Reflecting on my Major Project

As the project has developed it has become clear that for the work to be of interest to a wider audience, there has to be an element of a collective history of the land conveyed in the images. I have found some interesting information on social website with regard to landmarks of an historical nature. But this has come a little late in the project as I do not have the time to visit and photograph these sites neither do I have the financial resources to fund the journeys I would need to  make to do this.  

The images that I have already produced are of an emotive nature. The work is centered around my senses, as opposed to any social or political references. The work is an expression of my sense of spiritual awareness of the land. It is my senses that bring the land to life for me. I sense its heartbeat, the events of the past, battles fought, struggles endured and nature preserved by both natural phenomena, and the intervention of the peoples of the the land.

It is true that on several occasions I have felt frustration, frustration that the land owners of the 21st Century are possessive of their "bought" land. My experience is that they regard the photographer as an intruder and someone to be weary of. It may be naivety that I do not understand the need to be possessive, the land for me belongs to all regardless of whether it has been "bought" or not. I don't mean that I don't understand their need to protect their land, their animals and their crops, but that as a photographer I wish that they would understand that it is out of respect for the land that I choose to make pictures of the land. 

Maybe it is because I grew up in the 1960's and 70's that this naivety remains with me. As a child I was allowed to roam anywhere and everywhere. The constraints I face now are alien to me, and this is something that I am unable to shake off. 

Tourist areas such as castles, have been closed to the public over the winter months, and although I have been to several and photographed them, it has been at a distance. I have been unable to experience the spiritual nature that shows itself to me when I am truly engulfed, not only the ground and the stone, but the whole history and atmosphere of the site.

When I am allowed to drink in the atmosphere, to immerse myself in the whole being of the place, the collective memories that I sense within the walls, come into play.  I feel able to capture the essence of that place through my instincts and intuition, which result in expressionistic and ethereal images. 

Using the Diana F plastic camera has been a challenge. Attempting to capture the expressionistic images that I have wanted has not been an easy task. It has allowed me to relinquish control of the picture making process but it has been difficult to find the right artistic exposure and the creative end product. There has been a lot of guess work involved. I have attempted to use a light meter, but this has just been a waste of time. My instincts have been more successful and remembering that I wanted to relinquish control, my instinct has served me well for most of the time. 

There is an element of darkness to my images. This reflects the way I feel about the Welsh people. In my opinion there is a general sense of negativity, and a dark humour that I have experienced in my own family, as well as in the general psyche of the Welsh people. The humour and the darkness can be read in many songs and poetry by Welsh writers, Dylan Thomas, being the most famous of them.

The history of Wales is shrouded in myth and legend. Fact and myth entwined together is especially prevalent in its early history. Stories that have been passed down from one generation to the next with little historical fact being actually written down.  Researchers of Welsh history have, over the past century pieced together as much fact as it has been possible to do. The darkness I spoke of can also signify this clouded version of the truth about Welsh history. It is somewhat ambiguous, imbued in mystery, a concoction of fact and fiction. 

It is then no wonder that my own images of the Welsh landscape are a little ambiguous because of the nature of the traditions of our history, the lack of known facts both about the land itself and also about my own family whose history has not yet been unfolded. 

The project began as a personal exploration of my relationship with the land of my fathers, but for a wider audience to appreciate what I am trying to do, I have had to try and develop it into a work that is a narrative for the collective. It is not an historical document, but a personal narrative of how I see a land that is imbued and enriched in its collective memory of a rich and vivid history in myth and legend.