Who am I? I'm still figuring that out myself, but here's what I know for sure:
I'm a photographer, writer, and web developer, studying Marine & Natural History Photography at Falmouth University in Cornwall, U.K.
Download my resume here.
I use spare, striking composition and the best natural light to emphasize emotion over the literal image and truth over objectivity, in hopes that I might one day capture how it feels to truly see.
Much of my work explores the Yearning, a kind of nostalgia, felt at the edges of things, for lives or worlds that don’t or can’t exist. Fleeting details in the landscape—the tail of a whale rising out of the sea, or familiar music from a window passed at night—act like glimpses into little worlds.
These worlds we find in the cracks of our own are implied and imagined, no more real than a bedtime story, and yet they are far more emotionally true, pull far stronger on the strings of our heart, than actual fact. Their potency is their unknowability; reality would only disappoint.
I explore these timeless and littoral worlds extensively in my photobook, Lingermyth, and my dissertation, On Yearning.
In 2019, after one look at the price of Squarespace, I decided to make my own website, from scratch. Two years, three languages, and four iterations later, I'm proud of this messy work-in-progress.
Get in touch!
duncanpetrie1@gmail.com
@probablyduncan