The body of photographic works created by Terry Hulf over the past 50 years tell epic stories of the area of Romney Marsh and its surroundings. He has had little need to travel further afield but rather the landscapes he records change over time. Indeed, he has made these views of the Marsh a focus of his life’s work, a project which he considers will never be finished. It is important to consider that what continues to interest Hulf in the history of Romney Marsh are more often the effects and impact of human involvement has on the landscape, although people are rarely featured. Almost always what we see in his photographs is what humans have left behind, offering only a trace of presence. It is the same for the viewer looking harder at these images, like the man with the camera, we are just on the edge of being present ourselves. Terry mainly uses the same standard lens with 35mm and larger format cameras pivotal length and film. In his practice he prefers early cold wintery mornings for his subject matter, there is hardly ever any cropping, so the composition is fixed, at the exact moment he chooses to release his shutter. The camera usually on a tripod remains at eye level, as a result the position of the horizon rarely changes. The images captured reflect upon his own way of looking, a developed skill or maybe even a gift for avoiding the picturesque but recording instead extraordinary and beautiful ‘unblinkered’ landscapes as memory. Terry might not always remember the exact year the image was recorded but each image is in his memory, set in time and he clearly recalls every picture taken over the years. The hold your breath moment then the shutter is released, it’s like a negative has then been permanently scorched to his retina. To say that Terry is particularly in touch with Marsh surroundings would be something of an understatement. As he moves quietly around the landscapes early in the morning, selecting his images in a relentless quest for creativity, a perfect picture carefully captured, then sometime later sharing this view, maybe as a beautiful silver gelatin print. Terry maintains, it is because he has so closely worked this land over the years that he feels so much a part of it. When he was younger, he was a Chestnut Paling maker, working beneath tarpaulin shelters, erected in the woods which covered the scratch where the chestnut was cleaved. During the months when the tree sap was rising, they would go fruit picking instead, all part of a natural symbiotic relationship with the land that they loved and worked.