Deconstructing Environmental Photographers
Jem Southam
As one of the UK’s most leading contemporary photographs Jem Southam is renowned for his depictions of the English countryside. His application of colour photography and Large Format camera enables him to capture exquisitely highly detailed depth in his images. Southam’s work are reminiscent of the Romantic era John Constable’s images conveying his sensitivity to his homeland much like how Jem bonds with the country side. Jem Southam has produced a range of body of work that are never fully completed but rather left open revisiting places where his relationship closes. In doing so Southam has recorded the gradual change of the landscape where the viewer explores the narrative of its cycle.
Though Southam simply ‘visits’ these landscapes the viewer senses a relationship with how he treats the scenery with absolute delicacy. This connection is absolutely deepened with the fact Southam travels the country to appreciate its scale and history. In 1975 he took two months to walked from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Bristol his home town. Taking only a few black and white 35mm landscape photographs he purposely walked slowly down these country roads where he experienced a better value of the English country side. During his journey he encountered few people on his travels with only the odd farmer and he revaluated our human involvement with the landscape. Seeing it not only as a place of peaceful adjustment but of how our inhabitants restructured the earth. Southam avoided the idealistic splendour and greatness of the country preferring to take contentment in the more fainter and often departed sites. Upon this journey Southam could fully appreciate what the countryside was which has sought out an odd relationship giving his photographs a sense that he lives there.
‘Brampford Speke 1998’ is a photograph taken from his Dew Pond series which shows an expanse green field where the distant horizon lines with patches of trees. The viewer is concentrated on the man-made dew ponds in the foreground, where its perfectly circular form makes it more distinct.
These shallow ponds are supplied with water by concentration and dew is used where a supply of water is not available. Here the dew pond provides evidence of humanity’s presence, most likely used by farmers for watering livestock. Southam approaches to make commentary on mans intervention on the landscape but it is revealed in a more subtler means which does not become obvious to the viewer. Here the message is more like a whisper that can easily be passed without any understanding other than a documentary significance. The viewer takes enjoyment of the sublime scene where its small artificial change does not actively speak loud volumes. Southam uses topographical observation seems to take an almost casual style and yet still captures the real essence and sensation of the atmosphere.
Three years later in 2001 Southam began a series called ‘Upton Pyne’ which takes a completely different view of the landscape from ‘Bramford Speke’. The ‘The Pond at Upton Pyne’ series shows the changing forms of a pond. It was taken in Cornwall in the southwest of England. The house is surrounded by a dense area of trees next by a pond. Upon witnessing this site on a bike ride Southam was intrigued by this site and revisited for the next five years to photograph the transformation. This series captures slow alterations made both by nature and man made intervention. As the seasons past and tenants changed a real narrative is sold where the viewer is left with a great sense of place and intimate knowledge and connection with Upton Pyne. In this series Southam takes references to personal observation as new owners make their individual improvements to the land. The series shows the evolution of the pond and offers piece of history with a sense that village life is documented. However the image reflects not only upon the changing landscape but the human intrusion with it. It raises social issues relating to culture, nature and the urbanization of village life. The natural form of beauty is being reworked by the inhabitants of the house and Southam raises concerns of how the environment is becoming permanently controlled by our presence. The house at first looks to be sitting alongside nature peacefully but is beauty is altered not only through natural causes but humanity’s authority and we question if we can call this beauty anymore because it has become structured.
‘Rock Falls’ is another careful study that continues to observe natures changing landscape with the rock falls of Normandy. This series shows a violent change in the landscape where the piles of massive rubble gathered at the bass of the seaside cliff is caused by the steady erosion of wind and water. I feel the sense of an ending cycle where the shattered rock remains to be reclaimed by the ocean in the last final state. Again Southam revisited the same locations over several years which indulge in the beauty and textures of colours. Using the photographic medium to record the crumbling cliff’s Southam engages a performance that understands the tension between the split second nature of photography with the slow structure time of his subject matter. This series combines beauty and terror where the rumbling falling rock meets the sea. At first the viewer does not see any human reference in this environment where it seems nature has clearly claimed this territory. However these rock falls are disastrous geopolitical events. These cliff’s have seen battles of conflict and wars lost becoming the product of these episodes. So Southam has not truly abandoned the notion of human presence which is seen across his work. Southam has used the lens to unite the scale of time, its human history and natural history where the very different account is recorded in one image. Southam sees the landscape as a slowly moving target by nature as well as by humanity. The ‘Rockfalls’ does not show anything visible by man and so takes a different approach to both the Upton Pyne and Dew Pond’ series but instead uses a metaphorical explanation to combine the environment and humanity.
Jem Upton’s sublime landscapes makes comment on human intervention with nature where our impact exists everywhere from farming, deforestation and mining to name a few. Southam photographs the landscapes because ‘It is what I know and where I live’. His images fuses the formal composition of traditional landscapes with the social sense of modern documentary projects. Most if not all of Southam photographs are characterised by still grey overcast days where an impression of precise care into the relation of the landscape emerges to the viewer.
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