Whilst I am continuing to beaver away with shooting for this assignment – I have been very much hampered by the weather of late and it is amazing how much time it all takes, particularly as I am shooting both digitally and with medium format film (more as an experiment in its own right if anything and an opportunity to get to know the camera properly): last week it took more than two hours to cover just five, fairly close, locations – I am nevertheless still looking at possible influences, both on the subject matter and on the mode of presentation.
After this last shoot I remembered some work by former OCA student “Rob TM” that was featured briefly in C&N, in particular his series “A Forest”. This consists of views of woodland, all fairly anonymous and undistinguished in their own right, juxtaposed with studio shots of rubbish and detritus he found at each particular spot. I think there are parallels here between his work and what I am exploring, how a location can take on a particular identity or significance as a result of some human intervention. Here is an example of his work. (I have not been able to find any freely available images on-line so this is an edited screen shot from his website.)
I had also already been thinking about how my images might be displayed and from the outset have conceived of them as a series of diptychs, quite possibly unconsciously influenced this work. The aspect ratio of the digital camera that I have been using is much wider than this so the resulting image is shallow but wide. Nevertheless I think it works. Here is an example, produce by simply copying and pasting the two related pictures into a new, double width file in Photoshop:
When I get round to developing the medium format film the aspect ratio will be much more like that above as 120 film in my Hasselblad produces 2 1/4 inch square frames.
I stil have more pictures to take, but I have at least identified some more potential sites that should give me enough to make up a set.
Mark Robinson's OCA Landscape, Place & Environment Blog 