PROFILE
Hello! I'm Duncan Petrie
I'm a photographer, writer, and full stack web developer based in London.
In 2019, I needed an online portfolio. I took one look at the price of a website builder and decided to make my own from scratch.
Three years and four redesigns later, I’m proud of this messy work-in-progress.
ABOUT/CV >
FOR REEL
The Triumph of the Commons
24 Dutch children in a phone booth? It’s more common than you think.
The full breadth of humanity, every hope and every sorrow, every song and every sigh, is on Wikimedia Commons, an open file repository maintained by Wikipedia. In Spring of 2021 I created this film, for free, using 144 of those files.
YOUTUBE >
THE CUTTING EDGE
Cloud Discovered, Fluffiest
in World
You heard that right. I’ve done it. I’ve found a fluffy cloud.
“But Duncan,” people tell me, “there are fluffy clouds in the sky all of the time!” They clearly haven’t seen this fluffy cloud.
READ >
THE CUTTING BOARD
Man Makes Pizza, Fast
This short timelapse film, produced in spring of 2020, was created from almost 2,500 individual photographs over the course of several days. It is best watched with sound on.
WATCH >
MIND MAP
Charting the Wilds
I've had maps on my walls since before I can remember: world maps, maps of places I've been, maps of places I want to go. They're like windows, windows you don't need curtains for.
I've spent more of my life than I care to admit looking at maps. There's always something new to see, and even familiar names feel like discoveries.
So, it was only natural I create my own.
EXPLORE >
DEPT. OF BLURRY PICTURES
Crystalizing the Vastness
For years I struggled to photograph water; my photos were much too busy, seeing everything while capturing nothing.
Now, I distill the water into its simplest form, making abstract what is too big to capture conventionally.
GALLERY >
ON YEARNING
From The Edge of Impassable Vastness
The wide blue sea spread before me, a quilt of the patterns of the wind. I was suddenly struck by profound desire. A desire for what, I was not sure.
I was on the edge of the world, and I wanted to see beyond. It was a sort of nostalgia, but not for any real past. A nostalgia for the future, maybe, the future that can no longer be.
I wrote my undergraduate dissertation about this feeling. If you're interested in the theories behind my photographic practice, check it out.
READ >
