About the Genius Loci Digest

I’m Andy Marshall and I'm an architectural photographer.

From darkness to light.

It took a difficult period in my life to find a pathway through photography — one that helped me discover genius loci: the spirit of place and the deeply moving stories behind the so-called mundane material culture on our doorstep.

What I had to do was learn to see again. And once I did, I never felt alone.

Opening myself to alternative ways of experiencing the world changed everything; it helped me navigate anxiety and depression, widened the horizons of what felt possible, and ultimately drew me into a new life in photography.

Often it was the seeking places out itself that brought comfort — small moments of clarity caught in stone and light that steadied my resolve. But, looking back, I can see there was something deeper running beneath all that searching. Without realising it, I’d begun to serve the very thing that had saved me — to stand before places not in possession, but in witness; to share what they offered as a kind of work.

This Digest is that work.

One of the most rewarding responses I've had to the Genius Loci Digest is: "I love seeing the world through your eyes."

For over twenty years I've been seeking out alternative stories in our surviving material culture and sharing them with my photographs and words.

I find and access places that people wouldn't ordinarily see, or show well known places in a different light.

A Countermeasure

We have learnt to look at the world through ratings, reviews, and whether a place is “Instagrammable.” Nuance is pressed flat into a system of stars. Even mountains and valleys are scored on Google Maps, while countless unassuming places slip silently through the net. I often wonder, ruefully, how much we are missing when only the ranked and the rated rise to the surface. It begins to feel as though such systems are not merely cataloguing the world, but curating us into rank and file.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Director General of Pompeii, calls it “collector syndrome” - the urge to amass star-rated experiences without ever lowering the camera from in front of the face. I make no judgement; I have done it too. Yet a ripple of unease remains.

This Digest is my countermeasure - drawing out the overlooked, the gaps and silences, where places and ideas still speak of who we are and the values we hold.

Anything is possible.

This digest revels in the in-between, the transitional, the presence of absence. My camera with its dials and knobs and sharp focus has taken me into the blur of things. Because something can't be measured it doesn't mean that it isn't there.

Anything is possible.

Opening our eyes, developing new ways of seeing, articulating nuance, and engaging with our historic environment not only helps with wellbeing, it also helps tease out counter-narratives to our polarised world and initiates hope for the future.

There is so much out there to discover and learn from: things that are hidden behind our poverty of inspiration in our device driven, algorithmic twenty-first century selves.

"The ray of light which pierced the floor at Hopwood ignited a way of engaging that had intermittently revealed itself at various stages of my life. It’s a state of being that’s hard to describe. It’s a process which involves a shift in consciousness to another way of seeing."

A Singular Point of Light

Here's more about my Genius Loci Digest Journey.

Van Life - My Camper Van Camino

"You are the 21st century version of a wandering minstrel except you tell stories by image not song."

Will (Subscriber)

I travel the length and breadth of the British Isles photographing remarkable places.

I have a home-base in the north of England and travel out from there on lengthy photo projects in the British Isles. I'm a professional architectual photographer and link my travel around the commissoned shoots.

My camper van gets me into places at times that I wouldn’t normally be able to access. I can now stay over on sites to monitor the local conditions and light levels throughout a full 24 hours.

Travelling in the van has been a revelation for me – it feels like a constant pilgrimage, and my photography has been impacted by the diversity of time and place.

Here's an example of one of my time-travelling journeys.

Goals

Long term goals: overcoming imposter syndrome.

To lift myself high enough to see beyond the horizon has always been a tricky thing for me: to dare to dream of a new vocation.

Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall

Meet the Photographer