TO WANDER & WONDER

Unhurried thoughts that circle, and sit. Sometimes they come back to land. More often they stay out at sea. Seagulls and salt air. Storm fronts, and slow tides. The shifting edge between land and water.

7 stories

Latest Stories

VALDA BAILEY

The Indecisive Moment

Never finished. Only trusted. Here's a story about Pierre Bonnard – it may be apocryphal but I like to think not. He is supposed to have slipped a small box of paints into the Louvre, persuaded a friend to distract the guard, and disappeared off to retouch one of his own paintings while it hung on the wall – finished, framed, hung. Job done. Except Bonnard thought otherwise. I mentally refer back to this story more often than I should. I have already detailed the ridiculous amount of time I

VALDA BAILEY

Beyond the Shutter

The single frame was never the point. New York, 2011. A restaurant a stone's throw from the Bowery. A hungry group of mature students gather after a gruelling day trying to unite light, colour and gesture into something that might earn an approving grunt from Jay Maisel. Ten of us round a table, mostly professional photographers. I had advanced since my first workshop with Jay, but I felt every inch a pretender. Still in thrall to Flickr, where everything is a 'great capture!!!' and the 'likes'

VALDA BAILEY

Someone was Here

For years the advice was the same, and I took it. A photographer's website should be a white room. Black or grey text, kept small. Nothing to distract from the pictures, no clutter, no personality. Let the work speak for itself. So I built mine that way. valdabailey.com is a clean grid of images on a pale neutral ground, just like all other artists' sites are clean grids of images on pale neutral grounds. It ticked all the boxes – albeit with a few defiant black rectangles dotted around. The epi

VALDA BAILEY

What's in a Name?

Why we chose Pedra do Ouro over the Algarve, the awkward language of expats and immigrants, and the appeal of a less polished life on Portugal’s Silver Coast.

VALDA BAILEY

Costa de Prata

Not silver as in jewellery – silver as a condition of the light. On the pewter, pink and inky moods of Portugal's Atlantic light, and starting again in a roofless studio.

VALDA BAILEY

A Forest, Not a Plantation.

The internet has been farmed hard. On Ghost, the Fediverse, and choosing a tangled corner of the field over the polished plantation.

VALDA BAILEY

Why Water?

Water is the subject where looking-to-keep is hopeless and looking-to-be-present is the only option.