Geoff Chaplin is a British born artist living and working in Hokkaido, Japan.

When he was a child his father - an artist - used to take him sketching and painting. This was something he enjoyed but his skill level only developed to the "must try harder" stage. Nevertheless this installed from an early age an understanding of composition and graphic elements.

"My dream was to become a research scientist. That didn't happen but on the way I picked up a training in scientific photography which reinforced my interest in visual arts." In his school years he built a camera (using glass plates - remember those? No, I though not) and has been using cameras ever since. His photographic work is based around large and ultra-large format cameras - the type with bellows, a black cloth cover and a focussing screen on the back.

Discontented with the trend towards digital imaging and infinitely repeatable 'perfection' he began seeking an alternative printing process - something which had a character and life of its own, and something which preferably was not repeatable. "Gum printing" turned out to be the process he was seeking. Dating from the very early days of photography - discovered in the 1830s - it became popular around 1890-1920 among the pictorialists and photo-secessionists for the painterly nature of the images.

On a fine winter's afternoon I held my pinhole camera tightly to my chest and photographed the sun. I slowly turned from left to right and as I breathed in and out the sun's image traced a path across the film falling and rising with my chest.

My line is short with its ups and downs. The sun's line is already 10,000 times 10,000 times longer than mine, and after mine is ended the sun's will continue for another 10,000 times 10,000 times as long.

We live on a dangerous planet in a dangerous universe. Our existence is perhaps only a brief accident in evolution. I enormously appreciate the fact that I am conscious of my own existence, aware of this universe, and recognize my complete insignificance, and the insignificance of our planet, in the vastness of time and space