The Forgotten Moor
I find myself being visually inspired by the same photographers at the beginning of most of my projects. This is because I am currently working on building my own aesthetic which is constant growth and development in my practice. This slightly uniformed aesthetic is influenced by the photographers that I admire and aspire to be next to in the distant future.
I feel like my foundations are slowly forming since I have been on the degree course and I feel that the inspiration for this project is stemming from my “Forgotten Moor” project that I worked on towards the end of my first year. The project visually explored the once-booming economy of Dartmoor through photographing the tin mines and quarries which once centered the local area. Hiking out to these locations, some I had explored before and some that I had not before. Photographing them as an observer, capturing the remains that mankind had built in a barren and isolated landscape. This was the first project that I began to work on medium format film. It was a learning curve working with the new medium for me alongside the safely of digital. I feel like I am now in a position to photograph a project entirely on film and begin to move my practice onto large format where I will be able to capture photographs at the highest quality and with the most control of the composition.
Here is a combination of digital and film shot images that I captured I began shooting the project on digital and primarily used it with shooting film on the side. This was when I was not that confident working with medium format film which is something that I have developed over the past year. This project was when I began to document the landscape and the spaces that humans have impacted in a previous time. The project allowed me to learn about the history of the land that I am always walking over, which connected me stronger with a place that I regularly visit.
The visual aesthetic of this body of work was inspired by Nicolas White and Marc Wilson. I wanted to create an aesthetic that made the viewer feel as if they were standing where I was. In the wet and cold where the tin and mine workers would have been spending much of their working life. This is something that I will follow thought with my next body of work as I think it is an important element of storytelling. To bring the viewer closure to all the elements that the people before us would have experienced.
The body of work that I am about to embark on is going to be a development of this aesthetic. One that tells a narrative within the landscape and has an almost timeless feeling to the imagery. I want to shoot in as many weather conditions as possible to bring the feeling of those elements into my photography. This body of work is going to be mostly shot on film and I will also begin to explore large format photography.