Mark Davies

This series focuses on the decay within an urban environment that takes place at a macro level and beyond what we generally view within a traditional landscape image. This series has evolved from straight macro photographs of features to the idea of an abstract representation of the urban landscape in which these subjects are found. Initially inspired by the work of modernist photographers for their clear sharp focus and representation of objects the evolution of this series has seen it drawing from abstract expressionist photographer Aaron Siskind’s work for inspiration. This has seen the series move away from clear focused images to a more stylised exploration of the environment.

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The high level of magnification provided by a macro lens has been used as an abstraction tool for this series of images allowing me to represent the environment without displaying the photographed object in its entirety. This allows the images to be viewed for their qualities such as texture and shape as well as letting the viewer explore the image for further possibilities of what the image may represent to them.

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The focus on decay has lead to this series being titled ‘Remnants of the Modern Age’, as it represents what will remain of our society in the future and the gradual weathering of our civilisation. The use of these landscape images represent the future where nothing remains but our impact on the environment, borrowing from the post-apocalyptic idea of a time after human, a time when our civilisation is weathering down to nothing and returning to the earth.

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The exceedingly shallow depth of field provided by this particular style of photography has been exploited to create dramatic focus fall off within the images. This means that there is a slice of sharp subject matter in the image that is used to create a horizon line that the foreground and background then suddenly fall off out of focus, this creates the sense that we are looking at a tradition landscape instead of an image of a particular object. This use of objects to create an image of the landscape challenges the traditional notion of what an image of the landscape is, there are no noticeable and recognisable features within these images yet they can be viewed in a way that we read the photograph as a representation of the larger landscape these very small fragments form.

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The use of black and white digital photography for this series is used to further the abstraction of the images and remove any preconceived idea of what this image is, based on colour recognition and visual recollection from personal experience but rather what may be being viewed. This is important as images taken within this urban environment are very recognisable as we often see these photographed objects daily. We can easily recognise this signs of decay and weathering by the tell tail orange hue of rust and the shape and texture of corrugated iron so these need to be removed for the images to successfully augment our perception of what is being represented.