The Assignment is to produce a series of images responding to the idea of 'transitions' by recording changes in part of the landscape over an extended period of time.
A very specific location was chosen: Kingswood Remembrance Park, owned and managed by South Gloucestershire Council. The idea arose when walking through the park, and noticing how it is developing over time as more trees are planted and burial sites established.
With the knowledge that it would take about a year to complete this course, I thought that a series of images following the annual cycle of a tree would be interesting, including withing the project a range of meteorological conditions and times of day. At the time, I thought the surrounding area might also show signs of progression as more trees were planted and burial sites established, but that has not occurred.
The dates I could photograph the tree were proscribed partly by our son's illness as we were frequently with him in London, but the seven images incorporate the annual cycle of buds to leaves, to bare branches, and back to buds again.
Landscape appearance reflects the light and weather conditions, and the sequence reflects that. The exact details of date, and time of day are available on the Flickr presentation:
It was evidently desirable to take images as closely as possible from the same position. This proved more difficult than thought because there was no way of marking exactly the position from where the first image was taken. I made a visual record of the details from the initial shoot as follows:
The subsequent images were taken as closely as possible from the same position; with hindsight I could have chosen a point say on the roadway that would have been easier to replicate; however, at the initial stage I believed we would see a more dynamic picture of the landscape in the background over a year than actually occurred. Positioning the tripod to the left above would have included a less dynamic background. There is inconsistency between the images but hopefully not enough to spoil the overall effect.
In technical terms, this was a more challenging assignment than I envisaged. It is remarkably difficult to get an entirely consistent view; if I were to repeat, I would take a wider angle and crop the images appropriately.
In more general terms, it has been an interesting assignment to carry out, notwithstanding the practical difficulties mentioned above. The project has shown how vastly different the same scene can be at different times of the year, at different times of the day, and in different weather conditions. Landscapes evoke emotion, but that emotion is affected by the environment in which they are seen. Quite often, we select our conditions to go with the subject, to present it in the best light for technical reasons, and this is true to a degree of this project. The camera points almost easterly; this dictates that early morning shots were possible (and desirable) in the low sun months of autumn and winter but early evening shots better at other times. On one occasion the relative flatness of the scene in rainy conditions was demonstrated.
It was evidently desirable to take images as closely as possible from the same position. This proved more difficult than thought because there was no way of marking exactly the position from where the first image was taken. I made a visual record of the details from the initial shoot as follows:
The subsequent images were taken as closely as possible from the same position; with hindsight I could have chosen a point say on the roadway that would have been easier to replicate; however, at the initial stage I believed we would see a more dynamic picture of the landscape in the background over a year than actually occurred. Positioning the tripod to the left above would have included a less dynamic background. There is inconsistency between the images but hopefully not enough to spoil the overall effect.
In technical terms, this was a more challenging assignment than I envisaged. It is remarkably difficult to get an entirely consistent view; if I were to repeat, I would take a wider angle and crop the images appropriately.
In more general terms, it has been an interesting assignment to carry out, notwithstanding the practical difficulties mentioned above. The project has shown how vastly different the same scene can be at different times of the year, at different times of the day, and in different weather conditions. Landscapes evoke emotion, but that emotion is affected by the environment in which they are seen. Quite often, we select our conditions to go with the subject, to present it in the best light for technical reasons, and this is true to a degree of this project. The camera points almost easterly; this dictates that early morning shots were possible (and desirable) in the low sun months of autumn and winter but early evening shots better at other times. On one occasion the relative flatness of the scene in rainy conditions was demonstrated.
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