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The shoreline looking east at the Conishead Priory, Ulverston. Vanessa Winship found Cumbria ‘extraordinary… [a place] of light and shade and many layers, of great fragility and also of great resilience’. And then, as she says, in March 2020, ‘Everything changed’. The exhibition at West Coast Photo Festival runs from 8 October to 6 November 2021 in Cooke’s Studios, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Vanessa Winship’s striking images, such as that of a rabbit killed from the effects of myxomatosis on South Walney nature reserve on Walney Island poses questions for the future of society and the environment
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Vanessa Winship is known for her observational reportage, and this photograph of a livestock auction house in Cockermouth is a clear example. She is the first woman to have received the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for documentary-style photographs
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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The viral infection myxomatosis has killed many rabbits at South Walney nature reserve on Walney Island
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Allotments sit beside a trace of a former railway track in the seaside town of Silloth. The train line, which ran from Carlisle, was closed in 1964, but there have recently been calls by the area’s MP, Mark Jenkinson, to reopen it
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Vanessa Winship explored Cumbria’s identity through conversations with those in the community, including members of Furness Bach Choir, seen here rehearsing Brahms’s music in Ulverston
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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A channel of water on Walney Island in Barrow-in-Furness, with Piel Island in the distance
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Mined land surrounding the villages of Kirkland and Frizington – an area which has a rich mining history. A public inquiry into plans for a new coalmine close to nearby Whitehaven began last month
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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The Bowder Stone in Borrowdale. Tourists can use the ladder to climb the lava boulder, said to have fallen 200 metres from Bowder Crag between 10,000 and 13,500 years ago
Photograph: Vanessa Winship/West Coast Photo Festival
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Phoebe Kiely explored the ‘forgotten’ west coast industrial towns, and said: ‘It was like a well-kept secret.’ She presents a series of more than 70 pictures, and since the pandemic many have taken on a new meaning for her. ‘The only thing that stands as proof that those days existed are the photographs,’ she said
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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The festival was postponed last year due to Covid, and Phoebe Kiely said: ‘One of the worries I had when so much time had passed was that the work was not good enough. Since looking at the west coast work in recent weeks I am relieved that it is good enough, and had the pleasure of discovering some photographs I overlooked before’ – including this one, of the Buddhist Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre in Ulverston
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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‘Ravenglass is the place I want to see again the most – somewhere I only visited twice,’ Phoebe Kiely said. ‘When I was standing on a bridge there was something enchanting about the water and the light. I sometimes wonder if I will see it the same again when I return, or whether it was that particular moment in time that made it memorable.’
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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Of Barrow, Phoebe Kiely said: ‘It feels a distant memory. There is something really interesting about the idea of returning. I have a longing to travel up the coast to Workington again, to see everything in repeat but with a different post-pandemic viewpoint.’
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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Phoebe Kiely fell in love with Barrow Island, where this image of discarded cloth on a pavement was taken. She said: ‘The light seemed so different on the west coast. There was a quietness I felt while I was there, on Barrow Island especially. Nothing felt familiar. There was sometimes a feeling of urgency.’
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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‘I’ve noticed how my concept of time has altered slightly. It’s as if life has moved too fast for me to even feel it,’ said Phoebe Kiely. ‘This is how I feel about my time on the west coast – it has such a dream-like quality. The only proof I have that I existed on the west coast is through the photographs’ – including this one of a rocky outcrop
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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Phoebe Kiely’s black-and-white images are crafted using old-fashioned, analogue methods and developed by hand in a dark room. Her photography is influenced by chiaroscuro – stark contrasts between light and dark – as in this picture of a house with light shining from one window
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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This self-portrait of Phoebe Kiely was taken at the Black Huts in Cumbria. Kiely, who has just turned 30, is relatively early in her career yet has already achieved a high profile, having been named as ‘one to watch’ by the British Journal of Photography
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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Water at the shore beside the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre in Ulverston, which is scattered with rocks
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
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Phoebe Kiely said: ‘This was taken coming back down the coast from Workington. I never spoke to the man – it didn’t feel necessary. He was as mesmerised with the view as much as I was by him. To have spoken to him or broken his focus would have been cruel. However, now I’m wondering what his name was and where he is.’
Photograph: Phoebe Kiely/West Coast Photo Festival
