Sometimes restrictions, even quite severe ones, can prove to be fortuitously advantageous. This seems to have been the case for me of late. Two degenerative eye diseases and a chronic respiratory condition have seriously curtailed my long-term passion for photographic portraiture. My ‘portrait pilgrimage’ – as I have termed it – is as good as done.

Consequently, in facing this dilemma, I have turned to the time-honoured art of the still-life. This gives me the freedom to work in a slower, less pressured, more contemplative manner. With a glance back over my shoulder, I have taken inspiration from the golden age of seventeenth-century Dutch still-life painting and the work of Adriaen Coorte in particular.