I’m Andy Marshall – a photographer, artist, and writer, seeking out places that offer refuge, continuity, and alternative ways of seeing the world.
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 through photography and the arts.
A Grain of Sand
There is a place called Spurn Point in Yorkshire, England – a long, fragile spit of land reaching into the sea, marked by a lighthouse. Every few hundred years, through storm and brine, it is overwhelmed and taken back into the depths. And yet, through circumstance and time, it returns. Slowly. Grain by grain. Rising again from the restless waters of the North Sea.
What I find comforting in this gentle renewal is not the scale of it, but its beginning. Each return starts with a single grain of sand.
In tending the Genius Loci Digest, I think of it in those terms. Not as a grand gesture, but as a small offering – a way of setting something down that shines a little light amongst the growing gloom of the twenty-first century, and trusting that even the lightest act of care might, over time, help something take shape again.
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:
One for #throwbackthursday: a few years back I stood outside Wells Cathedral for a full day and photographed the impact of the light on the front facade. I was amazed at the outcome - at how a single entity could morph and change under the changing light. pic.twitter.com/qMKnJ9yuhy
— Andy Marshall 📸 (@fotofacade) November 3, 2022
For over twenty years I've been seeking out alternative stories in our surviving material culture and sharing them.
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.
And thank you so much, for the keen lens and thoughtful pen you combine so effectively. As long as we can see, and think, there is hope…
Subscriber: Hooklineandstitches
Van Life - My Camper Van Camino
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 architectural photographer and link my travel around the commissioned shoots.
"You are the 21st century version of a wandering minstrel except you tell stories by image not song."
Will (Subscriber)
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
Andy Marshall
Member discussion