We are delighted to present A Journey Through East Anglia, an extended series of photographs taken by Philip Sayer between 2005 and 2023 within a thirty-mile radius of his Norfolk home.

Through Sayer’s lens, the viewer is transported into a richly atmospheric vision of the region as an impressive sequence of images that sweep across its varied terrain. In his distinctive style – developed over the course of a professional photography career that spans six decades – deep darks meet fluctuating patches of vibrant light and between them a dynamic interplay of bold contrasts emerges. Here, the granular quality of analogue film meets and converses with the richly textured landscape, from gently shimmering inland waterways, fog-dressed woodland and fields ploughed into crunchy lines, to windswept coastal dunes and dramatic cloudy expanses of the infamously broad East Anglian sky.

In this set of powerful images, Sayer reveals the sensation of experiencing landscape in a way that is otherwise imperceptible to the naked eye, that eludes any other language except for the one it uses: shadow and light.

These photographs began in 2005 as a set of twelve images for one of a series of landscape themed promotional desk top calendars produced from 1999 to 2010 in collaboration with graphic designer Simon Esterson and a printing company, all were shot on film using a sixty year old Leica. Since 2011 and moving to Norwich all my work has been digital, but two years ago I started expanding the East Anglia series using the same camera and enjoying again the delayed gratification that's an inherent part the analogue process.

– Philip Sayer

Opening image: Mulbarton, 2023
1 Agar Creek, 2006
2 Beach Path, Burnham Overy Staithe, 2022
3 Blytheburgh, 2022
4 Buckenham Carrs, 2023
5 River Yare, Cringleford, 2022
6 Mulbarton Common, 2023
7 Yare Valley, Cringleford, 2023
8 River Yare Rockland St Mary, 2006
9 Yare Valley Walk, 2023
10 Yare Valley Walk, 2023
11 Mulbarton, 2023
12 Yare Valley Walk, 2023
13 River Yare at Cringleford, 2023
14 Cley Marshes, 2007
15 Upton Marshes, 2007
16 Upper Tass Valley Walk, 2023
17 Upper Tass Valley Walk 2023

18 River Yare Surlingham, 2022
19 River Blyth, 2022
20 Buckenham, 2023
21 Marston Marsh, 2022
22 Lowestoft, 2019
23 Blakeney, 2019
24 River Bure, 2006
25 Blythburgh Church, 2006
26 Winterton Dunes Nature Reserve, 2019
27 Cart Gap, 2006
28 Holkham, 2022
29 Holkham, 2006
30 Overstrand, 2007
31 South Beach, Heacham, 2022
32 Covehithe, 2022
33 Winterton, 2023
34 Wells Next The Sea, 2007
Below: River Yare at UEA, 2023