Marc Provins

3 days, 2 nights, 73 students and 7 staff; Our annual college trip to London has been and gone with everyone returned safely to their homes slightly more cultured and worldly-wise than they were on Monday morning. Seeing so many exhibitions and visiting so many galleries and museums in a short stretch of time caused me to ponder the way we preserve and display objects and artefacts deemed important to human culture. I started to photograph the shadows and reflections cast by display cases - an  ethereal,  accidental moment of beauty. I was touched to see Tony Ray-Jones' notebooks lovingly displayed in The Science Museum's new branch of the Media Museum. I became quite obsessed with studying the specialist archival display materials available to show but not damage these personal pieces. I wonder what he would have made of his ideas, reminders, and plans scribbled by hand being displayed in glass cases to be scrutinised by generations born after hi...

Every so often I need to get to the coast, I find it inspiring and restorative. Luckily living in Manchester it only takes about an hour or so to reach some great bits of water, with plenty of choice from Wales to The Lakes. Yesterday it was the Wirral. We walked a good few miles of coastline without seeing a single human being and the sun was strong illuminating our bit of England. I made quite a few photographs but the two that stood out to me both contain lines dividing up the frame. This may have come from my subconscious having strolled for a while down a very straight disused train line and mulling over all the history of those being built, used, closed down and returned to managed nature.