There has been a marked change in Art Photography over the last 30 years with the emergence of post-modernist ideas. These developments have been underpinned by critical philosophical thinking and the theories of semiotics. These ideas have also been felt in the approaches to documentary work and landscape also. I have much further reading thinking and absorbing to do, but I thought I would make a start by looking at the work of a couple of post-modern Landscape photographers. It is interesting to note that in her documentary landscape work for Our Forbidden Land and The Edge of the Land, Fay Godwin's work might be regarded as post-modern. Her emphasis on presenting the abuse of the landscape in a factual manner with the minimum of artifice, and her inclusion of text alongside to direct the thinking of the viewers to the concepts she was conveying are both in line with post-modern thinking, which places greater emphasis on concepts than on aesthetic beauty.
My first photographer in this brief review is Jem Southam. Southam (born Bristol 1950) is one of the UK's leading photographers. He is renowned for his series of colour landscape photographs, beginning in the 1970s and continuing until the present. His trademark is the patient observation of changes at a single location over many months or years. His subjects are predominately situated in the south west of England where he lives and works. He observes the balance between nature and man's intervention and traces cycles of decay and renewal. His work combines topographical observation with other references: personal, cultural, political, scientific, literary and psychological. He uses a large format camera to produce 8 x 10 inch (20.5 x 25.5 cm) negatives that record a high level of detail. Here is an image from a series called “Rockfalls”, Southam photographed a section of coastline of Normandy in northern France where dramatic cliffs change shape daily.
As can be seen from this brief introduction Southam's work extends well beyond those of aesthetic beauty and the sublime which concern much of the work of photographers I have reviewed so far in this blog.
The second photographer I have considered is John Kippin. Kippin is an artist and photographer who lives and works in the North East of England. He works largely within the context of landscape. His work challenges the realist paradigm which traditionally underpins such work. Here is an example of a work by Kippin.
Without the text this image looks like a pretty sunset....a bit of a cliche perhaps but not a bad effort. However inclusion of the text is like pushing the stop button...what is he trying to convey. My own interpretaion of this is that he is saying that the coast of our land is a metaphor for our nationality. With this interpretation the image takes on a whole new meaning and significance and prompts the viewer to reconsider stereotypical and simplistic interpretations of landscape photographs.
Here is a second image by Kippin.
In this image the rhyme of the tourists with umbrellas and the stones of the henge is amusing, but the message goes I feel much deeper. It is a comment on how our national heritage is now part of a media circus within contemporary culture.
These two photographers and indeed others I have recently been reviewing have challenged my preconceived and perhaps 'romantic' ideas about landscape photography. I plan to include a specific review of English photographer John Davies and American Robert Adams in my work for Project 36 Defining a Style - both of these photographers make photographs in a deliberately un-sensational and often understated way to allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions on the issues they are seeking to address. What was also very interesting for me was that many contemporary photographers cite Walker Evans as an influence. His style was a forerunner of the understated approach that is often seen today. This approach seeks to avoid the photographers own voice clouding the issues that are being depicted.....Evans called it his Documentary Style.
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