Friday 7 February 2014

Revelation not illustration

I have always been fascinated by the landscape. I grew up in a working class part of Cardiff where my only forays into anything resembling countryside were on annual scout camps. We all piled our kit and ourselves on to the back of a builder's truck and trundled off to Herefordshire or Somerset to spend two or three weeks under canvas. It was on those camps that I learned to identify trees and wildlife and possibly begin to understand something of the wider topography. I also began to understand how people lived in this environment which was so different from my own because we tended to camp on busy working farms.

Barbagia, Sardinia, 2000

While I was taking photographs at that time I don't remember the landscape being chief among my chosen subject matter. However, I assume that these early influences stayed with me to emerge years later and express itself in my photographic exploration of the landscape.

My interest has always been related to the history of the places I have been fortunate enough to visit and photograph and I try to reflect in some way how the indigenous population have used and interacted with the land over the years.

This, in recent bodies of work can mean many years, even millennia. In a newly started body of work I am casting my eye (and camera of course) over a small section of habitation and landscape near here that fringes the Cambrian Mountains. It is an area of archaeological interest due to its long, complex and ever-changing history, topography  and usage. The lead research team consists mainly of archaeologists and landscape history specialists. However, my past experience of making bodies of work that have dealt with many of the issues being examined has led me to being invited to join the team. 

My task is not to illustrate the archaeology but with my particular vision and photographic strategy to attempt to 'reveal' aspects of the land that may seem prosaic and be passed by. The large format photograph, beautifully presented can draw a viewer into examining the 'ordinary' and hopefully revealing the extraordinary. They also have then, the opportunity to lay their own constructed narratives on such places and allow the history to be absorbed in a very subtle way.

Enough for now, I will post images as they come through and hopefully all will be revealed.............

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