Traces: The History of Flint is a fine art photography book, featuring a series of photographs by Trish Simonite.



This series of photographs deals with the history of the landscape in Norfolk, England in an allegorical and poetic manner. Flint is found in abundance in the earth, in streams and along the East Anglian coast where the sea has gently washed the flint into smooth, round cobbles. Evidence of flint mining in East Anglia dates back to Neolithic times.



Norfolk is dotted with hundreds of Norman and Saxon flint churches as well as homes, barns and walls built from flint set into mortar. Sometimes the flint is knapped and shaped into square or rectangular blocks, sometimes cobbles are left in their rounded forms, or they are cut in half so that the silica surface is facing outward. Often flint may be used in combination with other materials and brickwork.



Flint is both a metaphor for permanence and symbolizes Norfolk. While I was shooting these images spring entered the landscape and I was struck by the changes wrought, thus spring flowers symbolize change. Like British writers A.S. Byatt (author of Possession and Angels and Insects) and John Fowles (author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus), I wish to evoke a sense of the mystery and magic of the landscape and to remind the viewer that the past still haunts the present.



I use contemporary tools to capture and create the images, but my work also refers to traditional ways of making and interpreting images. I wish to produce images that will require viewers to confront the artistic and theoretical consequences of the digital "revolution."