Fiona Campbell

Photographer / Artist

I’m a photographer and artist working from my studio in Devon, in the southwest of England. 

I’ve been making photographs for more than 40 years, beginning as a teenager growing up in rural Devon. In the early 1990s, I moved to New York’s Hudson Valley, where the landscape and its rich artistic history inspired me to take my photography further. I studied photography there, learning traditional analogue techniques and spent many happy hours in the darkroom. I loved the whole process of making an image rather than simply taking one, and that fascination has never really gone away.

Since returning to Devon, my attention has once again turned to the natural world, and particularly to the extraordinary shapes, colours and details of plants that might otherwise go unnoticed.

My work has been exhibited throughout Devon and is held in private collections in the UK and United States. In 2022, I was awarded Best Digital Practice at the Riviera Winter Open at Artizan Gallery.

The Process

This collection of botanical photographs began during the first national lockdown in the spring of 2020. Like many people, I found the familiarity and routine of my daily walks reassuring during such an uncertain time. What surprised me was how, despite walking the same paths day after day, there was always something new to notice.

I collected some of the plants from my walks and they became the focus of a new photographic study. Inspired by historical botanical collections and museum herbaria, I built a flower press and began pressing them. It soon became an essential part of the process.

Pressing changes the way we see a plant. Removed from its surroundings and individually arranged against white, it becomes almost a study in line, colour and form. Details that might normally go unnoticed begin to emerge.

I’m not looking for perfect botanical specimens. I find the faded, damaged and weathered ones are often much more interesting, so I leave their imperfections exactly as I find them. A broken edge, a fading leaf or an irregular stem is as much a part of the plant as everything else.

What started almost by accident has continued to evolve, and these everyday botanical subjects intrigue me more than ever.

The plants I photograph are gathered locally and responsibly, mostly in and around Devon.