the world. It has been my solid friend throughout my life and my son’s. It has been a way to build many happy memories with him, puddle jumping in the mud and rain, picnicking by the river and more. The landscape offers me a mental calmness that I can’t find in anything else, and when I photograph it that’s, in essence. what I’m offering you - a breathing space for the mind that only the magic and beauty of the land can offer.
My favourite times of day are dawn and dusk, with their glorious range of colours and tones that you just don’t get at any other time. Some people don’t realise, for instance, that there is a blue hour before sunrise which is so rich and has wonderfully fresh light. Every day is individual, and there’s no better way to show this than by photographing it in all its changeable colours.
I’m especially inspired by artists whose work evolves over time, who don’t fall prey to falling into a rut and staying there. Their work encourages me to do the same – to learn, to grow, to find different ways of expressing myself, to better understand all parts of my creative side. Interestingly, although I seek calm and tranquillity in landscapes and photography, in other art forms I’m drawn to bold, bright colours which bring energy and excitement.
Living Landscapes
When I look at these trees in the early spring with their lovely straight trunks and the fresh green shoots popping out like fingers from each branch, in my imagination they’re all slowly waking up from their winter slumber, stretching and straightening out their bodies and limbs with a big yawn welcoming the year ahead and the carpet of greenery below as their discarded duvet. Using a little camera movement with this in mind, it accentuates that stretching feeling through the trees and gives the carpet of green below that bouncy look, like a duvet on a bed would have.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
In the depths of the winter the Hawthorn trees stand firm on Dartmoor whilst being blasted by furiously bitter winds, and during this particular winter just gone heavy snow and ice. Whilst I had a job to stand up in that wind it also gave me the inspiration for this particular image. With furious winds comes a lot of movement, and so guided by Mother Nature I let her blow me around with my camera in the field where this lovely hardy Hawthorn lives. The side to side motion that I took gives you a feeling of the wild weather itself and also how the tree was moving at the time, whilst the cool tones from the snow on the ground gives you an idea of the chill that was so bitter that day.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 16.5" x 11.7"
Edition 1 of 15
This wonderful set of Beech trees was right beside a main road and I knew that I wanted to photograph them as soon as I saw them because the whole avenue was simply awash with this amazing golden glow like it was liquid dripping from the trees in the sunshine. Like a woman possessed I tried so many different positions and compositions to photograph them, however nothing I was producing was showing them in the way that I wanted them to be seen. They reminded me of fireworks or better still a flowing molten metal. How could I make that translate? The easiest way was to be free flowing myself, just as the metal would be or the fireworks would fall from the sky and take the camera off the tripod and let myself and my imagination go. So, whilst avoiding getting run over by cyclists, cars and the odd truck, I began a merry dance with my camera in the middle of the road giving the movement the scene deserved finally producing fiery liquid dripping from the trees as I’d first seen it.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 15
From the confines of a grey office block in Plymouth the workers gaze out of their window trying to find something to break the monotony of their day. Where does their gaze fall? Upon these Silver Birch trees offering them natural light bouncing from their silvered trunks and shimmering amongst their green leaves, a refreshment for the computer tired eyes. For the outsider looking in however, these Silver Birch trees, so similar in tone to the building itself and the windows that are in it, begin to blend in, the linear pattern of the trunks against the window frames and the green tones reflected back from the windows. A gentle upward wavering camera movement helps to show the where the inner city nature meets the architecture and it softens, becoming one.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
There had been the first frost of the winter season on Dartmoor, but only in certain deep pockets that Mother Nature seemed to have specifically picked out. It crunched under foot and the crisp air had trapped the distinct smell of autumn moulds that comes only from the fallen leaves from the trees. There were two sections of colour in this pocket at Newbridge, one of the white frost all cold and clean, and the other of the warm tones of autumn still hanging on in the trees and I wanted to marry them together like the seasons themselves are tied. Using camera movement was the perfect way of doing this, to still keep their identities but merge them slightly where the edges met showing that relationship and transition between the two.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
I believe autumn shows us some of the richest range of colours that nature can offer us, and even though it represents slipping into the colder part of the year they still make you feel warm and snug with their luxurious golden tones. With the leaves on the ground and some still in the trees plus the lovely reddish bark on the trunks, I wanted to give this a painterly feel as if someone had sat for hours applying single brushstrokes in an upward movement. So that’s exactly what I did and applied the upward movement as I pressed the shutter button producing what looked like an impressionist style image.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
On this occasion when arriving at my location I was at first more intent on photographing the river that I was standing in and this scene took a while for me to recognise. It wasn’t until I’d settled down and had relaxed into my surroundings that this little gathering of birches became apparent. I was up to my ankles in the freezing cold river and looking up the bank to these lovely young trees, which felt to me as if they had grouped together specifically to do the same, look down at me and have a gossip and wonder about what I was doing there, I felt watched by them. They reminded me of a gaggle of young teenagers hanging around demanding my attention, so happily I gave it to them.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
I love this particular Hawthorn tree. I adore its shape, the way it leans, where it’s situated on the Tor with such magnificent views, the fact that it’s one of the last flowering Hawthorns on the Tor and is always utterly laden in blossoms, but most of all I love it’s character. I refer to her as My Lady, and ever since I first clapped eyes on her she’s been a mature lady wearing the most outrageously fancy floral hat, a big statement piece that simply shouts out look at me aren’t I fabulous! She needed equally dramatic scenes to match her character, and so on this particular evening when the sun was lowering to set and the moody rain clouds were gathering it provided the perfect theatrical light and scene to accompany her.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
After what was a profusion of growing activity and flowering during the spring after a long and cold winter, the hazy summer months brought with it a glorious stretch of warm and sun filled weather, where everything stretched out, slowed down and relaxed somewhat. The grasses blew gently about in the breeze, the bees buzzed from flower to flower, and here the boughs of this old Oak tree adorned with its full green leaves swayed under the shimmering golden light. Lazy, hazy, beautiful dream ridden summer sunshine days.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
We had seen the last significant snowfall of the winter on Dartmoor and the roads had started to be reopened, yet on the walk up onto Down Tor there were still seven foot snow drifts at the sides of the roads and small snowfields on the Tors themselves. Winter hadn’t quite yet released us from its grip I thought. I found myself a small snowfield which remarkably had remained completely untouched by any of the animals that live on the Moors. There were no footprints to be seen and so I carefully picked my way around it to find my position to set up and photograph this and the lovely Hawthorn tree. At the time I couldn’t see anything of Leather Tor beyond as it was completely covered in fog, so what happened next was an absolute treat! I think Mother Nature had decided to reward the efforts made to get here, and just as I’d got my equipment in place the fog started to roll back to reveal the Tor, but not too much so it was still kissing the top of it, the clouds began to move out but still retained their wonderfully sulky moodiness, and then out came the evening sunshine. It was so rich and golden, it’s warm tones caressing the land and the side of the tree like it was giving it a hug. It seemed like right at that very moment Winter’s spell had at last been broken.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
With the colours of autumn still hanging on in the bracken and a beautiful warm tone in the sunrise sky, you could be mistaken for thinking it was quite a pleasant morning temperature wise. However this beautiful solitary Hawthorn tree was now completely shut down for the winter and there was a frost on the ground heralding the harshest season on the Moors was yet to come. It was bitter, crisp, and the ground was solid. There was a bite to the air which made your ears ache from within your woolly hat and your fingers were in pain within minutes of them being out of your gloves. You take in a deep lungful of fresh air and it burns the back of your nose with its chilled purity. Everything that is perfect about the final season of the year.
Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
In my local wood I have a mix of Beech and also Larch trees. The majority of the Larch grow specifically in their own areas due to woodland management with the Beech in their own pockets also, but I found a spot in this magical wood where the two types manage to combine so perfectly with their tones and textures that they marry up like they’re one in the same tree. That beautifully straight and grand Larch trunk standing proudly with it’s base nestled amongst the soft browned brackens, with the mottled golds and browns from the leaves of the Beech tree nearby almost gently holding it’s branches around it, protecting it whilst it grows upward. It created this lovely gentle autumnal scene, which shows the close relationship between the two different types.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25
I was stood behind a derelict farm building wrapped in many layers with just my eyes peering out from between my warm bobble hat and scarf covering my nose protecting me from the most bitter wind chill I think I’ve experienced yet on the Moors when this scene presented itself. It reminded me of the old carol ‘In the Bleak Mid Winter’, and specifically it’s first verse with the words:
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter, long ago
It described the scene, sounds and feelings absolutely perfectly almost as if it was made for it. In the Bleak Midwinter this hardy Hawthorn stood, with the freezing wind howling around the old building of long ago situated on the bleak Moorland, the ground rock sold beneath its feet, beautiful ice caught in the branches and a powdery snow being whipped up with new falls coming in the shower clouds. It was a somehow beautifully romantic and punishingly harsh landscape at the very same time.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 29.7cm x 42cm
Edition 1 of 25
Wind beaten, battered, weather shapen, tough. This little Hawthorn has been through thick and thin over the many years that it’s stood on this Tor, it’s taken everything that is thrown at it, it’s had a chunk of itself snapped off in high winds and yet it still hangs on in there giving shelter to lambs in the spring and summer, a nesting place for birds, a scratching post for Dartmoor ponies, and it’s berries as food for overwintering migrants in the autumn. She’s a resilient old thing that refuses to give in dominating the Tor with her magnificence. Long may she reign in all her glory.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image size: 30cm x 42cm
Edition 1 of 25
With the advancement of spring comes the delight of the fresh green shoots and leaves in the forests and woods, heralding new life and new beginnings in the natural world. Beech trees have to be my favourite tree at this particular time of year, as they seem to produce the brightest of all of the shoots in the wood, just screaming out ‘I’m alive’ and bringing a lively energy to wherever they are. I am lucky that I have a small Beech wood near to where I live and in the spring in the evening when the golden light hits the trees it makes the greens appear even brighter than usual. I felt that using some camera movement for this image would reflect the explosion of energy from the trees and their fantastic colour accentuated by the sunlight.
Artist: Phil Starkey
Series: Living Landscapes
Archival pigment print
Image Size: 42cm x 59.7cm
Edition 1 of 25