The book comprises photographs made between 1983 and 2004. It presents an allegorical practice of photography with accompanying texts by writer Leslie Dick, CalArts; psychoanalyst Darian Leader; and Olivier Richon. The practice aims to address the tradition of the constructed photographic image as distinct from the found or collected image. The research focuses on the question of allegory and the relevance of this critical term in contemporary art practice. In this context, the photographs celebrate the artifice of representation and undermine the assumed relationship between the photograph and reality.

As a methodology, the photographs are constructed with reference to genres, such as the studio, the still life and the bestiary, and are designed to raise questions about the nature of representation in general. The work is also an exploration of colour and light, and how these elements construct the image, an image which is no longer a mere duplication of reality but the construction of a fantasy. The originality of the practice lies in the consistent use of the animal as a mode of investigating the tension between the constructed and the found photographic image. The photographs make a systematic use of the studio environment to create constructed scenes with specific reference to the theory of imitation which occupies a key position in theories and practices of art from Pliny to the Renaissance.

Dissemination included Seeing Things, group show, Victoria and Albert Museum (2002); Things, book edited by Mark Howard Booth, Cape Publishers (2004); 'Still Life and Allegory', article by Lucy Soutter, Portfolio 39, Edinburgh (2004); Animals Looking Sideways, photographic work in Next Level 4, London (2003); and Ordinary Things, photographic work in Exit 11, Spain (2003).