It’s now the new year of 2021 and I am sitting down to work out how I am going to wrap this project up. It has been a journey, one that has been taken in the physical and metaphorical. One that has taken me on long hikes and drives, this has given me time to think, reflect and create photographs that shadow my meditated feelings when taking photographs and finding silence in the natural world. Much of my research has been around theory and reading that I have done. A different approach to the heavily visual inspiration that I usually gather for my projects. This body of work has been build around deeper thought and personal analysis of what photography is to me and how I use it to keep my mind at peace.
Therefore, I want to finish this series of photographs by going on a small road trip in my van. We are in another lockdown so I am going to have to stay local so my plan is to spend a couple of nights on Dartmoor and by the sea. Being immersed in the landscape gives two things, the feeling of solitude that I seek and more opportunities to capture photographs. We have seen a little bit of snow on Dartmoor so I am hoping that there will still be some up there for me to capture. I am also planning on capturing some photographs of the night’s sky which will be a first for this project, as well as returning to some long exposure images of the sea.
I am going to focus on shooting the silent moments in the landscape, perhaps moments when I am feeling it in a particular way. Keeping the compositions simple and finding the returning pattens in the natural world. I want to capture the landscape in a way that explains to the audience what I am thinking and shares the experiences that I am having in the natural spaces.
For this trip, I plan on primarily shooting on medium format film and I have brought 5 rolls of Ilford Plus HP5 which I will develop when I return from my trip. The process of shooting on film is slower, more considered and creates a timeless looking photograph which leaves the viewer thinking about when the image was shot. I will second shoot on my digital camera as well, to capture the faster moments of light that are passing as I am on my journey.
Once I have completed the photographs, I plan to create two ways of sharing this project. One in digital form and on in physical. I want to create a book of the work, something physical that people can hold in their hands while viewing the images. As well as a digital format that allows me to add sound into the background, this will able me to connect the viewer more sensations of the spaces that I am in. Once the work is completed I will publish it to my professional website, giving people the option to buy the book that I am going to publish.