After discussing this body of work with my peer hangout
group it was felt that my written introduction was again too long and was too
much ‘in your face’. It gave the
impression that I thought that all was wonderful and I was not critically
engaged with my subject. There was no
debate, questioning myself or ambiguity.
Again it was felt that I had given all of the answers in the written piece.
One colleague felt
that there had been a seismic change from Assignment 3, where there was some
ambiguity, and that I had reverted to the style of work that I had presented at
the Barnsley Study Weekend.
The fact that I had used the term ‘Flaneur’ was
questioned as it generally refers to an
urban situation. It was also felt that I
needed to sequence the images and, perhaps, standardise the format (horizontal,
vertical, square)
To this end I have restructured the written piece and include it below:-
I walked into the wood. It was dark, and green. Green leaves, green grass, green tinges on
tree trunks; even the air seemed green.
It was also raining; steady, gentle summer rain. I love woods in the wet. There were gentle
sounds of water everywhere: the susurration of the rain itself and the steady
drip, drip of drops off leaves and undergrowth.
Later, the sun came out and drops of water sparkled like jewels, each
holding a perfect, inverted image of the world around it. This was one of the Lincolnshire Limewoods,
relicts of the original primeval wilderness in this part of England. After the last ice age the whole of this
region was forested with small leaved lime and the Limewoods are one of the few
remaining links to wilderness in Lincolnshire.
My
formative years were spent roaming these woods, developing a a connection with
nature that was to last a lifetime. I
knew every tree, birds nest and rare plant, where to find adders and the best
places for newts and frogspawn. Bird
song was a kind of ‘surround sound’; the hypnotic cooing of doves and pigeons,
the harsh shrieking of jays, pneumatic drilling of woodpeckers, onomatopoeic
song of the chiff chaff, the musical warble of blackcaps and from above the
trees the wild mewing of a buzzard soaring overhead. Flowers spangled the wood with colour:
orchids, ragged robin, dog daisy, wild rose, honey suckle and many more. The sense of smell was not neglected, with
damp earthy scents of leaf mould and the occasional, floral notes of
honeysuckle.
Walking allows me to slow down and fully experience and
appreciate the landscape that I travel through; to be a ‘human being’, rather
than a ‘human doing’. It not only provides exercise and improves health;
it nourishes the mind, providing spiritual refreshment through contact with
nature, allowing for the study of the appearance of things. I find it a meditative experience and often,
when walking in mountains, I have the feeling that I never want to come
down. Walking in woodland, it is easy to
lose and find oneself again, to reflect, meditate and absorb the natural world
around me. In particular, I enjoy the
intricate, close-up detail of nature: the beauty of a lichen covered rock, or a
moss encrusted tree, a weathered, silvered tree stump in a forest, the floor of
a wood, detail of a fern or the beauty of a feather. I love the interplay of the weather on the
landscape: clouds, wind, rain, snow and even mist and fog. I revel in the touch and feel of the detail
of the land: the roughness of tree bark, the soft sponginess of moss, the
crispness of dried lichen on a sun-warmed rock or the refreshing coolness of a
mountain stream. When walking I enjoy
seeking out and photographing the intricate detail of nature, the ordinary, the
detail that it is easy to walk past without noticing; I like to uncover the
hidden aspects of a place, to ‘make visible the invisible’. It allows me to reconnect with the world.
I particularly enjoy woodland and this summer have walked
in woods in Lincolnshire, The Lake District, Scotland and the Cevennes and
Vercors mountains of France.
Photographing nature’s intimate landscapes means that the images could
be anywhere: in rural settings, our edgeland wildernesses, beach and saltmarsh,
mountains and even industrial settings and gardens.
I share my feelings about nature through photography, but
it also leaves me with many questions. Why
am I affected the way I am? Why are
these things here? Why and how are they
as they are? Is the world as it is
because it was made as it is by a creator god, or is the Earth and everything
on it and the rest of the universe simply governed by the laws of physics? If we stop noticing these things will we
allow them to disappear?
Perhaps it is still too wordy and needs to be pruned even further. I also need to standardise the format of the images and sequence them.
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