closing statement

Through the genre of landscape I speculate about the city as an environment. working from positions which although are not natural in the truest sense of the word signify much of the positive aspects of nature. By focusing on the point at which the natural environment merges with the urban one i intend to convey a less polarized vision of what a city is and try to steer away from an urban ideal that involves packed skyscrapers and dramatic skylines without falling into the trap of kitchen sink realism and negative stereotypes of inner city living.

Presenting my images

The work is aimed at a gallery audience so ideally would be shown in a gallery. I guess the final consideration to making the project is what shape that would take if it where to go ahead.

I think i would still be keen to print Digitally as editing my images using photoshop is becoming an increasingly important part of my practice. Although I am generally put off by gratuitously large prints as i think there is sometimes an attitude that simply making an image bigger makes it better, I would like to print my images as large as space/resolution would allow. There a couple of reasons for this. Having shot the project on 5x4 the level of detail the images has to offer is not always apparent when viewed smaller. More importantly is the subject matter, landscapes are inherently large and the work should reflect this. As well many of the details which would interest the viewer would become very small within the frame so to properly mediate between the subject matter and the viewer the image size should be increased to compensate for this.

In terms of the space in which the work would be ideally shown I think either a circular room or an octagonal room with a print on each wall and the last housing the door would be ideal. I did think about the possibility of having the work displayed in the center of the room so that the viewer could circle the city as i did when taking the images but felt that this might give the impression of a corridor of sorts. as well I think it would be ideal to have a circular bench in the center of the room to allow people to view the whole and consider the work with others rather than simply becoming part of a traffic system around and past the work.

My photos

These are the scans of the photos i took of each hill. I took an alternative view from hills that had the option to do so. I also didn't scan negs that looked like they'd turned out badly as it would have been a poor use of my time but that wasn't more than a 3.

shooting sheffield

This project was the first time I have used large format and as such there has been a steep learning curve. One unexpected thing that i learned from the experience was just how much harder work using equipment that cant fit into a bag can be. I actually ended up buying a sack barrow from B&Q to transport the camera case and a hefty tripod around. In addition to this i found that field cameras not only have the edge for, you guessed it, field work because of their size but also they are far sturdier. This sturdiness is particularly crucial when photographing in exposed locations as wind will cause the camera to shake not just on the tripod but at every joint, making the provision of a cable release feel somewhat pointless. Another issue with the monorail cameras is the far greater surface area provided to the wind by their large bellows, this lead to one particularly horrible moment when a fierce gust of wind took my tripod over and sent the camera rolling down the steep hill which i was perched on. Thankfully the store where quite sympathetic. unfortunately for me I was stuck with an ARKA monorail camera for the whole project as it was the only one which excepted a 75mm lens, nether the less i think jumping in at the deep end has helped me gain a new set of skills so i cant complain.

The image above has nothing to do with my gripes about cameras but a lot to do with landscape photography. One thing which was a constant issue was the weather and how to deal with sudden and torrential rain which plagued my trips. Although I had assumed that being entirely mechanical that the large format cameras would easily cope with rain so long as they where dried properly after words I had not considered the effect on the dark slide or the film. Now film i thought was pretty water proof, it goes through multiple baths and washes when processed so a little rain shouldn't hurt it, right? well it turns out that dark slides are not water proof and the emulsion on film must become sticky when wet. After one particularly unpleasant shoot I took the pictured dark slide to photo to be processed only to find that it and the film had cemented together and Mic couldn't remove it. Eventually I ended up going into their dark room and prizing the edge up with a key, thinking that a scratch at the edge of a neg is better than no neg. Upon receiving the film it became apparent that the set emulsion had actually ripped the paint off the inside of the dark slide and it was now stuck to my image!

untitled

To help contextualize this project within my practice i thought it would be useful to include some of previous work produced in Sheffield. Each of these images are from 5 image series that i produced to complement each other. They where concerned with the ability of light to change the users interpretation of a given place.

The series produced in the old industrial sites of Sheffield, which where heavily influenced by James Terrel, where intended to make art out of the disused and forgotten spaces rather than just document them. In doing so I hoped to encourage consideration for creative and beneficial uses for these dirty unloved spaces.

The second series sought to highlight the forgotten beauty of many places which have become considered dangerous or undesirable to use and also to place the ideas of the other series in a context which people are familiar with.

A consistent theme that runs through my work and I feel carries through to this project is an interest with our relationships with the spaces which we create and a desire to both criticize but present Positive visions of change.

Oil

An image from Edward Burtynsky's series oil. Burtynsky is a contemporary landscape photographer most notable for having forgone the deeply entrenched traditions of depicting nature in such an extreme way with in his work. The work is born from his consideration of modern western lifestyles which has lead to a disconnect from the source of our resources. In his work as a whole Burtynsky tackles two main issues, the environment and globalization, making visible the impact of our lifestyles.

Burtynsky's work began my interest in the genre of landscape. it also introduced me to romanticism and notion of the sublime, though I'm not sure if Burtynsky's version of the sublime is the same as Kant's as i haven't read anything by him yet. Burtynsky's own brand of the sublime is constructed from an awe at the power of technology but also a remorse at the havoc that has been wreaked with it. His fascination with the destruction of the environment is somewhat echoed in my love/hate relationship with the urban environment.



A very good video of Burtynsky discussing his work.

Rear window

by Ori Gersht

I guess this isn't really a landscape image, a skyscape maybe. Over 2 years Gersht Made images from the rear window of his London home, the resulting colours are the result of light pollution on cloudy skies. Gersht has this to say about his work...

‘The series calls into question our familiarity with our own natural habitat, pointing out the gulf between the sky that we believe we know, and that of the photographs: a gap between the mechanical, attentive and unassumptive vision of the camera, and the presumptive and subjective vision of the human eye.” Ori Gersht

What i found most interesting about his work was his use of scale and composition. The first time i saw this series was at the Twilight exhibition at the V&A some a few years ago. Looking at the images i enjoyed the rich colors and was reminded somewhat of Rothko but felt that the scale was somewhat lacking. it was then that i noticed the rows of buildings lining the bottom of the frame and suddenly the image felt huge.

That something so small could cause such a dramatic effect on something so vast as the sky was the prominent thought left in my head after viewing the series. It also seemed to me that Gersht had expressed what so many green photographers have been trying to in a subtler but more effective way, whether it was his intention or not.

Although I rarely state it explicitly (thought it is much more obvious in my writing) i am interested by environmental issues and this undoubtedly shapes my work. There are several reasons i don't often discuss the subject; firstly, it is everywhere, and i feel people and i include myself in this,are bored of it. we know what the issues are and don't need telling again. Secondly, i feel the arguments are self evident and i have little original to offer. Thirdly, despite enjoying a bit of "the great outdoors" i also really enjoy living in a city, the variety of things on offer, the convenience of being able to cycle anywhere i might need to, even the crowdedness feels like possibilities.

This i guess is why much of my work focus's on uses of space, for this project i am particularly interested in the gap between city and rural. all the spaces i chose to photograph from while on my searches are landscapes in them selves; representations of nature incorporated into the city. It is an interesting coincidence that Sheffield has more trees per person than any city in Europe. Although Sheffield is far from the Rural idyll, it is probably as good a subject as possible to project my idea of Arcadia onto.