I have had to take a little bit of time from working on this project to reflect on what it is that I really want to get out of it. I think that I may have jumped on and into an idea that I did not think too deeply about. Which subsequently had to lead to a few too many weeks of procrastination and shooting a body of work that I am not that passionate about. This happened because I thought I had an idea of something that I could shoot with too much ease and when I realised that it was not challenging or stimulating me enough, I decided that I needed a new line of thought to how I was going to approach making a body of work for this project.
I had a conversation with Martina about the direction of my work and my photographic practice. She provoked a lot of thought regarding why I am so drawn to shooting and exploring the landscape. She made me question where the feeling of emotional attachment with the landscape comes from and what it is that I gain from being immersed in the natural world.
I don’t think I have ever questioned why I do what I do.
This is something that I now feel like I need to do in order to develop my photographic practice into something that I truly understand which will help me produce further well though work in the future.
In order to begin to think about “the why” I took a walk up onto the Moor and camped out for the night. I took the 5x4 camera with me to get a feel for shooting on that and to work out how I might be able to use it in this body of work that I am about to embark on. I took this trip to think and not to shoot. I wanted to think about how I connect with the land, what it makes me feel and how I integrate myself into the environment that I am in. I have always been drawn to the outdoors, I have never been the kind of person to sit indoors, even on rainy days. I have an innate feeling that puts me in the most beautiful places around me, it makes me feel alive when I am on the Moors, by the coast and in the sea. I always feel the urge to explore and learn about the locations that I am in. These thoughts have driven previous photographic work that I have undertaken, but I have never questioned why I am doing it. In this body of work, I am going to question why and explore what the landscape means to me. Through research, investigation and experimentation, I am going to visually represent what the landscape means to me and why I am so attracted to spending much of my time in it.