Agecroft Power Station...

John Davies image made over 100 years later bears a striking resemblance to Goodall's. as with Goodall, Davies meaning is ambiguous. It is not made clear whether the image is a celebration of mans triumph over nature or a lament for a lost rural ideal.

I suspect it is neither though viewers will project what they feel onto the image. Davies is ultimately interested in how we use land not how we should use land. In Agecroft Power Station we see a land that has been transformed. The leveled and manicured playing field dominates the for ground while the cooling towers echo windmills of a bygone era of dutch painting but instead of joining land with sky they ocupie the space where once sky was. any hint of nature that is left is pushed to the edges, trees struggle for space between road and pitch while a horse is made an uncomfortable bedfellow with the cars at the bottom of the picture.

Looking through Davies body of work it seems that the options for British landscape photographers wanting to work in a traditional way have become extremely limited. with the expansion of urban and suburban environments and the creation of designated beauty spots it seems that there is not only a lack of available subject matter for the perpetuation of the rural myth but that this vision of Arcadia has been relegated to the status of fantasy.

cottonopolis

This engraving entitled cottonopolis by Edward Goodall is one of my favorite depictions of the industrial landscape. It captures perfectly the monumental change, both to society and the landscape, that was the industrial revolution.

Despite being made in the romantic period and of a genre still synonymous with that movement Goodall's image stands out to me as unique. Although it evokes feelings of the sublime with its mixture of the beautiful and grotesque it is the power of technology that is the spectacle not that of nature.

This raises the question as to who the work is intended for. Landscape painting up to and within this era had always been associated with the upper class. depictions of an individual in their land or of the boundary's around it, symbols of the division between themselves and the lower classes. cottonopolis carries none of these signifiers, instead we find in the center of the image the city. both a creation and a creator of a new class in Britain. This piece it seems is aimed at the middle classes, the rich but landless children of the industrial revolution.

How then has this image influenced my own work? firstly I have always been interested in this dialectic between nature and technology that has been played out through the romantic landscape painters. secondly the use and control of land is something that influences most photographers whether it is part of their subject matter or merely a formality which must be overcome when working.

On the road

This is a map i made using google and notes taken about the locations of each veiw point. Although it doesnt look like much this is the culmination of 3 weekends groundwork, driving round hills, walking through parks and huntting for gaps in trees and houses.

It should hopefully save me alot of time when Im in a position to photograph.

More hills

I took a trip to sheffields local history library and spoke to the librarians. They confirmed that no official list identifying which hills are included exists but that one source sugests these highpoints.

1. Stannington ridge
2. Loxley Ridge
3. Shirecliffe-Pitsmoor Ridge
4. Norfolk Park Ridge
5. Greenhill Ridge
6. Ecclesall Ridge
7. Hallam Ridge

In addition to this Sheffield City Council planned to light fires on the hills to celebrate the International Student games in 1991. Suggested sites were:

1. Loxley Common/Wadsley
2. Crookes
3. Greystones/Ringinglow
4. Norton/Gleadless
5. Wincobabk
6. Shirecliffe
7. Stannington

As you can see they dont match which is a shame, though they are all within the 8 suggested areas of the last source. From here I think i might just have to go and look at the places and decide which i think are most suitable.

Which hills?

So far the best source of information about which hills are to be considered part of the sheffield seven has been this study by J.G.Harson who has cross checked the earliest written reference to the saying with the city boarders of the time. Some what confusingly he lists 8 hills but does include road names of the locations which will make looking them up on maps alot easier.

"The earliest reference I have to seven hills is George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier, written in 1936. In it he writes:

The town is very hilly (said to be built on seven hills, like Rome) and everywhere streets of mean little houses blackened by smoke run up at sharp angles, paved with cobbles which are purposely set unevenly to give horses etc, a grip."

Innitial thoughts

This is the beginning of my project which arose from a trip back to sheffield and a familurality with a saying that the city was built on seven hills. this was something that i was always awair of growing up but did not place much value entil returning to the city having been away for quite some time.

It seemed aproprieate that i should explore this idea to see if the expression was actually based on some geographical truth or mearly a turn of phrase employed when met with the prospect of a long climb.

With regards to the form the project will take in photographic terms it seems obvious, or atleast i feel compelled, to photograph the city from each vantage point offered by the hills. It is very rare that I enter a project with the intention of making specific images. On the contrary usually i have little desire to make images, instead I immerse myself in a subject of interest and from there i hope to find a way to articulate my view point photographically.

Bearing this in mind, my blog would usually be a place to colate research and a tool to distill my ideas about how i may aproach a given project. Instead I will now use it to explain why making this series apeals to me so and to contextualize it within my practice. And intern how my practice fits into the wider context of photography and the Genre of Landscape.