17 October 2026

Exploring a theme: Human Trace

This autumn I’m starting a photography project around the theme of Human Trace. It comes from the 617 Club, an online photography community founded by Simon Baxter and Tom Heaton, which runs in seasons, each with a theme that members interpret through a project of their own. The third season has just launched and runs until May.

After sketching out a few ideas of what the theme might look like, I had a handful of broad topics in mind - abandoned buildings, a walked line across a field or a footprint in the snow and the best way I’ve found to explore this kind of project is to grab my camera and go out and explore! With that, I set off on a stroll into Nottingham.

Over a couple of hours, I captured with a handful of images that are not project quality, but were taken for pleasure and documentary reasons and served to get me thinking about the project.

This first image was close to the start of the walk.

Human activity is fairly evident: the remains of many small fires or barbecues, the graffiti and the brick wall.

This second image is my favourite from the day; I like how the light from the water is reflected on the underside of the bridge, resulting in it being partially lit by the sun. There’s also a second piece of graffiti, also dappled with reflected light.

It’s often important in photography, and in life, to look back sometimes and in taking this third image, I did just that. As I approached this bridge, the light hitting the bridge caught my eye, but it felt similar to other images I had taken, so I carried on. As I walked under the bridge, a distant sound caught my attention and as I turned back, I liked this perspective and took the image.

In this final image, I noticed multiple elements that show traces of human activity, the graffiti, the bridge itself and the lamppost. As I pondered this thought, I flicked back over the images I had taken during the day and realised many of them had multiple traces of human activity, making me wonder whether I wanted to convey multiple traces in my final images, or focus on a single aspect.

I may not have captured any project wining images today, but for me, photography isn’t just about capturing that dramatic sunrise or A+ shot, it’s about exploration, creativity and providing space for me to slow down in a world that seems to want us to move ever faster and be switched on 24/7.