The journey taken across the landscape is what allows us to have a connection to place, people and narrative separate from the routine of our day-to-day existence. Remembrance of travel and the interaction with the natural is romanticised and selective. River is a collection of images that explore the links we make to the landscape kept deliberately wild and accessible to only the few. The original images have been re-interpreted to create distance from direct memory.
The images for River were made over a number of years at Poronui, a lodge outside Taupo, New Zealand. Transport to and around the lodge was by plane or helicopter and you feel the isolation and emptiness and also a sense of the unique. Engagement with the river, whether walking, flying, rafting, fishing or riding explores the nostalgia of the wild and is an experience quite different from the urban one.
The images are all film-based, scanned and manipulated to create a body of work that interprets our deep memories and the way the brain is selective in editing our recollection. The images reference photographers such as Francis Frith and the 19th century age of the travel photographer and traditional printmaking. This series is on a far more intimate scale, both in the geography but also the image size. There is a deliberate use of dense, deep blacks, diffusion and grain. While photographers such as Frith set out to document the human element and the built environment this series is reverential for the natural.