Images which represent a series of interconnected new directions in my photography over the last year since spring 2019: a move up (again) to 10x8 and to the challenges involved; a move to black and white and alternative processes (cyanotype and argyrotype); dedication to specific projects.
This project investigates emotional responses to trees in the (literary/artistic) landscape across time, via forays locally to me in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, and sometimes elsewhere too. It is inspired by an interest in evocations of landscape in ancient poetry, and by discoveries of graffiti on trees - interrelated through the mythological lover Acontius, a significant figure for ancient pastoral poetics, especially in Virgil's Eclogues.
The idea of writing on trees and connecting with the landscape fits with the idea I have of photography as a quiet and dedicated kind of mark-making, something I’ve thought about via e.g. Sally Mann, and, differently, Alys Tomlinson’s Ex Voto work.
Alt-pro prints here are direct contact-prints from 10x8 Ilford FP4+ negatives, printed on Bergger Cot320 11x14" paper using a 12x16" Lotus printing frame. Others here are medium-format film images from Hasselblad 500C/M and Mamiya RZ67 Pro II with Ilford Delta 400 and Kodak Portra 400.
Bob Argyrotype
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-W 300)
Brightwell Barrow Argyrotype
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-SW 150)
"fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima" Cyanotype
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-W 300)
Beech Tree Graffiti, Elleric
(Hasselblad 500C/M, Delta 400, 80 Planar)
"... et castaneae hirsutae..."
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-SW 150)
"sub tegmine fagi"
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-SW 150)
"... nec myrtes vincet corylos, nec laurea Phoebi"
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-M 450)
"castaneasque nuces, mea quas Amaryllis amabat"
(10x8 FP4+, Nikkor-SW 150)
"Much taller than"
(RZ67, Delta 400, 110mm)
"I'm this much taller than Steve Payne"
(RZ67, Portra 400, 110mm, new negative lab pro conversion)
