We’re very proud to announce that Claire Harrison’s ‘Melting Garden' series is one of the finalists of the 37th AOP Photography Awards in the Still Life + Object Category.

Claire Harrison about ‘Melting Gardens’: “They represent global warming and my own sadness at the horrendous levels of plastic pollution at sea. As an image they are fascinating and humbling, but if you ponder them a little longer you might see a reminder of what we are doing to our planet through our desire to consume en masse without consequences. 

I shot this during lockdown one. It was a strange time for me as I was gearing up to go back to work full-time after having my second baby. In fact, it felt like my career was just surviving after five years of making babies and the struggle that can come with trying to do both jobs well. I felt claustrophobic and starved of creativity, but at the same time I was trying to remain positive, stay hopeful and essentially, deal with the unknown of the pandemic. Pre-pandemic I was working a lot with floral artist Yan Skates who lived very local to me. Before lockdown we had worked together to create a series of floral ice trays which we shot as part of a beauty series. Whilst working on this, he ran out of plastic trays so started to use all sorts of containers including a plastic bottle. We both fell in love with these strange yet familiar shapes and their unique beauty. I asked him to create a bunch of them with recognisable plastic bottles that I could shoot in my garden, and it was from this that Melting Gardens was born”