This show is the result of a sunny Sunday afternoon visit to the lakefront, where I found myself, along with my camera, being sucked into the bizarre and surreal world of the circus. Although I didn’t enter the Big Top to see the show on this day, or at any time during the week of photography that was to follow, all around was the feel of a Circus which was struggling to be relevant in today’s world. Amid the sea of Caravans, caged animals and brightly colored marquees stood Jumbo the elephant. Animals of such majesty and beauty become a magnet for what is worst in humans, all struggling to communicate in some way with them, or to dissolve their quiet underlying power into the soft toys of childhood fantasy, a fantasy which the circus was trying desperately to pander to. The images themselves do not aim to lead opinion or force a point of view, they are simply photographs, taken without bias, of Jumbo as she stands in her environment. It is the clash of these two elements and the surreal nature of their mix that make up the show.