My time in Liverpool was filled with depression. I withdrew from people I loved and stopped doing many of the activities that made me feel like myself. I barely took any photographs during my worst periods but, when I look back into my archives, the images that remain etched in my mind are these. Windswept and desolate scenes. Cold colours, moody landscapes, lone figures shrinking into the distance. They remind me of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings of lonesome men gazing off into the swirling mists around some gothic ruins: verging on pretentious but often deeply soulful.
Now, of course, this style of photo is very popular. You haven’t really been somewhere if there is no selfie taken as you gaze thoughtfully away from camera, swept up in the magnificence of the view.
These landscapes were what I most craved whilst in Liverpool and may have reflected more about my apathetic and disorientated state of mind than I realised at the time. Believe it or not, these photos were taken miles apart across Merseyside, at places such as Formby, Crosby, Southport, Aigburth and the Wirral.
Having returned to Liverpool, much happier, I wonder if my current experience can ever fit the desolate make-up of this place. But, perhaps, Liverpool is not an entirely grey place. Could it be that, in the haze of depression, I sought out these sights that resonated with my experience. Now I’m back, my camera might be ready to seek other sights.
