My photographic style...

Leading on from Dr Ed's comments about the description of my work on my website, the text reads:

a photographer who explores the ways in which people interact with and make sense of the the landscape around them. Identity is key to his work - personal identity through our actions, national identity through our landscape and monuments, and a generic identity built up from everything that is around us.


It is quite interestigly accurate given that Dave wrote it when making the site, I shall expand on it based on my views and what I try to achieve in my work, particularly as its developed into a more coherant beast over the last year!


I am interested in landscape of all genres, whether it be a classic picturesque view of the countryside or an urban environment gleaming with modernity. Firstly, there is an initial interest in the landscape and what it stands for. Our land has been shaped for thousands of years, initially (and still today I guess) through natural events, but increasingly through human interaction with it. We build on the land, reclaim it, landscape it to make it look natural etc etc etc. To study the landscape therefore must inherantly reveal something about our national culture and heritage and perhaps allows us to draw conclusions about life by the way it is used and abused.

For me, what is more interesting is people's relationship with the landscape. I enjoy being a photographer and hope I make intersting work because I am interested in really looking at things. Not a fleeting look or walking around staring at the ground, but trying to engage with whatever environment I am in. By presenting different views or unexpected shots of my surroundings, it enables the viewer to maybe see something in a new light or at least consider it in a way they have not done before. Perhaps this is because we are so used to our surroundings we take it for granted? If you go abroad for example, everything becomes interesting whether its a tree you don't see in the UK, a postbox of a different design than you are used to or the way people use the land in their own country. applying these principals to a landscape you are really familiar with is difficult, but provides so much reward when achieved. Because we are so used to our surroundings, if we can detatch from them and step outside what our brain expects to see, the small details come out. I think it is within these small details, those things commonly taken for granted, that we can reveal a huge wealth of learning about ourselves.

It then follows that to view other people viewing their landscape is just as interesting and reveals just as much about how the collective conciousness looks at the landscape and what conclusions can be drawn about peoples similarities in this approach. With this project, I realised that making work about people viewing the landscape was very difficult. Where do you begin to look and what do you choose to shoot. I was reading a lot about tourism at the time and the tourist experience, the manufactured heritage industry and such like. It struck me that to visit well established and well visited landmarks would give me a platform to do just that. I could go to a place that was pre-designated as a sight of interest and where peoples sole activity was looking.

The manner in which people go through the tourist experience like sheep suggests a lot, as does the way a landmark is set up to accomidate this. We are ushered this way and that, given indications as to where to look and take photographs and therefore we are being pre-loaded with information about where we are. Why are we encouraged to look at certain things for example and why do people stick to this?

You can go to a landmark and predict where people will take a picture. You can also bet if someone stands somewhere and take a picture, others will follow suit, assuming it must be the best view. Leading on from that, people's shot selection is rather drab to me as it is the same image seen time and again. Usually people try to represent a place as though it was still in the time it was famous for. For example, if photographing the stone henge, people will try to show the stones and the field its in, but cut out any other tourists, the road, the car park, the signs, the staff, the shop...the list goes on. For me, to make images that show all these extrenuous things is far more interesting, often far more beautiful and certainly far more revealing about the place and how it sits in the modern age.

All these things reflect on identity and I guess that is my key interest and theme at the moment. Part of someones identity is perhaps revealed by how they interact with the landscape. Our national identity is reflected in everything around us and becomes particularly obvious when we look at places that are designated as being part of our identity (for example landmarks) and a generic identity is apparant in all things. Revealing this generic identity is perhaps most interesting to me and I find by looking at the over looked, the obvious or simply what our brains usually make us ignore...i.e that which is taken for granted, gets under the skin of identity and tells me things that I didn't know before.

Something like that anyway! That is just my thoughts from the top of my head...but I shall think on as I have never quite pinned down what I am interested in visually and doubt I ever will!