This began as a college assignment during the COVID-19 lockdown in January 2021. I had recently got a copy of ‘John Blakemore’s Black and White Photography Workshop’ and decided to follow the process laid out in his book that he used to create his celebrated collections of photographs of tulips.

Following the process like I would a recipe in a cookery book I created my own project to document my COVID-19 ‘lockdown walks’ during the winter. I used my old chopping board as the background/ground to represent myself and my home and collected various items of plant material from my walks in the local area and from my home and garden.

The first image was shot with a digital medium format camera handheld in my garden as a ‘proof of concept’ and has actually proved to be the most popular of the series when I have shared these. the remaining images were all shot using a tripod and timer under controlled conditions in my house and conservatory.

After completing my assignment for college I stained the chopping board a darker brown and have continued adding to the series.