To Pigeon-Fill the Sky

August, 2024  |  London, England

I’m old enough to remember when pigeons filled the sky…

Returning to photography after a year-long hiatus, I struggled to match the quality of my old work. My new images were weak. They lacked dynamism, punctum, decisive moments. No birds filled their skies. I had spent a year remembering the best of my old images, rose-tinted, and had forgotten the patience and persistence that was required to make them. I had forgotten that good art takes hard work.

I thought about the recent prevalence of AI ‘art’, and imagined an artist who might forego that patience, persistence, and hard work for an artificially injected decisive moment. To Pigeon-Fill the Sky is the story of that artist.

To Pigeon-Fill the Sky is a book about the creative process, artificial intelligence, and, of course, birds. It contains 100 pages of analog photography, digital photography, real pigeons, and digital pigeons. It was shot and edited in summer, 2024, in and around London, England.