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Dom McKenzie

I’m a photographer based in Birmingham (UK). My primary focus is on landscape, nature, and decay. I’m drawn to the quiet structures and understated beauty found in the natural world — the way a fallen tree creates order, or how nature slowly reclaims what industry leaves behind.

For me, photography is a way of asking questions of the world, inviting its stories to emerge through form, pattern, and place.

The Wyre Forest sits on the border of Worcestershire and Shropshire. Once a source of fuel for local industry, it is now the largest woodland nature reserve in England. Today, the forest is a place of dog walkers, mountain bikers and horse riders, of children playing, and remote, almost wild, outreaches. My relationship with the forest started as somewhere to go for a walk at the weekend — somewhere my son could safely ride his bike.

We live a couple of miles from the centre of Birmingham, which is itself about 20 miles from the forest. While there are many good things about living in Birmingham, it can feel claustrophobic — the sprawl, the congestion, the industry. Sometimes — quite often, in fact — I just need to get out. And that’s where WYRE began: a need to escape the city, practise my photography, and hopefully improve it. Woodland work isn’t easy, but like anything, the only way to get better is to do it. So, about 18 months ago, I started making regular trips to the forest, often on a Friday afternoon after work.

At first, my goal was simple: go for a walk, take a few photos, and unwind after the week. In truth, I wasn’t really sure how much photographic potential there would be. But I quickly realised that photographic potential is all around us — we just have to be there to see it.

It amazes me how often I’ll walk and walk, seeing nothing, then stop to take a photo, and suddenly find one or two more in that immediate area. I’m sure part of it is that I’ve paused in a more interesting spot, but I think it’s also because I’ve stopped at all. Stopping creates a photographic opportunity — which, for me at least, is the opposite of what I’d expect.

There’s always the imagining — or maybe the fear — that you have to walk miles upon miles just to find one image worth making… and even then, the light probably won’t work. While that may sometimes be true, it’s just as true that, if you stop and let your brain absorb the world around you, images present themselves.

But even knowing that, I always face apathy beforehand. Most visits follow a familiar arc — I can’t be bothered today / I won’t take any good photos anyway → No — I’m going to go → the drive, slowly unwinding from a week at work while listening to a podcast → exploring a few miles of forest → finding something to photograph → driving home, convinced nothing I took was good — but knowing I felt better for having gone.

More often than not, I’d get home and find that one or two of the images were usable. Seldom did I come back with nothing — and even when I did, I’d learned something. The more I visited the forest, the more I realised just how much opportunity it holds. As my images improved, I began to tentatively look for themes and to understand whether I could create a project from the work.

I’m not sure why my brain thinks in projects, but it does. Whenever I find something interesting, it always forms in my mind as a sequence — something more than an individual photo. Earlier this year, I decided I had enough images for a short e-book. So, trying not to overthink it, I sequenced and released it for free on my website.

There is catharsis in that for me — taking the images I’d made and putting them out there, to have a life of their own. Whether that’s for five people to see or five thousand doesn’t really matter. I can consider them ‘done’.

Well… until I inevitably decide to re-edit some of them one day.

In doing that, I allow myself to move on to the next chapter. My vision for WYRE is for it to be roughly yearly — and while I’d love others to download it, ultimately it’s something I do for myself more than anyone else.

What the next iteration or chapter of WYRE will be remains to be seen. Recently, I’ve been drawn more to the areas around the forest — to the places it shelters — and I think the work may take a more documentary turn.

I’m working on other projects that may develop a stronger narrative, but WYRE will continue alongside — a quieter study in patience, escape, and a drive to do better work; a belief that if I look, I will find.