'Fae Live in the Bokeh' comprises of a collection of photographs taken on the Isle of Wight over the period of a year in 2013-14. Fae are the Faerie Folk, the Hidden People -- Bokeh is the blur/out-of-focus area of an image.

The photographs were shot in an area known as the Undercliff, which skirts the southern edge of the Island from Niton to Bonchurch. A seven mile long sheltered coastal terrace, the Undercliff has a semi-tropical microclimate. When Victorian tourists first discovered the wonders of the Undercliff in the 1840s, there were a flurry of reported sightings and encounters with "supernatural beings". It is said that these reports enchanted many great Victorian Romantic poets and writers, many of whom were compelled to visit, and some came to live in the Undercliff -- Bonchurch in particular. As more people moved in, reported encounters with these "supernatural beings" rapidly decreased.



The places I have frequented and photographed for this book, are off the beaten track. They are small secret wooded spaces, trapped between farmers fields, or made inaccessible by ancient landslips. Liminal locations on the threshold between the modern world, and a time when the Undercliff fizzed with magic, before the Victorians first populated a remote and arcane corner of Britain.