Photography - "Collections"

The brief for this project was very broad:

"Produce a series of photographic images, which create a significant collection. Choose your subject carefully, it may or may not include people. Try to develop a unique approach to the making of this collection. The very nature of collecting suggests an obsessive and fastidious approach to making the work and you should take an analytical, considered and yet experimental approach to the project. Y our collection could be historical, cultural, contemporary, social etc. For instance you could be collecting water, sky, noise, people etc. Consider what meanings and observations may be generated by viewing the collection you create."

I stated by simply photographing and making collections of anything and everything. I headed out several times to gather photographs, and since I live in an area with a lot of farmland, the shots more often than not ended up being of trees and landscapes. I kept going with this, as I became fascinated with the complexity and menacing nature of tree silhouettes when taken at night/early morning. This made me think about the effect that darkness has on objects, as trees are not typically freighting things, yet in the dark they appear so. Things that seem so innocent when in daylight become unimaginable horrors from beyond when swamped with darkness, all down to the powers of the imagination. Using imagery of the countryside, something that we all have pre-conceived imagery of in our heads of blue skies, green grass and peaceful animals, I attempted to photograph them so as to make them appear threatening. I did this by photographing at sunrise, as the level of light is low enough to cut out most of the detail from the subject, and the rising sun causes enough light behind the objects to create a silhouette.

The final collection of photographs I have produced are of regular countryside occurrences, but featured as detail-less silhouettes against a pale blue sky. This recreates the haunting atmosphere of the night, with the cold blue tones in the background giving a sensation of temperature and even loneliness.