A Quiet River and an Old Cake Tin

Some photographs arrive fairly easily. Others involve standing beside a river on a very cold day with a couple of old cake tins and trying something that may or may not work.  This is one of the latter.

The image is a multiple exposure, made on location beside a quiet river in winter. I took several of my old cake tins with me and used one of them to create the layers in the photograph. The tin I used here is one of those old slide together tins and it belonged to my great aunt Nyra, so there is a little bit of family history sitting inside this photograph as well.

I have always enjoyed multiple exposure because it can take a familiar landscape somewhere quite unexpected. Rather than simply recording what was in front of me, I could build something from it.

This particular place was beautiful, but it was not a dramatic landscape. There were no spectacular mountains or extraordinary light. Just winter trees, still water, grasses and those wonderful muted gold and brown tones that appear at that time of year.

The multiple exposure gave it a quality that reminded me of the old Dutch Masters. The water became particularly important, with the reflections and layered tones creating something that felt almost painterly. It seemed to give this very quiet piece of countryside a little more mystery and atmosphere.

I also love that the photograph was made in such an ordinary, physical way. I was actually standing there beside the river, experimenting with the cake tin and making the exposures rather than constructing the whole thing later on a computer. It was cold, quiet and probably looked slightly ridiculous from the outside.

But that is part of what I love about photography. Sometimes you have to be prepared to play a little.

I was delighted when this image received a Gold Award at the 2026 Iris Awards, and it was also included in my Landscape finalist portfolio. Recognition like that is particularly satisfying when it comes from an image that began with such a simple idea and a very old cake tin.

And perhaps that is why I like it so much. It is not really a photograph about a dramatic landscape at all. It is about looking at a familiar place, noticing what is already there, and finding another way of seeing it.

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