The more places I visit and the more I fish, I find myself transfixed in a state, a place imagined from the past, people passing through as their lives ebb and flow, then fade as they dissolve into the soil. When I stand with my video camera this sense is enduring as I piece together a narrative. I relish the past, with it I see the present and look into the future, it is apparent my films have taken on this tone over the last year. These films are not sentimental nor nostalgic, The Glass Aisle was an engagement into a poets world. Paul Henry unlocked the souls from the past through the landscape of the Brecon and Monmouthshire canal, the experience was a total immersion, five months on and the Glass Aisle haunts me every day.
I have shot two more films this summer, one was shot in Canada with Garrett from Fallon’s Angler, this is not finished but once again I was surprised on what we discovered in British Columbia, kindred spirits? I still not sure but we witnessed a connection with the flora and fauna at the end of our trip when I caught a sturgeon and landed it on a first nation reservation. There we met a lady who connected us with her spirit world, a world apart from the macho hunting and fishing scene that seems prevalent in modern Canada. The passion of angling had once again blessed us with another soulful experience.
Back in the UK we shot a short film – Solent Hounds – fishing for smoothounds in the Solent. Escaping from London one afternoon just at the start of the hot summer, we fished for several hours with anglers Adam and Ollie. We stayed until dark, what came from the shoreline through our marriage of words and images was once again echoed from the past through the landscape. I thought we were simply shark fishing, instead Garrett and myself found more. There are many angling films out there showing how and where, but I hope these Fallon’s Angler film offer something else? As anglers we have the privilege to stay put, to step away from time, to focus on a spot, transfixed in a meditative state, personally I dream, I honour and remember those lost souls that once walked and now lay as dust beneath my feet, while remembering that I too will one day join them.
Watch Solent Hounds here…
