Writing about an image of his mother Barthes noted the disturbing nature of the photographic artefact. "Temporal hallucinations" he called them, "like living things that a born sprouting silver grains, they flourish for a moment, then age and eventually die" (Camera Lucida, 1980).

Photographs are impressions of the world. They are marks left behind. Fixed shadows that connect us with the past. They promise to capture the moment and preserve it. Despite our familiarity they can still be the most strange fetishised objects, valued far beyond their frail paper and emulsion fabric.

Photographs seem to promise that that time itself can be controlled, happy moments made eternal. Yet there is no such power, no natural magic. 

These works were exhibited at the Perth Centre for Photography in 2007.