Key Themes – Fay Godwin’s work was inspired by the sense of ecological crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s in England. She was part of The Ramblers which is a charity which protect the places people love to walk. They believe everyone, everywhere should be able to experience the joy of walking and have access to green spaces to walk and are against the privatisation of land. Godwin loved to walk and that is what inspired her to start landscape photography.

Content – A picture of the open countryside including hills, fields, a reservoir and sky. Is taken from on top of a hill above the small village in the distance. On one of Fay Godwins walks she has stopped to take a photo. She has titled the image ‘Path and Reservoir‘ which tells us that she wants those two elements to be the main focus, perhaps because she wants us to realise the beauty and importance of the land in this image and that everyone should be able to see it and it should not be privatised as this is what she believed. Before knowing the title of it, it is a normal image of a landscape, but the title and the knowledge of Fay Godwin makes the viewer see the photo differently.

Formal Elements- As the image is in black and white, this creates a high tonal range in the image and creates a high contrasting image, this makes the mood feel dark and gloomy, along with the weather. The natural lighting from the dark grey sky also adds to the dark atmosphere to the image. The image follows the Fibonacci spiral as the path leads the eye from the bottom to the hill tops which then flow towards the village ending at the reservoir. It also contains the principles of the rule of thirds as the horizon is in the top third of the image and the focal point being the reservoir and village in the right side third of the image.

Mood- The image is very atmospheric and creates a sinister feel as the weather is very dark and the location is very open. It seems that it was taken on a windy day in the winter where the weather is depressing.