I have been contemplating possible subjects for this assignment for a while now and I think I have settled on a subject (on which I shall do a separate post). It might though be useful briefly to address some other ideas that I have considered but have decided not to proceed with for now – subject to second thoughts as I get down to work on the critical review in earnest!
Whatever final form the review takes, I am intending that it is going to deal with an element of the relationship, indeed the symbiosis between, people and landscape. As I have repeated throughout my work on this course this is the aspect of “landscape” that interests me most, both from a conceptual and a photographic point of view.
In Assignment 3 I have dealt both with landscape as an instrument of memory and how a place is created, the landscape given a particular sense of definition, by means of human intervention. These ideas have indeed been the primary threads running through all of Part 3 of the course material. The relationship between landscape and memory is something that interests me and is something that I would hope to be able to explore further in my own practice in due course.
With such a possible subject in mind I have been looking at some of the work in my own library (I find this is often as good a place as any to start) to see what ideas might come out. Given my growing interest in this aspect of photography it is perhaps no great surprise that I have an increasing number of books that fit the bill, though I have to recognise that my decisions to buy them have not been influenced by this interest at a conscious level.
There are two particular strands of work that I can immediately identify: one deals with the photographer’s personal memories; the other with the memories of other people. Some examples of the former:
Guido Guidi, In Sardegna
Hajime Kimura, Snowflakes (from Snowflakes Dog Man, which also to an extent explores the memories of another, his late father)
Daido Moriyama, Record and Daido Tokyo
Michael Schmidt, Berlin-Wedding
And of the latter:
Maja Daniels, Elf Dalia
David Favrod, Hikari
Rinko Kawauchi, The river embraced me
Kazuma Obara, Exposure
Donovan Wylie, The Maze
There are probably other books in my library for which the same case might also be made but these are the ones that jump out.
One of the more interesting books that I read for I&P was of course Hirsch (2012) which is all about the use of photography in the construction of memories, though admittedly in the context of family relationships rather than landscape or place. I see no reason in principle though why similar ideas and principles as she discusses should not apply equally to landscape photographs.
As I have said, this is a subject that interests me greatly. However, for the purposes of this assignment I feel I need to step out of my comfort zone a bit and address a different subject: one that still interests me but approaching it from an angle that, from the point of view of my own practice and seeking actively to pursue such a project, would be practically rather more challenging, as I will explain in my subsequent post on that other idea.
Daniels, M, (2019). Elf Dalia. London: MACK
Favrod, D, (2015). Hikari. Berlin: Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg
Guidi, G, (2019). In Sardegna: 1974, 2011. London: MACK
Hirsch, M. (2012) Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Kawauchi, R, (2016). The river embraced me. Tokyo: torch press
Kimura, H, (2019). Snowflakes Dog Man. Italy: ceiba editions
Moriyama, D, (2017). Daido Moriyama: Record. London: Thames & Hudson
Moriyama, D, (2016). Daido Tokyo. Paris: FondationCartier pour l’art contemporain
Obara, K, (2018). Exposure / Everlasting. Cordoba: Editorial RM / RM Verlag
Schmidt, M, (2019). Berlin-Wedding. London: Koenig Books
Wylie, D, (2004). The Maze. London: Granta
Mark Robinson's OCA Landscape, Place & Environment Blog 