"Still Life with Eggs" was photographed on the morning of 2 February 2026, on the farmhouse table at our home in Umbria, Italy. It was an ordinary morning. Light was coming through the window and caught the eggs in a dramatic way. Their shells seemed to glow. I grabbed my camera. It was a beautiful moment.

The egg has always fascinated artists because it's such a simple form, yet it carries profound symbolism—birth, creation, potential, and the promise of new life. I wasn't trying to say something that had never been said before. The photograph really began with the morning light. It fell across the eggs in a way that transformed them, inviting me to look again at something so familiar. Around that time, I had also been spending time with Man Ray's photographs. The way he photographed eggs was extraordinary—he revealed their sculptural beauty and quiet mystery with such elegance. I think this image grew out of those two influences coming together. In my work, the eggs look less like everyday objects and more like timeless symbols, quietly holding their own significance.

It was very much a discovery. I’m often drawn to dramatic natural light, and on that morning the light pouring through the window transformed something as modest as a bowl of freshly collected eggs from our chickens. Their shells seemed to glow with luminous, incandescent colour, and suddenly the ordinary felt extra-ordinary.

Being on a small olive farm in Italy has taught me to appreciate moments of daily magic. It is all part of seasonal living and quiet rituals: collecting eggs, harvesting olives, assembling vegetables — washing them, cutting them, preparing them. 

Everyday moments have a shape and a beauty and a rhythm of their own, if you’re attentive enough to notice them. I didn’t set out to prove a particular idea; that morning, the eggs revealed themselves to me. And it reminded me again that beauty often arrives unannounced, waiting in the simplest things.

For me, the ordinary becomes sacred through attention. The light is certainly part of it. As many great artists have shown, light has the power to pause a moment, unfold its dynamics, and reveal its essence—in this case a beauty that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. But light alone isn't enough. It's a combination of the subject, the moment, and a readiness to see how it can speak to us and what it might say.

I’ve spent years in Italy, immersing myself in the painting techniques of the Old Masters. One of the most profound influences on my work has been the artist Caravaggio. For more than a decade, I painstakingly visited and copied many of his paintings, a process that helped me internalise his extraordinary skills. 

Everyone knows of his ability with light and shadow—the essence of chiaroscuro, which even today quietly informs many artists, particularly in films. Fewer understand his innovative, and to me breathtaking, capacity to pin down a singular moment. When I’m looking at the world through my camera’s viewfinder I imagine seeing everything through Caravaggio’s eyes. I believe my image honours the best traditions in painting.

At a practical level, I'm very much a morning person. I'm up well before the light breaks, and that's when I have the most energy—whether it's for farm work or making art. By evening, I'm winding down, so I rarely create in the evening. And this photograph could only have been made with low morning sun streaming through the window, creating the dramatic, directional light that gives the eggs their luminous presence. By midday, the sun is overhead; so that light disappears entirely. The same subject would, of course, be there, but the photograph wouldn't exist in the same way. On a purely artistic level, I do agree with those who see morning light as searching or revealing and evening light as warm or validating.

I love the saying, "It's the quiet ones you have to watch." Maybe that's stayed with me because I tend towards the introvert, or perhaps because I grew tired of staying silent myself. I've always felt that the people sitting quietly at a party are often the most interesting ones in the room, while the loudest voices don't necessarily have the most to say. I think I bring that same philosophy to the objects I photograph. The most humble, overlooked things—a simple egg, a piece of fruit, an everyday vessel—don't ask for attention, but they hold extraordinary stories if we're willing to spend time with them. My role is to create the conditions for that meaning to be seen. So when I describe something as "quiet," I don't mean empty or insignificant. I mean it possesses a kind of understated presence. Quiet things invite us to slow down, to look longer, and in doing so they often exert a more powerful effect on us—both restorative and revelatory—than “noisier” objects.

I don’t feel like a ‘hard won’ photo is the right expression to use for my work. If I am fighting myself, or forcing an image, I don’t get good pictures. I value taking many pictures, regularly. I pursue different ideas in an almost heuristic fashion to see what avenues open before me, what visions unfold. I know when I have found something interesting, because I feel a spark inside me, a sudden burst of wonder and excitement—and I can’t wait to realise the image I have glimpsed.