Dastardly & Muttley
Independent Studio · Swansea, Wales
§ Case Study — 06 / 50+ Photography · Art Book · Series 2024 — Wales

Meta-
noia.

Client

Metanoia

Sector

Personal Art Project

Scope

Photography · Art Book · Series

Year

2024

Location

Wales

Metanoia — from the Greek, a fundamental change of heart and mind. A photographic series conceived, shot, and sequenced as a single body of work. Not the before. Not the after. The during. The argument: transformation is rarely loud. It happens in stillness, in material, in the quiet moments the camera usually misses.

§ 01 — The Anchor

Figure. Earth. Stillness.

Every series needs an anchor — the image the rest of the work has to live up to. This was ours. A figure half-buried in sand, eyes closed, a collar of seaweed at the throat. Not a portrait. Not a self-portrait. A state.

Anchor photograph — figure half-buried in sand with a seaweed collar
Fig. 01 — Anchor imagePhotography · Dastardly & Muttley
§ 02 — A Series

A series, not a collection.

Every photograph earns its place through its relationship to the others. The sequencing was as considered as the shooting — the order you encounter the images in is the argument the work makes.

Rawness was deliberate.

No retouching past colour balance. The grain, the soft focus, the unframed subjects — the photographs had to look the way the body of work feels.

Polish would have been a lie. Transformation is messy; the work is allowed to be too.

Series fragment — reflection on water, abstract pattern
Fig. 02 — Series fragmentReflection · Wales
§ 03 — Materials

Transformation, read through material.

Natural abstraction — granite, feather, water, skin. Transformation read through material rather than the body.

Fig. 03 — Material studiesFeather · Granite
§ 04 — The Book

The book as form.

A digital gallery would have been smaller than the work deserved. The series culminates in an art book — a physical object built to hold the emotional weight of the photographs and the time they ask for.

Metanoia art book — cover study

The work itself, not a document of it.

Paper weight, sequencing, margins, typography — every decision treated as part of the visual language. The book is slow on purpose. You can't scroll it.

The cover reflects the concept: transformation doesn't declare itself. It arrives quietly.

Fig. 04 — The bookSelf-published · 2024

Trans-
formation,
photographed.

Metanoia — 2024 Dastardly & Muttley · Personal
§ Start a project

Have something
worth making?

hello@dastardlyandmuttley.co.uk
Studio

Elysium Gallery Studios
210 High Street
Swansea, SA1 1PE

Status

Booking Q3 2026

© 2026 Dastardly & Muttley Ltd Case Study · Metanoia Privacy