General Entry - Emerging Talent Awards

'and something comes over you...' is about D-Day, but it is also about war in general and the distance between those who live in a time of peace and the experiences of those who fight. The work invites you to consider the sights, sounds and smells that greeted the Allied servicemen waiting to land in France seventy years ago and to reflect upon how it is for those who attempt to connect with the past, standing on a beach during peacetime, looking out across a tranquil, unthreatening sea. The photographic prints when shown in exhibition are different. Stand at a distance and you will see black shapes on the horizon line. Move closer and you realise that they are words and phrases: the memories of service personnel who were in the ships and landing craft off the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944. For submission to lensculture, the words are presented as captions. For the purpose of this project, I carried out my research using the oral history archives of The Imperial War Museum in London, therefore all of the featured 'voices' belong to Allied personnel serving with the British forces. They fought alongside men from many nations, including soldiers, sailors and airmen from Canada, America, France and Poland. It is worth pointing out that British personnel were involved in the landings on all of the D-Day beaches, including Omaha.