Land Revisited Exhibition Fay Godwin - National Media Museum

The National Media Museum has be staging a repeat of the seminal 'Land' exhibition by Fay Godwin to celebrate the 25th aniversary of the original event. The Museum holds many of the original prints from the first exhibition. The museum introduces the exhibition as follows : "Fay Godwin (1931 - 2005) was one of Britain's greatest landscape photographers. She is best known for her 1985 exhibition and accompanying book, Land – a very personal celebration of the British landscape that enjoyed enormous popular and critical success. To mark the 25th anniversary of this exceptional project, we are displaying a selection of prints from the original exhibition, drawn from our Collection."

On Monday 22nd November I had the great pleasure of visiting the exhibition. I was one of very few visitors on that morning and so I had time and a peaceful environment to give the wonderful photographs full consideration. Here are my thoughts on the exhibition:

• What impressed me the most was the pure quality of the original prints on display. The images are fantastic. Technically they are excellent - the compositions are strong, focus is sharp from back to front, and no detail is lost in the shadows and highlights. The prints themselves are superb. They are generally quite high in contrast and wonderfully detailed. However, what distinguishes the images more than anything else is the way the light expresses itself on the landscape. Areas of light and dark draw out the shape of the landscape and highlight the key points of interest. 
• Her compositions are very carefully thought out. She often uses repetitive elements such as in the image below where the marker stone pointing to the right is echoed by the wall to top left of the frame. The triangle of the marker stone, wall and rock also makes a strong compositional design and depth is created by diminishing scale.

Marker stone, old London to Harlech road by Fay Godwin

• Looking at her workbooks and contact prints it is abundantly clear that having found her subject Godwin would capture a series of images, varying the exposures once she had settled on a composition. Just like Ansell Adams she regarded the negative as a starting point. She devoted a great deal of time, thought and effort to the process of producing a perfect print.
• The exhibition showed an old video clip from the South Bank Show in 1986, in which Fay was interviewed and was filmed working in the field. From this it is clear that she revisited locations on many occasions to seek out the perfect light and climatic conditions. It is also clear that once at a location she would spend a lot of time with a handheld viewfinder searching for the right composition. A National Media Museum video of Roger Taylor discussing Fay Godwin's work can be found on this link National Media Museum - Fay Godwin Video .
• The sky is very often a major feature of her compositions and when it is there is always great interest in the clouds. Very rarely are these clouds fluffy cumulus. Storm clouds appear with greater regularity. I have heard it said that the best time to capture dramatic landscape images is when bad weather is leaving (Charlie Waite quote). Fay Godwin seems to have believed in a similar dictum. She clearly went out in poor conditions and waited for breaks in the weather when the drama of the landscape would be greatly enhanced. Below is one of her images where bad weather is a major feature. This image also illustrates how the light is so important in her images. The dark sky overhead adds drama and as does storm over the hills to the back left. The path in the front left is lit up whereas the middle ground is in shadow. As we move further into the landscape both the lake and the far valley are again lit up. So cleverly Godwin has managed to ensure that the key elements of her composition are lit, whilst providing a dramatic backcloth for their presentation. What is not easy to judge is how much the light conditions have been enhanced by dodging and burning in the darkroom??

Path and reservoir, Lumbutts, Yorkshire, 1977

• I was also intrigued to hear how much time she spent in determining the sequence of images for display in Land. Her final choice was to present the photographs in a geographic sequence, starting in the north of Scotland working south towards the end of the book.

It was a great day and very timely given my decision to study Fay Godwin's work for my next assignment.