Jem Southam, born in Bristol in 1950, is one of the UK’s leading photographers. He is renowned for his series of colour landscape photographs, beginning in the 1970s and continuing until the present. His trademark is the patient observation of changes at a single location over many months or years. I was inspired by this idea as it links to my current work looking at the change of sea, light and weather on one location. However Jem Southam is doing a similar concept just on a much larger scale.

He observes the balance between nature and man’s intervention and traces cycles of decay and renewal. His work combines topographical observation with other references: personal, cultural, political, scientific, literary and psychological. Southam’s subjects are predominately situated in the South West of England where he lives and works. However he completed one project ‘The long white cloud” in New Zealand that took my interest.

Within this project the photographs build and expand on themes that Southam has explored throughout his forty-year career. They show his continued fascination with the subtleties of colour, with reflection and transience, and with the effects of the shifting seasons and weather on the landscape. Southam’s documentary practice present a sociological and physiological investigation into the landscape

Southams project focuses on bodies of water found on the island of New Zealand. The series saw him document the watery landscapes enveloped by a huge variety of atmospheres and conditions. The resulting large-scale photographs document the country’s lakes, rivers and dramatic waterfalls, with Southam gaining inspiration from the constant and seamless cycle of matter, from air to water to cloud and vapour, and back again. Exploring notions of the sublime in the varied natural landscapes of New Zealand, these photographs accentuate the connections between the drama of nature to the inherent mythologies of the land. The clear interest in water through his project connects directly to my previous works that so far have focused on coastal areas.

‘Aeoteroa’, or ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’, was the name given to the North Island of New Zealand when the Maori navigators first saw signs of the new land in the formations of drawn out strands of cloud spreading across the horizon. It is the dynamic at the heart of this apparition that these pictures aim to explore. The remarkably rich and varied physical profusion of landforms of New Zealand apprehended and made manifest through the momentary shifts of light and the weather. – Jem Southam

I chose to look closer into the work of Jem Southam mainly due to his explortion of the natural world but more importantly the way it is changing through light and weather conditions. I have already explored these elements and having came across this artist it has inspired me to try and capture a sense of horror through darker images. I believe this is a side of landscape photography I haven’t properly explored due to the fact usually landscape photography is about making the landscape look the most beautiful. I think that taking inspiration from Southams project will allow me to create a clear juxtaposition between how the landscape looks in nice golden light compared to the dull de-saturated images that I will create in response to this artist reference.

Photo Analysis

This minimalist image is evident of beauty and a great sense of emotion. The towering cliff creates a sense of isolation and intimidation that is enhanced through the harsh weather conditions. The thick clouds and dark lighting from the weather gives these ideas of anxiety and depression creating an overall moody atmosphere. Southam finds himself both entranced and repelled by bodies of water. “The closer we move towards them, the more a resistance builds in us, a dread almost — ‘How deep is the pool, what might be lurking within it?’ Does anything work on our imaginations as powerfully as the waters of the earth?” These ideas that Southam mentioned in an interview on ‘financial times’ links to the ideas I have previously mentioned in my studies about the water and how it creates a sense of the unknown. Although this image contains very little water, the huge cliff structure leads our eyes to the ocean and makes the viewer aware that it is a main focal point in conveying the story through this image. The slanted horizon is a countertype for the stereotypical landscape shot in which the horizon should be straight. This creates unease for the viewer helping to enhance this mysterious and moody atmosphere.