Why Lazy Xenon Ions?

It started with a cheap manual lens on an outdated camera. Less than £100 spent. Something to play around with on the days when the light was bad.

The lens was a Zonlai, the camera a Sony Nex model. So the project was named Lazy Xenon Ions, an anagram of Sony Nex Zonlai.

Shooting manual was a revelatory experience. A renewed appreciation of photography. The process slows down, decisions about aperture and focal point become more deliberate.

When the lockdown narrowed the world to the distance of a walk, searching for Lazy Xenon Ions meant to find beauty in the ordinary, to give substance to the mundane, to accept and embrace the imperfect.

This book collects a selection of my favourite 50 images from six months of photo walks in Staines-Upon-Thames.