One of my first outings with 35mm was in one of the most picturesque places in Europe. I think I was about 16 when I travelled to Rome with my mother; either a long bank holiday weekend, or a mid-term break from school meant that we had a rare chance to escape the unremarkable norm. A city break offered an ideal space for the wanderings of a mother and her son, one still learning the joy of discovery, not only from seeing the world through his own eyes, but through a 50mm Pentax lense too.

In all honesty, I remember very little of our trip, and most of the memories I can recall upon are built around the images I have taken. When I look at the pictures I can build the scene around them, and contextualise the image within, what I assume, is a true memory of the time and place it was taken. In fact, these memories might not be memories at all, but may in fact just be fabrications, scenes of fiction that I have created around the photographs that I cannot fully remember taking.

Though I can’t recall the exact course of our trip, I remember the feelings that were felt and the sense of the place as a destination. My strongest memory of Rome is that of a summery haze – a sun-lit tinge and general indistinctness to everything. Though I’m sure we didn’t venture to Rome in the summer time, every building or space or vista or person or tree or road seemed to be smothered in heat. I don’t remember being conscious of this while taking the photographs, I was more concerned with simply documenting what I was seeing at the time, though the photos do a good job of communicating that feeling.

(Source: jamesdrewturner.com)