Exercise

Create a set of still-life pictures showing traces of life without using people.

Approach

Where I live, in a Stroud valley, there is virtually no man made element and as we walk in the valley, which is nearly every day, we often reflect on how beautiful if is because of the fact that it is untouched.  But is it really.  I decided to do one of my usual walks, which is about a 2 mile circuit up and down the valley, ignore the obvious exceptions such as a cottage or two and pay very close attention to what else I could capture that showed a trace of people.  I also made a conscious choice not to include anything to do with the public footpath as this is obviously people-related and not what I perceived the exercise to be – an exercise in attention to details and how they are seen.

Results

These are the images I captured.  It is worth saying that I took these on quite a dull day, and most of them are under tree canopy.  I had thought that maybe they would need to be retaken.  If this were an assignment I would try on a brighter day in order to compare the results which would be different but not necessarily better, I quite like the muted effect that the light has created because I feel it fits with the slightly desolate / abandoned feel that the images have.

What I learned

As I was carrying out this exercise my intent changed.  I started out looking for the smallest details that were man-made but out of place in the, largely untouched, valley.   As I was capturing the images I came to realise that in many of them, the reason the man made element is a trace is because nature is slowly reclaiming its space, the man made items either rotting away or becoming overpower by the plant growth.  This is not necessarily the point of the exercise but this effect is something I found very interesting and may be a topic to pursue further in my next course which I currently think will be Landscape orientated.  The theme of man versus nature has interested me in past assignments and there is an element of that in my Keith Arnatt research with his Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. 

Building on this, I think there is a learning point on staying open to changes of intent as an exercise or project progresses.  

I learnt that there are a lot more traces of life than I had appreciated before starting the exercise. The learning is not so much about the detail of my valley, but more about how important it is to study detail when following a particular theme.