In September 2009 Celine Marchbank’s mother, Sue Miles, was diagnosed with lung cancer and a brain tumour.

“While I was trying to come to terms with the fact she was dying, I decided I wanted, or maybe needed, to document the time she had left. I didn’t want to create a graphic portrayal of her death, it would have been impossible and wrong to focus only on the dying part, but rather I wanted to photograph our last months together. I looked at the things that made her uniquely her, the details in her house I thought I knew so well, the things that would also be gone when she was.

Her love of flowers was a beautiful part of her personality; the house was always full of them, and as I photographed them I realised they were symbolic of what was happening – they represented happiness, love, kindness and generosity, but also isolation, decay, and finally death.”

Celine Marchbank is a documentary photographer specialising in British based stories, fascinated by the small everyday details of life. Based in London, she spends her time between personal documentary projects, exhibiting work regularly, and undertaking commercial and editorial work. She is also a regular sessional lecturer in documentary photography at Ravensbourne University in London. A Fellow of the RSA, Celine Marchbank has exhibited widely throughout the UK. Tulip has already received widespread acclaim and Celine’s work has been shortlisted for several prestigious awards including The European Publishers Award For Photography, The Deutsche Bank Photography Award, The Lucie Foundation and the Emergentes DST International Photography Award. Tulip is her first book.

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