Developing Practice in Photography 2 Intersections
Intersections project idea - Barrows For this project I want to explore barrows/burial mounds as my subject. While this may sound visually bland, at least at first, many barrows up and down the country have a rich history, some fairly well documented, and some more based in folklore. I feel I will be pushing the boat out in terms of scope, with a fair amount of traveling required, and I would also love to talk to local historians, archaeologists, or interested people etc. about each location. With local input I could make my work more interesting and give it some sort of narrative and message, rather than just a catalogue of barrows. I do still like the neatness of cataloguing however, but it remains to be seen whether this can work in tandem with a more personal history of the sites and overarching message or narrative. Landscapes are what I enjoy shooting, but I have mostly explored urban and suburban spaces up until this point. I’m interested in the dynamics of space
and how humans have drastically shaped the landscape, but in the case of many burial mounds, what we have is a grotesque mix between a natural and man-made structure. The conceptual ideas behind this project can sprout in many directions, like space and altering of the landscape, fictional myths and legends, and obviously an exploration of death, especially throughout history. I got the idea through my local area back home, as we have barrows at the top of a hill overlooking a part of the town. Visually they are interesting as well as slightly disconcerting and can be noticed in the background of photos. With just a little background research, it seems that they are somehow associated with mythical faeries, and supposedly at midday, their music may be heard coming from within. A lot of barrows seem to have stories behind them, and I would love to learn where these tales originated from, and they could potentially accompany work,
if not just informing it. Overall, I find barrows an immensely interesting subject and I am excited to explore the topic in detail. I’m likely to focus on death or life cycles, and the relationship between us and the earth. There’s also somewhat of an ironic juxtaposition between landscape and function, with a place full of death creating a picturesque smooth green hill reminiscent of teletubbies. Rather than let this gimmick take away from the narrative however, I find it more suitable as a representative of the life cycle in a positive manner, returning to the earth, allowing the soil to become fertile and have the land prosper. Less relevant with tombs and chambered enter-able burial mounds, but with barrows full of dirt, I would be able to introduce tactility with dirt in a book, the idea that we are the same matter as everything else at the core, the dirt you are holding could be anything.
Bincombe Bumps, Ridgeway Hill The first location of interest for me to look into is ‘Bincombe Bumps’, a row of round barrows that sit atop a ridge near where I live. They sit overlooking neighbourhoods and shops, and have been there for a few thousand years. Everyone knows of their existence, but they go largely unnoticed in people’s day to day lives. Rather than some menacing omen of death looming over everyone, they have almost become completely desanctified, and are now just seen as some mounds of earth up on the hill. Their history remains, but they have lost their power. Unlike a grave, people generally have no issue walking on them. This could be due to their age, the fact that they have been excavated, or, perhaps more likely, because they seem to blend well into the natural landscape. While you can tell they have been manmade at some point, someone with no knowledge of their history could easily assume they were natural hills. From the research I have done so far, information on specific
barrows seems very hard to come by, but I can safely assume that most of the round barrows are bronze age, about 4000 years old. Bincombe Bumps specifically seem to be known as the ‘Music Barrows’ or ‘Singing Barrows’. Many online sources cite this, and
explain that they get that name from the story that if you put your ear to the ground at midday, you can hear faerie music from within. Round barrows continue down the ridgeway for miles, and I’m eager to find out if there are other barrows with myths or stories behind them.
Simon Roberts, Human and Environmental Interaction How to tackle the context and actual image making of my subject can actually go in multiple different directions, despite being something as visually simple as some mounds of earth. I can look to other artists to find directions to go in. The way Simon Roberts constructs a narrative in his work is often through the relationship between people and their environment. It often appears that the scenes are portrayed as a more realistic view of how we interact with our surroundings, particularly places of interest - People standing around taking photos, using selfie sticks, etc. While these aren’t necessarily unfair depictions, Roberts has obviously actively chosen to juxtapose these areas of outstanding natural beauty with visitors partaking in capturing them, to push his narrative exploring how we experience tourist sites. Roberts work often works with juxtapositions and comparisons within the frame, often asking questions and offering up criticisms.
Some images may appear a little obvious, like the image above, which first appears like a cheesy criticism of technology, but upon reading the explanation, the images do gain some nuance. Even so, I’m unsure if I’d be wanting to cast quite that potent a narrative. All
that aside, Roberts’ work almost always contains a wider visual context than just its subject. An event as the subject will contain spectators, tv crews, buildings and landscape, etc. This wider visual context naturally leads into far more conceptual narratives, which
Simon Roberts, Human and Environmental Interaction can massively strengthen the work overall. Roberts’ ability to make such detailed images that contain a wide scene with a vast array of contexts is partially due to the format and technique. I believe Roberts shoots with 4x5”, which provides immense quality, which is needed when trying to preserve quality and detail in wide angle images. The extra effort put in undeniably pays off, with fine details that simple wouldn’t be possible even on the most expensive of modern digital DSLRs. The other arguably more major feature of Roberts’ images is the techniques used, notably height and focal length. Through, presumably, Simon’s persistence and ability to find vantage points, coupled with a wide angle lens, allows him to capture the whole
picture, giving a scene with so much more to read than other images would provide. There are certain barrows I know of that could actually provide exactly this type of scene and context, if that
was a route I decided to take, Roberts’ work and process would be of great inspiration for me.
Barrows/Tumuli - Surface Level Research Barrows actually seem to be deceptively hard to find in depth information about, despite being such a common feature in much of the British landscape. Their ‘proper’ name is Tumulus with Tumuli as plural, though it seems they are generally known as barrows or burial mounds in English speaking countries. In their most basic form, a barrow is simply a mound of dirt used to bury bodies, though there are a multitude of different types. In the south of England, the most common types of barrows seems to be round barrows and long barrows. Long barrows are usually fairly large, with a structured stones interior that can be entered, though it’s assumed that most have been too damaged to do so. While long barrows tend to be early neolithic - around 5,500 years old, there are actually several modern long barrows built in the past few years. For such old structures which are far from completely understood, they obviously hold a strong sense of magic and mystery about them, so much so that modern long barrows
immediately fill their reservations of urn spaces. Good condition neolithic long barrows are few and far between at this point, and mostly serve as tourist attractions. They tend to have a lot of people around, which could prove a blessing or a curse, depending on how I’m trying to capture or portray ideas. If I’m shooting images trying to explore folklore, people will weaken the narrative, though if I’m discussing barrows in a modern setting, people will prove useful. Round barrows are slightly newer, mostly bronze age, and are far more common, littering fields around the country, and to some extent even the world. Unlike long barrows, they are generally filled, at least today. Through gravedigging and excavating, most are empty, and excessive modern tilling has changed the structure of many. Round barrows in the UK today seem to exist in one of two ways: In a cluster, with a local name, mostly preserved shape, and local knowledge of them. The other sort of round barrow seems
to be the sort of anonymous bump in the middle of a field. Sometimes misshapen through farming, some farmed around. Lacking any local knowledge about them, they sit in the landscape, a 4,000 year old nameless bump in a field. The barrows that do have names either seem to be a simple factual name, or a name with some mythology behind it. For example, consider ‘West Kennet Long Barrow’ compared to the ‘Devil’s Jumps’. Naturally, the Devil’s Jumps have folklore behind them, a story about the devil jumping from one barrow to another to amuse himself. Barrows with stories behind them obviously lend themselves to a much more playful use of visual storytelling through recreations of folk tales, although a history of local folklore in general can provide inspiration for the creation of completely new visual stories.
Simon Norfolk, Storytelling With Constructed Lanscapes When I Am Laid In Earth is an interesting photography project, and I think there are elements that I can take away from it when thinking about my work. That being said, it’s not without flaw. The idea of constructing a landscape to help you achieve your narrative appeals to me, though I’m not exactly sure what I’d be able to do at this point. Movement of rocks and soil, similar to Richard Long’s work could absolutely be a possible scenario. If I constructed landscapes in this manner, I would have to do enough of them so they don’t appear out of place, but I’d also have to have a fair amount of variation to avoid what I think is the weakness to this work. When I Am Laid In Earth is,
for the most part, all the same. Discounting a few more unique images, for me, most of them fill the exact same role. The construction has more or less taken over, and most of the images are dominated by the line of flame. I can see what Norfolk was going for, and I picture all the lines of fire linking up to form the shape of the now non-existent glacier. It’s a fun little(or large) project, but most of the nuance is lost as the storytelling falls very heavily on the shoulders of a single visual element. The grandeur of the scene is diluted, and the viewers attention is completely drawn away from other parts of the scene. If a project is on a scale such as Norfolk’s, personally I’d be much more inclined to make a work with more nuance and variety. If I constructed landscape images on a scale even
close to this, I’d want to use a more wide range of methods, as to not let one type of heavily constructed image dominate and warp the rest of the work.
Research Opportunities - Dorset County Museum While looking for sources of information for research online, I got lucky and stumbled across a research page on the Dorset County Museum website, a page which I couldn’t actually find link to from their main site. I was surprised at how willing it seems they are to help with projects, allowing free
access to all their publications, and a ‘notable photograph collection’ which sounds like it could be of use. I couldn’t really figure out how to access their proceedings, but I suspect a lot of the information on the site is referencing books that can be found in their physical library or archive. If I can get access to
these things, I’m sure the museum will prove to be a treasure trove of useful information. I’ve visited the museum to ask about accessing materials, and been given the card of a researcher that I can contact. I’ve sent an email so I’m now just waiting to hear back.
Soil Pt.1 - Ideas and Usage Part of my idea involves physicality, and the use of soil. Essentially what I’m envisioning is having soil from each barrow location to explore certain ideas. Having soil from various different places serves as a good physical descriptor of the surrounding landscape, for example: rich and dark brown, chalky, silty, sandy, or heavy in clay. I believe that incorporating a more physical aspect of the landscape can add another layer of interaction with the work. Photographing the soil may be effective, though I’d love a more literal interaction. There’s many ways to approach this, like scanning dirt on clear acetate to simulate the dirt on paper when printed, squashing dirt between two layers of acetate and binding it into the book, or even just squashing loose dirt between the pages. I’d also like to try and re-make miniature versions of the landscape using dirt taken from them. This would serve as additional visual context for the landscape almost like an aerial photograph, giving a view
of the landscape that I couldn’t achieve normally. This could work photographed as still life, and I’d like to try, but I believe it would work particularly well if exhibited in glass boxes on plinths, giving viewers a true three dimensional view of the landscape in small form. After having this idea I learned of the physical street model that Tom Hunter had alongside his work The Ghetto which I felt worked to achieve a similar end, helping to create a more in-depth picture of the project area as a whole for the viewer. They obviously differ largely, and where The Ghetto’s model had remarkable attention to detail, I envision my model barrows being more about having an accurate shape, rather than perhaps detailed
miniature grass. I think miniature barrow models will have far more impact if they are made up of actual soil from the location and/ or barrow. As well as providing a visual descriptor, I’d like my miniatures to really make people think -to consider the potency of some dirt, and the attachment we hold to the soil as if it’s made from people, which at one point it, and essentially everything was.
Soil Pt.2 - Ethics, Land Ownership, Sanctity of the Dead The powerful impact I want to have on viewers comes with a cost however - The impact comes from the sort of sacredness we attach to places of death and the land there, and this attachment will cause people to question the ethics and even legality of my actions. At first I was reluctant to even think about digging up dirt from a barrow site, but I’ve since come around to the idea. The two questions, really, are: Is it legal? and Is it ‘right’. I imagine technically taking dirt from anywhere owned is illegal, the same way it’s illegal to take a pebble from a beach. In reality however - we get pebbles in our shoes and mud on our boots. In both cases property is being removed, albeit a small amount, but even so, it makes it hard to draw a clear line between what is acceptable and what isn’t. I feel though it may come down mostly to quantity and intention, taking a pebble because it has a hole through is a world away from taking bucket-loads to do your back garden. I would say
that if I’m not taking much, and I’m taking dirt from existing holes rather than making new ones, it’s not really an issue.
over again as time’s gone on, and I wouldn’t even think that any of the dirt I collect would even contain any of the original soil anyway.
I think the more important ethical question is whether I’d be destroying or taking something of historical significance. Most sites have been pillaged by barrowdiggers or excavated long ago, but it seems that in most cases every effort was made to restore the original shape. Most still hold their shape today, at least where legal protections are in place. I believe that the amount of soil I’d be taking is frankly negligible and would have no impact whatsoever on the structure of such a large shape. The soil is often dug up and moved around anyway due to animals walking all over them or digging tunnels, though this obviously doesn’t excuse any actual damage to a site by a person. If I can take dirt responsibly and sensibly, I don’t think most people would take issue with my actions. The dirt itself has been cycled over and
I’m not setting out to be controversial whatsoever, though it would certainly make my ideas more impactful. I think I’d be aiming for a sort of middle-ground, like ‘this soil is from a mass grave, and could be heavy in nutrients from bodies. But actually it’s not because that was so long ago’ though hopefully far more eloquently. There are a lot of ideas I could push and questions I can ask using the soil, like a questioning of why places of death hold taboo qualities, while the soil found there might be no different to soil found anywhere else. As well as questioning these ideas, I’m sure I could also go in completely the other direction, using historical myths to embracing folklore, imbuing the soil with a sort of power created through myth.
Presentation Formats, Dirt Usage, Printing The presentation and format is obviously one of the most important aspects of a work, which is why it’s something I’ve started thinking about very early on. I have a huge interest in books, and making a book dummy was something I ultimately wanted to achieve last semester but didn’t manage to do. I learned exactly how much more work it took to fill a book considering that my selection process of images had gotten so much stricter. Because of this I felt I wouldn’t have enough strong images for a book and it would end up weak as a whole. This time around I plan to start shooting very early and simply shoot as much as possible. Having a much larger quantity of shoots and images gives me room to cut down while retaining enough images to warrant a book. The book format allows me a lot of control over how someone experiences my work, for example with the use of text. Text can, of course, be used in other formats, like a sheet of paper with a preface in the case of my last project,
or text or a gallery wall. While these approaches certainly work, personally I don’t think they are nearly as effective. Having masses of text in a photography book may be skipped by many, but the same amount of text on a gallery wall will be skipped by almost everyone. Viewing prints or exhibits can be taken slowly, but compared to a book I feel that they have at least a small sense of urgency to them. A book allows me to use text more liberally, with a preface or foreword, poetry scattered throughout the book, credits, references or explanations at the end. I want to incorporate a greater level physicality into the book also, possibly with dirt like previously mentioned, though there are many ways to increase the interaction someone has with the book. While I’m set on creating a book if all goes well, there is still the issue of exhibiting. I’d like to be able to exhibit my work, but a book alone obviously doesn’t exhibit well. With the money I’ll
be spending on book supplies, I certainly can’t also afford ink-jet prints. Money is quite an issue for me, but I do find the money spent on film and supplies to be worth it. Printing enough ink-jet prints for future exhibiting would be far too expensive, but after learning about colour darkroom printing, it could certainly be a better alternative, though it’s not without its downsides. While ink-jet printing an A2 image costs £7 or £8, a colour darkroom print of the same size costs about £1.50. The caveats here though, are time, patience, and skill. Darkroom printing can take a seriously long time even when you’re experienced, so if you go through a lot of trial and error it’s going to cost you a lot of time as well as gaining in cost. Depending on how long prints take me, I could find it a struggle to have them done in time for submission. The thing is, I feel that prints may not actually be necessary for my submission if I have a book, and I could simply print them afterwards in time for exhibiting.
Initial Shoot and Recce - Pt.1 I’ve taken my first visit to Bincombe Bumps, the famous round barrows up on the hillside not far from my home. It was a cloudy, cold, and windy day, but I’m still quite pleased with my results. From standing aside a barrow to walking atop it, only a few metres in height, the wind difference was completely unbelievable. I had to stand shielding the tripod from the wind, though it didn’t stop the high pitch whistle from the wind flowing through it. None of my shots came out blurry though, so it wasn’t much of a bother. I hadn’t ever actually been up to the barrows before, so it was good to get a lay of the land and experience them up close. Unlike my last project, I just started shooting with medium format film as it’s my desired outcome, and you never know when you’ll get a great shot. Even though it was just a quick shoot and recce, I still learned a surprising amount. I have experience shooting landscapes, though there is certainly more to shooting barrows than in a lot of landscapes. Due to the shape of
Initial Shoot and Recce - Pt.2 round barrows, high in the centre with a gentle taper, they can be difficult to frame - Shots worked better when I either fit the entire barrow in frame, or when I cut it off closer to the centre. When cut off between the two I felt like it ended as an awkward feeling composition that just didn’t work visually. Using 6x7 medium format could solve this by letting me capture more at the sides, which I feel also would have improved the close up image below. I do love 6x6 as a format though, and I own a 6x6 camera too. If needing wider compositions really does become an issue, I always have the option to shoot further back and crop into a 4.5x6 format. Depth is something I’ve become very aware of shooting barrows. While in reality they are
great protruding mounds, when photographed, such a consistent grass texture can often blend together and hinder the sense of depth, especially with such even lighting on an overcast day. This can be seen on the image in the corner on this page, and while the depth of the bumps becomes hard to decipher, I don’t necessarily think it harms the image. With so many images of green space, it felt
natural to explore the landscape in more detail, thinking about specific visuals and how they linked to my ideas. Specifically, a chunk out of the side of a barrow revealed white stones inside, that instantly reminded me of bones. Conceptual links like these are amazing to discover - pre or post shooting, and I think they really have the ability to bring a book together.
Weather Conditions and Resulting Effects Unlike my last project, I haven’t let weather hinder my shooting this time around, due in large part because I plan to have a project with a lot more total images. I feel that a range of weather conditions don’t necessarily work against each other in a book, and can provide an advantage through narrative and pacing. My previous prints on the other hand, with a smaller amount of total images, were quite impacted by the weather in my opinion, and there wasn’t a clear enough reason for me to really exploit it as a conceptual nod. Weather can certainly have a big impact on how an image ‘feels’ and what it connotes, as well as having technical implications. Shooting the barrows in overcast yet bright weather resulted in quite distinctive negatives and images, with some more desirable effects than others. The hazy overcast weather feels like it’s had a sort of isolating effect on the environment, naturally making the landscape a bit more separate from our more warm
and comfortable living spaces. It’s not as impactful and creepy as fog might be, but the cold grey visuals certainly create a fairly strong sense of isolation and lends itself to mythological ideas. Clear or sunny weather on the other hand creates almost the opposite atmosphere. Much more regular feeling, and less surreal, sunny weather works better at demonstrating things being ‘normal’ and could work better if I’m trying to show barrows in their modern day context. From a technical point of view, both clouds and sun have a distinct impacts. Clarity is one such thing, and shooting on a hazy day seems to have a massive detrimental impact on sharpness and clarity of subjects in the distance, and really muddies up the entire frame. I suppose this is due to moisture in the air effectively becoming additional layers of ‘glass’ you are shooting through. The rendition of certain colours is something that differs with different film stocks, but can also differ with different weather conditions. I noticed that grass in
overcast conditions appears on portra as an incredibly deep bluey green, unlike the yellow-green that grass might appear usually. Digital cameras often assess their light intake and alter how the images are processed, bringing them closer to being neutral. Manual film cameras obviously aren’t able to assess their light, leaving you to fix colours when scanning or printing. I don’t believe all colours can be ‘corrected’ however when the changes are from weather conditions. Grass and foliage reflect a lot of infrared light, which I believe could lead to them appearing differently if infrared and other non-visible wavelengths are being filtered out by clouds. This means that colour correcting when printing doesn’t work, as it’s only the grass appearing differently, not the greens in the rest of the image. Of course, this also prevents me from making these changes digitally for my book, as I need my darkroom prints to match my book images as closely as possible.
Regine Peterson - Find a Fallen Star - Pt.1 As a body of work, Find a Fallen Star is incredibly successful at creating an interesting and enjoyable experience for a viewer. It’s presented in the style of a documentary project, and to some extent is such, but through the nature of the subject along with the content of some of the images, the work is sort of imbued with the dynamism of a narrative driven story-book. If my project begins to explore folklore ideas more deeply, Find a Fallen Star will be inspirational in terms of me learning what techniques are used
to successfully produce a project in this style. The idea of comets, meteoroids and meteorites sit in a unique context, being things that are within the realms of science and reality, but are uncommon come from a place of complete unfamiliarity to most of us. This means that they are ripe for use in science fiction, seen in many novels, movies and TV shows. Fictional meteorites often contain new and powerful undiscovered elements, dangerous alien species, and many other things. As a subject this works excellently with this sort of style of working - A mixed media project which documents real stories, while toying with folklorelike ideas of things falling from space. The portraits, archival images, and text give a sense grounding to reality, a knowledge that not everything is based in fiction. Other slides, like
the puppy on the ground and the stone cuboid, spawn thoughts of aliens fallen from space, and otherworldly structures like the chilling grey monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps it could be said that the images are a little easy, a bit obvious in their referencing of impacts. Perhaps it’s a fair criticism, but finding a balance between being obvious and completely obscure can be difficult to achieve, and I do believe that these images were intended
Regine Peterson - Find a Fallen Star - Pt.2 to be readable. Regardless, these potent single frames tell a story within themselves, but all work together along with the nonfiction content not to make just a narrative, but to come together to make what feels like a wide study across multiple different fields.
The presentation of the work also works brilliantly towards this resolution. The three books in a slip case not only feel like they could be scientific journals or studies, but also seem like a series of fiction novels, independent tales, all set in the same universe. This is something that I think can be particularly effective at making a viewer connect with a work, as it heightens the level of interaction they will naturally have with a work. Having three books together in a case strongly links them together, though it may not be immediately clear how, something that a viewer may be eager to find out, and is therefore already more invested in reading the work. The different books can be linked together in interesting ways, also - in the case of Find a Fallen Star, they work as three books of tales, distinguished perhaps most heavily by location, with a range of approaches
within each. This works to great affect, though there are certainly other ways to use a book series, such a potentially using different books for different approaches some very text heavy, some very archive based, etc. Either way, I think an approach to the project using multiple books could work just as well in my case, and would completely set it apart from many others. This would have to be a long-term goal however, as three strong books would be a big ask.
Landscape Approaches and Discourses - Pt. 1 Land Matters is a staple in landscape photography theory, and one that I’ve looked at before. I was much more invested in urban and suburban landscape previously however, and I’m beginning to really explore the depths of green space and the English Pastoral. Land Matters immediately feels a little more relevant to what I’m doing now. Where suburbia is full of history and stories, most of them are overt, and stories formed of recent history. Barrows on the other hand are a piece of history from long ago, and apart from the physical bumps, it’s hard to know if there are even fragments of history left in their space. Regardless of this, our knowledge of the place makes it a complex area full of stories, even if imaginative instead of literal. Even from early on in Land Matters, there is an emphasis on the importance of history in giving meaning to a location. “Histories articulate differing discourses and material forces, often forming terrains of contestation as stories may be recounted from different
points of view.”(p.19) I think this quote is important regarding landscapes, and begins to explain the importance of understanding different discourses and how they can be used to help enhance a project. For example, my project/ book will hopefully be a combination of multiple different discourses: Photography, archaeology, and social folklore. These all approach my subject from vastly different angles, and my book aims to try and successfully put them together to make a richer, more in-depth piece of work. With landscape images being so prominent in what I’m working on, I think it’s important to consider the typical ways that landscape is represented. Something that is often used is the categorisation and objectification of our landscapes. “Designation of places inserts a sense of distance; in order to describe and categorise we position ourselves conceptually as somehow outside of our environment.”(p.20) This is obvious
enough, the term only exists in its current form to indicate a binary difference between urban and non-urban areas. This isn’t some inherent and evil thing however, I’m personally a big fan of vast arbitrary listing and categorising, along with many other artists. It’s difficult to tell where everyone’s satisfaction in categorising comes from - perhaps somewhere between usefulness, culture, and instinct. For this work however I’m really starting to escape this, though without having to actually change the way I work. While multiple discourses can strengthen a work, I feel that obsessive indexing of barrows would go completely in the face of the sense of wonder that I’m trying to invoke. It may be that I can create a clearer narrative if I simply don’t give any indication of barrow locations or specific stories, and just bend the truth the landscapes may hold into the story I’m trying to craft. Photography obviously can’t escape it’s indexical nature that
Landscape Approaches and Discourses - Pt. 2 easily however, considering its tendency to capture what is in front of it. Where the style of much of my work is generally less purposely subjective and more observational, it’s harder to break away from that visually than with painting for example. A lot of my work - and photographs in general reflect this, and feel far more like John Constable’s work than they do Turner’s. But tackling the subject that I am, with the discourses that I’m using, Turner’s work certainly feels more appropriate, and in Land Matters Wells describes this
well, stating that Turner’s work is “generally more sublime” than constables’, “engaging allegorically with history and myth.” On that description you’d think the style of Turner’s painting would be a much bigger inspiration, but like I said, it’s not as easy as that with photography. While Turner’s work is certainly photographic in terms of composition, shape and proportions, the colour palette and blending if used in photography would look more like a photoshop effect. It’s also worth considering that the book format throws a spanner in the works regarding painting, as they fill different roles, painted works able to stand alone far better than a random book page. Where Turner may have been able to discuss mythical or spiritual
sentiments very effectively through style, colour, and manufactured composition or scenes, my work will rely on the narrative of a book working in conjunction with my images to do the same. Visuals from painters like Turner can be achieved to some extent through photography, though it’s not something that can be effectively constructed without Crewdsonlike production value. When natural light can be harnessed to create eerie scenes of deep oranges and reds, or cold blues of night-time, sublime scenes can begin to create a potent image that engages with its subject matter on a historical or
Scouting Locations in Dorset Knowing that there are distinctive barrows very close to me in bincombe, I felt that I also needed to expand out my search
area to other places in Dorset. I don’t mind travelling all around the country to find great examples, visually rich, or historically. Badbury
Rings is a large hillfort that’s fairly well known. It’s a massive space of sculpted land that seems to be filled with tourists and dog walkers. There are three well-shaped round barrows a distance away from the fort, presumably pre-dating it. At the time I thought perhaps it wasn’t that suitable, though I’ve now changed my mind. The weather was bad and there were people everywhere, so I didn’t really think it would work. On reflection, the people everywhere doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and can be used to bring some modern day context into the images. I plan to revisit another day. Bulbarrow wasn’t too far away so I visited there also. The landscape is extremely hilly and shaped, so it’s hard to tell what exactly was a barrow and what was just a hill. It’s also a bit of a tourist attraction, albeit not as much, meaning I think I got get images with and without people in through waiting. I plan to revisit both locations for shoots with better weather and more time.
Shooting - Bincombe - Pt. 1
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Shooting - Bincombe - Pt. 2 After scouting for other barrows to shoot, I decided to have another crack at shooting Bincombe and the surrounding area. Rather than going up to the actual barrows themselves again, I tried shooting them as a backdrop for the spaces they overlook, and looking at Bincombe village in more detail. The sunny weather works well to put the barrows in a less mythological context, and the inclusion of people within the frames grounds them into our more comfortable reality. I’m not particularly happy with any of the four shots on this page, though the top two had a lot of potential. I liked my compositions, but the wide landscape shot I didn’t quite wait long enough and the man has blended into the bush, and the closer shot I waited too long, meaning that the man walking is uncomfortably close to the edge of the frame. They aren’t necessarily ruined, but they aren’t as strong as they could be. The bottom two shots just aren’t good, but the shape of the car park did make it
quite awkward to shoot. Once I was in Bincombe and the weather had turned, the clouds once again served to help me create stories within the frames, stories that I found ended up telling themselves a lot of the time. Many of the images serve to document the area, but some really lent themselves to
storytelling, like the building that reads: Chemical store keep out instantly making me think of embalming fluids, and a stone wall filled with dead and hibernating snails seeming reminiscent of the mass graves on the hilltop
above. It’s ideas like this that really make a viewer interested in the project in my opinion. Where some images may not appeal to most audiences without context, once a viewer knows the project background, they will start to make similar connections that I have, and will begin to appreciate the work.
Jem Southam - Red River, Book Formats - Pt. 1 It’s surprising how relevant The Red River is to my project, and I feel like it’s been working away in the back of my mind as an inspiration for how in envision my work ending up. As relevant as the actual project is, it’s also interesting to note that it’s almost
the opposite for the physicality of the book. Originally published in 1989, the book misses the mark on some important aspects. Similarly to the barrows I’m exploring, Cornwall’s red river immediately offers an opportunity
for use in storytelling. The river, red due to tin contamination through mining, feels like an object of mystery right away, possibly through it being a sort of altered or desecrated entity, as well as the connotations associated with the colour red. The crude connection with red being blood, etc. offer themselves up to folklore easily, while the reality and cause behind the red river bring factual history into the equation. The book does seem to go this route somewhat, using chapters representing locations that are treated like stages, the start of the river being genesis, moving forward through the growth of humanity until the river meets the sea. In this sense the book has a very clearly defined narrative - a physical journey from the beginning of something through to the end, and the metaphorical narrative of industrialisation and despoilation. The historical aspect has an even greater power to mythologise the subject now, as I believe the river no longer runs red. The work now contains photographs of a piece
Jem Southam - Red River, Book Formats - Pt. 2 of history that has since passed, which I think gives it even more intrigue. Like I hope to eventually, the book makes use of poetry alongside some images. It was made alongside a poet, though the poetry on the book comes from various sources, with many of them being classic poetry repurposed to fit into the narrative. This approach seems to work for the most part the poetry works well in my opinion, though the addition of the name/author of each poem breaks from the narrative a bit. It’s proof that poetry at the side of an image can work though, and considering my subject matter, I’m sure I’d be able to find relevant historical poetry. The way the poetry is presented brings me to the physical book and layout, which is quite a mixed bag. The inside layout uses a wide variety of elements, text with images, different size photos, poetry and essays included in the same book. I think it put this range of approaches together very well,
and I can imagine it being fairly cutting edge at the time. The book exterior is another matter however, and couldn’t be further from what I’d want out of my book. Perhaps due to when it was created, but it suffers the same fate as other books of a similar age, such as Paul Graham’s A1: The Great North Road - That being, that they are ugly and horrible to look through. Both soft-back and landscape orientation, they flop around all over the place and don’t lay anywhere near flat. Even though they are a good size, they are as awkward to read without a surface as a large coffee table book. I think the role of a book is to put them in a convenient and tactile medium
and compliment the images within without hindering them. Overly gimmicky books hinder the viewing of the images, but I feel the same way about soft-back books that are awkward to hold and view. I’d like my book to be hardback and portrait orientation. I’d like the physical book to connect with my work inside, complimenting it without taking away from the images. Where older photo-books such as these are good at cleanly presenting images and their narrative, modern photo-books feel in-between this and a more gimmicky artist book. I’m a fan of this in general and the modern photo-book style is more what I’d like to aim for with my work.
Shooting - Bulbarrow, Badbury Rings - Pt.1
Shooting - Badbury Rings, Bulbarrow Hill - Pt.2 Shooting Bulbarrow Hill and Badbury Rings went very well - it was a nice day and I had no time constraints, meaning I had a lot of time to fully explore the landscape. Bulbarrow Hill has a distinctive and varied landscape, giving it masses of potential visually, though with all the time I had I could find shots that were more than simple landscape. This can be seen in the shots on the right of this page - A tiny stump with a stony ring around it mirroring a standing stone or henge, and a circular pit in the ground like some sort of burial pit, reflected by the dead grass within. These single frame stories or ideas will begin to craft a more playful and imaginative narrative through the work, much like how Find a Fallen Star did. I was getting wider contextual shots as well, which often consists of dog-walkers and families going on walks. As before, there were some hurdles I felt I had to get over before I could get the full potential out of the landscape. All directions yielded amazing views, but they’re deceptive, and what looks great in
Shooting - Badbury Rings, Bulbarrow Hill - Pt.3 reality may come across completely flat in the finder. Being able to get around this is an important skill for a photographer to have thoughhaving a focus without being gimmicky or obvious, allowing the background to be powerful without become a distant flat image. Such a sunny day gave me masses
of opportunity to experience the effects of warm orange light on colour film, alongside a slower shutter speed, and how these things could alter the narrative of my images. The results were great in my opinion, like the image on the right - the long shutter speed blurring people and dogs like the
ghosts that apparently wander Badbury Brings, while the sharp, static woman on her phone brings the frame straight back into the 21st century. Other shots, like the wired-covered hole in a barrow with an eye-like stone in the centre, stay much more loyal to the imaginative ideas that I’m interested in.
Robert Smithson, Land Art, Entropy - Pt. 1 Considering the similar nature between barrows and other earthworks, land art is something that’s actually very closely related, though inherently very different to neolithic and bronze age earthworks, because modern land art is intended almost purely as a form of art. Robert Smithson is arguably the most famous, and I think his works and ideas could be a good springboard for me to think about earthworks, their power, and how they can be used and represented to control a narrative. Like many very conceptual artists, much of Smithson’s essay work doesn’t really refer that directly to the images he creates and the physical sculptures he constructs. His writings are all about ideas, though it seems he uses a variety of different works and approaches to talk about them. He seems obsessed with ideas regarding control, perception, the future, and most of all entropy. Smithson has a lot of texts relating to these things, but they are the
polar opposite of ‘light reading’. Entropy And The New Monuments is one of Smithson’s essays that is more appealing to me, in regards to his works and my own. It starts off fairly clear and understandable, but it does become a bit of a headache to understand as it goes on. Smithson uses the works of Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin, conceptual and minimalist artists to discuss entropy. He starts to make his main talking point clear early on, stating ‘The works of many of these artists celebrate what Flavin calls “inactive history” or what the physicist calls “entropy” or “energydrain.”’ While Smithson doesn’t overtly say exactly how these artists works demonstrate entropy, I can see what he’s getting at in regards to some. In talking about Dan Flavin’s work, he mentions his ‘instant monuments’, which are simple building-like sculpture works made from fluorescent tube bulbs. Smithson makes the claim that the instant nature of the bulbs being purchased and the sculpture
created, that it ‘makes Flavin’s work a part of time rather than space.’ I understand his thinking here, and the inherent and obvious lifespan of the bulbs makes the work even more tied in with the concept of the unrelenting force of time and the entropic effects on everything. Hearing Smithson’s ideas on this
Robert Smithson, Land Art, Entropy - Pt.2 topic (of which there are many more) gives a much deeper understanding of what his works may be trying to represent. Smithson’s theme of pouring immediately forms strong links to his interest with decay. The act of a huge amount dirt being poured - An event, that happens at a moment in time, potential energy being converted and lost to entropy. The ‘event’ ends as the dirt settles, but it doesn’t set. Over time it will shift again and again, changing form. My personal favourite is the ‘Glue Pour’, a poured liquid at a single moment in time. The poring ends, the glue sets and stops for good. Even so, it isn’t immune to the effects of decay from other sources. The use of photography adds a whole new layer of depth to a work such as this, it’s memorialised in an instant, a piece of time that can now only be seen indirectly. I think Smithson probably intends for this outcome, as it adds an amount of exclusivity and excitement to the work, becoming something that’s happened in the past and
can never be witnessed can make people long to have been there. Smithson’s massive scale earthworks on the other hand, feel related to the same ideas but are approached from a different angle. It’s these works that I feel are more closely related to the barrows that I’m studying. The size and materials of works like Smithson’s famous ‘Spiral Jetty’ offer some resistance to the forces of decay and entropy, though not completely. The decay will (without human intervention) match that of natural structures
built of those same materials. This will mean a more controlled and natural decay. This closeness to the natural landscape is shared with barrows, and is something that grants them a lot of power and potential for mystery. Picture landing on an empty planet, no visible life around, but structures like Barrows and the Spiral Jetty. Unlike perhaps discovering a civilisation, the unclear nature of these earthworks leads to a wondering of their purpose, leading to crazy ideas that spawn folk tales. This would have happened with barrows at some point in the past, and would probably happen with Smithson’s spiral Jetty if humanity ever forgot what it was. It’s these ideas that I’m trying to tap into and feed off with the narrative of my book. I can already see where these ideas are trying to form naturally, like the small stump with the stone circle around it in my last shoot, almost looking like it could have been purposely made by someone many years ago as part of a ritual.
Visiting the Dorset Museum I recently visited the Dorset Museum after previously talking with some staff and making an appointment. The public can pay to visit the museum, but I was more interested in accessing their library and photographs. I had a researcher from the museum to show me around, and help me find materials that were relevant to my project. I was taken through their photo archive by one of their staff, who had compiled a list of their images containing barrows. I believe the archive had around 60,000 images, but every photo is mounted or encased, with a specific number and information. I took down the info on all the images that were of interest to me, and I can pass this information along to pay for a CD of my selected images. There was a variety of images of different formats and ages, many of which
I think could fit successfully into my project as found images. The library proved just as useful, and has given me a wealth of opportunities and information to explore - so much that I wouldn’t
have a chance of reading most of the relevant information. I can get access to the library whenever if I become a student member, but that may have to wait until I have some more money. There were
a few specific books that I was given that seem like they could be extremely useful. Cuckoo Pounds and Singing Barrows is a book by Jeremy Harte, a Dorset writer. The book is about the folklore of many of Dorset’s ancient sites, including some barrows. Arguably the more useful book was Dorset Barrows by Leslie Grinsell. The book contains a wealth of information on the barrows of Dorset, including some folklore and a grid reference on almost every single one. I’ll be looking at some of the books I came across in more detail in the future. I’ll also be looking for old poetry that’s relevant, as it seems that there was a lot being created at that time. The museum has been a useful resource and I’ll obviously be returning.
Shooting - Walking, Exploring the Ridgeway - Pt.1 The Dorset Ridgeway runs for about 17 miles near the coast of south Dorset. It’s where Bincombe Bumps are situated, and there are hundreds more within just a few miles. I didn’t have the time to walk the whole trail, but I did walk a fair distance. Unlike most shooting I’ve been doing, this was more of an entire experience. I was dropped 4 miles away from home, alone, without a map or a phone. It’s an area I’m fairly familiar with at a distance, though not that knowledgeable about specific trails. Walking a long distance with a large camera and tripod was certainly very physically taxing, though it was still an enjoyable experience. As I want this project to have strong links to the countryside and its surrounding folklore, I feel like I need to understand the landscape on some deeper level ‘connect to nature’ as it were. As idealistic a sentiment as it is, there was a noticeable impact on my thinking, which then begins to have an impact on the work I was creating. Spending hours in such a calm environment slows everything down, meaning I was far more attune with my surroundings, picking up visual and auditory cues
that may lead to new ideas for images, or new driving force ideas for the project. I started at a famous row of barrows called the Culliford Tree Group. The name came from it being an apparent beacon and meeting place for the Culliford Hundred (A Hundred meaning a county subdivision). The main barrow in this set has a ring of trees around the base, something which I tried to photograph, but honestly it just didn’t work. Perhaps if I had a wider lens it could have done. I walked up onto the barrow to have a look around, and knowing its history as a meeting place, details of the environment started to mean more the litter on the ground reminiscent of this age old group. Of course, things
Shooting - Walking, Exploring the Ridgeway - Pt.2 like this only have a meaning that a viewer can piece together, if there is some hint there to begin with. Having some history and folklore as text alongside images in a book would make it possible for a viewer to link the folklore directly to images, though this also carries the risk of watering down the content. Images, like the one on the right here that appears to be a footprint at the base of a tree, naturally perpetuate a sense of mystery, but background information would give a viewer an idea of what the mystery is. Both approaches work, without text is more playful and lets the viewer make up the story, with text starts to become more like an investigation or recording. I’m not exactly sure on my approach yet. From the Culliord Tree barrow I walked up onto an opposite barrow to use as a vantage point. The view of the field with a thin desire path through it (bottom left) gives an impression that others have been here, exploring or just interacting. The path also serves as a way of drawing in the viewer’s eye from the corner of the frame up to the barrow. From here I walked to the crossroad on the corner of the field. It was hard to capture, but there was an incredible amount in the frame, all able to interact with one another. The country road in the foreground and anything on it, like the policeman on a bike, along with Bincombe Bumps on the back right, plylons and urbanisation at the very back leading out to the sea. From here I walked along around, before turning off onto a muddy track and walking for a while longer. I couldn’t help thinking about Richard Long’s walks and sculptures, and what he would have been feeling or thinking as he went about exploring the landscape. My working has completely changed along with the places I enjoy being in. Previously I hated the countryside,
Shooting - Walking, Exploring the Ridgeway - Pt.3 but after spending so much time in a city I have a new found appreciation. It almost comes as a blessing and a curse, however, as carrying a tripod around is such a burden that it can take away from the enjoyment somewhat. Unlike Long, I’m looking for ‘sculptures’ already formed, rather than making them myself, so being without a camera feels risky, even if I planned to return, as I don’t know what can change in that time. I could start taking a point and shoot with me, but it usually ends in me regretting I didn’t use a larger format. As I walked down the puddly track I came across a puddle so large it was more like a pond, crossing the entire track. It obviously happens a lot considering the desire paths around the edge. It felt like quite the spectacle really, such a large but neat body of water in a completely unassuming place. The soft and muddy ground deepens and widens the lowered area through use, leading what was probably just a small puddle to consistently grow, deepen and form banks. Like the opposite of a Smithson work, entropic forces a mirrored, leading it to grow and engulf rather than decay. It seems that water usually wins against anything. The camera’s angle of view causes the pool to swell somewhat, making a shape much like an inverted barrow, all the while with an actual barrow sat atop a hill in the distance - something that seems coincidental, but is almost unavoidable in reality. Not much further on I came to a gate leading into a field with a large amount of raised and flattened ground, with a small concrete building on it. I didn’t know if it was actually a footpath but there was a barrow up there too so I thought that gave me cause to investigate. Along the way up there were more puddles, but unlike the even brown as before, they were disgusting and
Shooting - Walking, Exploring the Ridgeway - Pt.4 textured. It almost looked like flesh rotting away, or that’s what it made me think of anyway. When I got to the top of the hill I was left somewhat disconcerted. (Bottom Left) The ground was obviously man-made, a reflection of the large man-made bump years past. It was much more of a frankenstein than a barrow is however; part grass, part gravel and stones, and then concrete paving and steps that almost looked brand new. The building was obviously too small to serve a real purpose, meaning it must have either contained some tools, or a ladder. The piece of land is actually an underground reservoir, which while not actually creepy in function, was certainly an almost alien place to be. The thought of there being tunnels or rooms under the ground always holds a sense of mystery to those who stumble across them. Following on from the reservoir the grass grew long as continued, to the point I was almost wading through it. The peak of the hill meant the view was just grass against sky, nothing more, which seemed quite striking visually. The tracks in the grass from farm machinery had left the untouched grass significantly raised, making them look akin to earthworks but on a minor scale. The shapes of the grass looks remarkably like the ramparts and ditches of a hillfort or shape of long barrows. The tracks continue into the distance giving a sense of journey or continuation. My journey continued on with similar experiences, abandoned places, piles of stones looking like cairns, a creepy hollow tree that made an inverted barrow shape on the skyline. These coincidences and amazing places made the trip quite an experience for me, and really did change the way I look at my environment. My hope is that my book can evoke even a minute amount of the emotion that I felt. It’s harder in book form than experiencing a place, but I think it’s possible.
Shooting - Walking, Exploring the Ridgeway - Pt.5
Dorset’s Barrows and Their Folklore - Pt.1 Dorset Barrows is a book I was shown when I visited the Dorset museum. I was so blown away by everything it contained that I felt I had to buy myself a copy. It’s a weathered 1959 book that I was happy to get for just £10. The authentic yellowed and beaten pages look amazing and make it feel like such a gorgeous historical artefact. I can see the same sort of style potentially working well for my book, though I’d have to have all my design elements fit thematically for it work, off-white paper stock, typewriter-esque font, etc. The book treats the subject mostly in a formal and researchbased manner, recording barrows and information about them, rather than speculating about their existence or theorising about man’s relationship with the landscape. The book contains an extensive list of every known barrow in Dorset, with a grid reference for their
location, and notes on whether some are lost or destroyed. There’s a list of what artefacts have been found in each barrow, and lists what museum they are stored in where applicable. Many of the bits of information about things found within the barrows would make great images, though some may be much more suited to studio work. Some of the finds in the ‘Evidences of Funerary Ritual’ section are a great example of this: Remains buried in a bag, extremely deep graves, tree trunk coffins, buried with antlers, and even possible evidence of ritual dances. Constructing images inspired by these sorts of objects and places is something I would absolutely love to explore, even constructing back-stories or fictional histories behind them. Unfortunately there’s no way I could do all these things in the time available, and doing just one or two wouldn’t work as images I could introduce into a book, I’d want to do it properly. Knowing the locations of where these things are or were has quite
a lot of potential -it doesn’t mean much if I play loosely with facts and locations in my narrative, but if I went down a slightly more formal route and asserted that certain images are truthfully applicable to certain things found, it could have a powerful impact on a viewer. The book also has a dedicated section specifically for folklore, which obviously lends itself even more easily to photography and the use and altering of tales. Grinsell, the author of the book puts the folklore connected with Dorset barrows into a few main categories, these being: A ghost of a haunted site being silenced by someone performing an action, burial places of battles, burial places of golden coffins, association with Robin Hood, and finally ‘Music Barrows’. He goes into more detail on specific folk tales, with some presenting a better opportunity for interesting shots than others. A barrow in Gussage St. Michael was opened in 1933, and the excavators were constantly asked if they were
Dorset’s Barrows and Their Folklore - Pt.2 looking for, or had found the golden or silver coffin that was said to be buried there. Another barrow, that’s unlocated, is also said to contain a golden coffin, and thunder and lighting will appear if someone digs for it. These is a simple myth, but the idea of physically having a small golden coffin really excites me. It seems like it would be a powerful item to be around, as well as photograph. The thoughts of golden objects is intriguing, and it’s made me think about having a golden theme for a book eventually, gold elements like thread, gold embossing, golden endpapers. There’s another interesting barrow myth about a barrow in Gillingham. The myth goes that the barrow housed those killed in a battle between the Saxons and the Danes, and the blood (presumably from the battle) had apparently ‘flowed from here to Slaughter Gate, about a quarter-ofa-mile distant.’ Visually I love the potential to be found here, through
small visual hints, or even on a miniature scale. It’s interesting to note how this battle (which from what I can tell from other sources, did indeed happen) and its folklore have had an impact on the naming of the surrounding area. A page on the Gillingham museum actually attributes the name Slaughtergate to the one-sided nature of the battle, and the name has stuck and there even exists a Slaughtergate Farm, which really begins to reappropriate the name. It becomes unclear exactly what’s true very easily, with it being noted that a connecting road ‘Wavering Lane’ is referred to as where the Danes wavered and broke formation, but there isn’t actually any evidence to support this. Old facts blur into fiction easily, leaving many questions completely unanswered. I feel that it’s important to note this, and consider that if I do go the route of having some nonfiction elements, I’d only want to use facts that I know to be true, or I’ll end up entering the territory of cited research papers.
The most in-depth piece of folklore is of a barrow in Wimborne St. Giles. There’s an long quoted account about a cloaked horseman from a Dr. Clay that had been excavating urns in the area, and was driving home at night in 1927. The hooded horseman had bare legs and had a long loose coat. He appeared aggressive, and ran parallel to Dr. Clay’s car holding a weapon before disappearing apparently at random. Clay returned the next day in the daytime and found that the spot the man had disappeared was in fact atop a low round barrow. In the years following there were numerous similar reports, such as a pair of girls reporting to a policeman that they had been followed and frightened by a man on horseback, and a local shepherd reporting apparitions in the area. The actual account goes into more detail, and when I read the account aloud to my mother she said it gave her chills. It’s for reasons like this that I really would like to find a way for me to eventually include accounts
Dorset’s Barrows and Their Folklore - Pt.3 like this in my book. If I can produce a piece of work that’s able to have such an impact on someone, that indicates to me that they’re actively consuming the work, interested in it, and enjoying it. Fiction is able to evoke similar responses, but I think being able to use myths under the guise of personal accounts makes them more believable and impactful, regardless of the reliability of the story. Picture a story like this one, perhaps alongside a constructed image of a hooded silhouetted figure on a horse. It obviously wouldn’t have an ounce of nuance to it, but a literal image of what would otherwise be something completely imaginative could prove powerful. Alternatively, if I made a less literary book, I could construct images like these but purposely not have any text with them. This would certainly be the more standard photographer’s approach to the tale. Such an imagine isn’t really something I can do at this stage anyway due to time and monetary constraints. For now I’m shooting mostly landscapes,
but actively looking for things that might hint at these stories within a wider landscape context. There is honestly such a wealth of information on folklore and as food-for-folklore, that it’s really impossible for me to explore everything I want to in this project. I feel like I could spend years and still have more places I want to visit, images I want to construct, and mediums I want to play with. There’s a location near a famous historic ruined castle called ‘Ninebarrow Down’, with each of the nine barrows apparently hosing a king killed in battle in the area. This invites ideas of royalty and regalty, which links with the gilded visuals I’ve been thinking of. The multiple tales of ‘Music Barrows’, some of which I’ve already visited, give me a reason to explore the use of sound and gallery installation. There’s also a myth about a place in Ashmore with floating creatures in the air called ‘Gappergennies’ making ‘strange sounds’, until a nearby barrow was levelled, and
the sounds stopped. Again, this tale lends itself to use of sound. The running theme of physical objects like bones, urns, coffins also seem like they would work well in a threedimensional form, suited to studio work as well as installation. As well as the folklore which are essentially pre-made stories suitable for visual exploitation, there’s also a ‘local names’ section with many named barrows, sometimes alluding to folklore without any known specifics. These include things like ‘Three Lords’ Barrow’, ‘The Giant’s Grave’, ‘Thorn Barrow’, and ‘Stephen’s Castle’. Personally named barrows seem fairly common, with some called things such as ‘Ralph’s Barrow’ and ‘Sandy’s Barrow’. All the named barrows could easily be inspirations for images, and they’d certainly allow a more open interpretation. On the topic of names makes me think about my book name, and I’m sure I could come up with a good name using knowledge from this book.
Shooting - Longbury Barrow - Pt.1 I didn’t have nearly enough time to visit even a tenth of all the interesting barrows I’d like to, but I’ve been continuing to visit the barrows on the top of my list, planning routes with barrows close together to make trips as efficient as possible. This was my first time going straight out of the Dorset Barrows book, and it was a great experience. I just used the grid reference provided and went in blind. I didn’t know what the barrow looked like, I only knew where it was, and the folklore behind it. This is the ‘Slaughter Barrow’, site where those killed in a battle were
buried. Visually, at first, it seemed like almost nothing really, just a field with a bank. There was more to it once I started looking around however, though perhaps not enough to warrant more than one roll of film without me exploring the surrounding areas. In the adjacent field there was a large rugby ground, which happened to be playing a match at the time. It would have been interesting to talk or photograph the people there, though I don’t have much interest in interacting with strangers, and I felt that they would rather enjoy their match than talk about a
barrow they may or may not know existed. Even so, the sound of the match over the hedge was strange, almost like a modern equivalent of the battle that took place. Another interesting thought for potential use of sound in the future. It was a subtle but interesting backdrop visually also, a bit of context to break up what is mostly grass. As I explored more it felt like there was an unusual amount of dead things around. It seems so common to find thematic links to the folklore of a specific barrow when I’m there, that it’s obviously far more than just a coincidence. I think this goes
Shooting - Longbury Barrow - Pt.2 to show the importance of having as much background knowledge as possible of the subject that you’re shooting. Locations truly have so much offer that what you see and choose to shoot is a matter of perception. You find what you are hoping to find much of the time, and in this case, the links to the battle meant I was very aware of the seemingly large amount of bones around, an obvious reflection. I started to bring in hints of construction into the scene, hilariously, in the form of a carton of tomato sauce. As ridiculous as it seems, and felt, as a light touch in the corner of an image I like its inclusion. The tad of reddy-orange is subtle enough that it’s not dictating the image -it may not even be noticed, but it’s there for the people that want to search for something. The trodden grass path that it’s on is a reference to the quarter mile trail of blood mentioned in the tale. It may be a too obvious reference alongside the story, and it may be impossible to figure out without it. Finding a balance between gimmicky and obvious and completely incongruous. Having an element without an ‘answer’ as it were doesn’t have to be a flaw however, a viewer doesn’t have to eventually know exactly what I’m alluding to. Reflecting on the myth of the flowing blood has made me think about interpretation. I’ve interpreted the tale as the blood flowing out of the barrow, but it might make more sense that it was the blood from the battle that apparently flowed the quarter mile, leaving the name and battle as the myth. I’ve envisioned blood flowing from a completed barrow, a far more supernatural sounding event. If I have indeed misinterpreted the tale, my work is almost acting like a game of Chinese Whispers, bolstering a tale while distorting it in the process, which I suppose is what my project is about, in a way.
Paul Nash, Abstract Landscapes The paintings of Paul Nash bear some resemblance to my current project, in subject and conceptual ideas even if not visually. Nash brought his conceptual ideas into his paintings in various ways, sometimes more subtly and conceptually, and sometimes more overtly. Nash’s cherry orchard painting is naturally reminiscent of a formal military graveyard, though this isn’t necessarily the intent. ‘Totes Meer’, on the other hand, is a much more obvious piece. The shapes of the sea waves are made of plane pieces, a clear response to the dismal average lifespan of wartime pilots. His work often seems to contain trees, though in a variety of styles. Some of his work is truly abstract while some is much more realistic. His apparent interest in trees is much like my fascination with barrows. Apparently barrows and other ancient sites were also of interest to Nash, so it’s interesting to see how some of the ideas surrounding earthworks may manifest in a painting. The shapes of barrows seem to have created a recurring lumpy and bumpy theme throughout some of his work. He’s even painted ancient structures directly, such as Wittenham Clumps. It’s interesting to see his work Equivalents for the Megaliths, a response to the large standing stone structures that he obviously had some interest in. The painting has barrow-like shapes in the background, with the abstract foreground shapes seeming like megalithic monuments made of modern day materials such as cardboard. While most of his work doesn’t seem that close to mine, it’s interesting to consider his approach when surveying the landscape.
The Golden Bough, Burial and Burning - Pt.1 The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is an early 20th century book, which I assume is named after the old mythological Latin tale, for which the Turner painting (on the right) is based. The book, like the name states, is a study in comparative religion and magic. It’s hard to explain simply what the book is ‘about’, as it’s a far cry from a scientific study, sort of paying heed to mythology and trying to connect it to what civilisation has grown into. The book blurb is as follows: “The Golden Bough describes our ancestors’ primitive methods of worship, sex practices, strange rituals and festivals. Disproving the popular thought that primitive life was simple, this monumental survey shows that savage man was enmeshed in a tangle of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Revealed here is the evolution of man from savagery to civilization, from the modification of his weird and often bloodthirsty customs to the entry of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values”
It’s immediately clear that such ideas that Frazer, the author, is discussing would have been in around in the same era that barrows were being created, and could offer some insight into their creation - even if just speculative. There’s a direct link to barrows at one point which also ties them to folklore, religion, power, and gods. The story is of Halfdan the Black, a ninth-century Norse king that seems to have existed, but the stories of his life are impossible to confirm. According to Frazer, the story goes that after Halfdan died, his body was split into four pieces, to be buried in different provinces, later called ‘Halfdan’s Barrows’. The reason for the split burial being that “Halfdan belonged to the family of the Ynglings, who traced their descent from Frey, the great Scandinavian god of fertility.” This tale suggests that barrows were indeed burial places for those of
import, though this fact likely isn’t that disputed, especially where barrows contained only a single body. The link to gods suggests that such large mounds weren’t just to show importance though, and perhaps were to get the attention of gods themselves. The link to fertility is also interesting, though likely coincidental. I’ve always linked the greenery of barrows to the idea of fertility, though through the cycle of life rather than a sort of godly offering. Frazer notes that these ideas of death as an offering to bring fertility was usually performed through dismemberment and burial, or
The Golden Bough, Burial and Burning - Pt.2 scattering cremated ashes over a corn field. This doesn’t exactly line up with Dorset’s barrows for the most part, while they did contain signs of funerary ritual they seem more like a sign of respect than an offering. Ashes and skulls were found, but they generally contained an intact single body with pottery and goods. The notable exception is the barrow in Dorset that was apparently very trodden around the base indicating some kind of ritual dance. Such an event seems like it would line up better with an offering, though honestly this idea probably has more roots in popular culture than historical fact. This has made me think about fires and burning a lot more, which I think is an element I’ve overlooked with my project. Where I’ve been bending the tales of the landscape to my will but not had the time to truly create them, the links to burning would only be where I’ve stumbled across it. If I had the time to construct more
images, it’s somewhere that I think is important to explore, as evidenced by the ashes found in many Dorset barrows, and the indepth discussion of fire festivals and the burning of living things in The Golden Bough. The relationship between burning as sacrifice or offering, and burning as funeral (as well as the subsequent relationship with barrows) in complex, and isn’t feasible for me to take the time to fully understand at this stage. Burials and cremation has changed a lot over time, with complex stonechambered long-barrows housing multiple people being majority neolithic/late stone age. The early bronze age barrows were more simple, being mostly just a solid mound. They were much more individualist, usually just containing a single body. This combined with their comparative simplicity makes them far more common. Cremation seems to have become more and more common through the bronze age, transitioning from the round barrows of ‘Tumulus Culture’ to the ashes in urns of the ‘Urnfield
Culture’ of the middle bronze age, with an amount of overlap. Cremation became less common again in the Iron Age, with human burial having a resurgence. Cremation seems to have flipflopped in popularity through the ages, often being criticised by many religions through time, as death by burning and sacrifice though burning seems to have been increasing in popularity. It’s hard to pin down exact uses through time of burning as cremation, as funerary ritual, or of sacrifice. It’s undoubtedly got a lot of relevance to my work however, which I can use through folklore-ish ideas, or more historically accurate depictions, though it would require much more in-depth research.
Shooting - Wimborne St. Giles - Pt.1 The next place I visited was near Wimborne St. Giles, along the road where the tale about the horseman took place. As before, I had the coordinates of the location and that was about it. The barrows in the area are scattered all over, by the side of the road and in the middle of fields. It’s a fast and busy road, very different from what I imagine it was like in the late 20s. Similarly to before when I shot multiple locations on the same day, the evening warmth adds a unique quality to images along with presenting some technical challenge due to the long shadows
and low sun. These barrows may have been the most unique to shoot so far because of how close they were to a main road. The dynamic was strange, feeling high up in the middle of nowhere but unable to escape from the road. There’s footpaths all over the area and you can walk for miles in any direction with barrows scattered about seemingly at random. I felt like the road was something I was thinking about a lot, knowing that it was the site of the tale, a story that no matter true of false, has all the elements still there to this day - the road, the barrows, and stables with
people on horseback. I’d hoped to happen across someone riding a horse, but unfortunately there was no one around. I feel like it’s difficult to get the road to fit into the body of work. I took multiple shots of the road, as well as at one point, a shot with a black car going through the frame, a sort of modern link to the old tale. Even so, getting the modern road and vehicle to fit in with the environment felt surprisingly difficult. While I have other images of more urban alongside barrows, the vast countryside backdrop makes the sight of a long road and car feel especially jarring and out
Shooting - Wimborne St. Giles - Pt.2 of place. Like I’ve found previously, a location so vast and beautiful can prove extraordinarily awkward to shoot. With the variety in depth being so far away the scene flattens without some kind of foreground element, and it becomes impossible to actually appreciate the grandeur and vastness of the place. I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed with the shoot, but a lot of the images feel like much of the same. There was certainly a lot to be found in the area, but with it being so vast, the light would have faded before I was able to actually reach many other locations. When working with such large spaces backdrops often end up identical, as they are so distant that you’d have to travel such a long way before they change. This ends up with a lot of the images feeling like variants of one another, so it’s hard to find a place for more than one of the images in a body of work. I feel like there’s a lot of potential in this area, that I haven’t been able to harness because of the awkwardness of the space. I’ll have to return at some point.
Shooting - Bincombe Bumps My first visit to barrows to explore and photograph was to bincombe bumps, and it seems that my last shoot, for now, will too. The two barrows that I visited this time were new to me however, being further along the ridge than the first lost I visited. One of the bumps here was the barrow that Grinsell directly attributed to being the fairy music barrow. With that in mind, I also visited at exactly midday to listen for myself. I took a photo, though admittedly midday had passed at that point. I can’t say I heard anything too specific, mostly wind howling and birds singing.
It was quite refreshing though, really. Out of all the locations of barrows, I think it may be my favourite. Walking into the grass field that surrounds them was quite spectacular, and was just about the most lush and picturesque field of grass I’d ever walked into. They were probably on the highest point of the ridge I’ve explored so far also, with a real sense of power over the surrounding area. An area and subsequent photo that I loved was of a farm in the distance. From the lush green grass of the field, it reaches the barbed wire fence of the farm and the landscape
is transformed. The transition couldn’t be harsher, the moment the fence is passed, the grass is dry and sandy, the area is barren and urbanised, like a line between the mythological space of barrows and the reality of modern farming. It’s got quite the aura around it as an image in my opinion, with a vibe like some military camp. I doesn’t come across as a very nice place, but that could just be due to how lovely it is on the other side. The self-portrait of me listening at the ground is one that I like, but doesn’t really have too much of a place in my body of work - at least not at
Shooting - Bincombe Bumps the moment. Going forwards however, I would like the work to be able to include playful and constructed images. It will obviously have a massive impact on the narrative of the work, and it follows that having only one image of this sort will throw a spanner in the works of the book’s narrative. At this point, I’m creating a slightly mythological narrative through my work, through subtleties in the landscape itself, places together to spark some interest and imagination from a viewer. This is what I initially hoped to create, only later becoming fully invested in the folklore of the my subject. The nuances of the landscape were present here just as they are everywhere I explore, with a pool of water at the base of a barrow reminiscent of Jem Southam’s work on dew ponds, and a shape in the middle of a rock looking a lot like an eye - what has become a running theme through many of my images on this project, I suppose through ovals being a common shape, but it’s certainly thematically relevant.
The Edit Editing down the work is one of the most important steps, maybe just behind creating good work. It’s a much more difficult step with a book work in my opinion, due to it being a more powerful and set in stone process. Prints can be moved around and rearranged, as well as added or taken away. Book pages have neither of these things, so having them perfect is incredibly important. The narrative is more important because it’s more strictly under the creator’s control, unlike prints on a gallery wall that can be seen in multiple different orders. Thankfully I’m only creating a single book dummy at this stage, so I have room for change. Making cheap prints of all the potential images is incredibly important, as it’s not really possible to visualise the flow of the narrative on a screen compared to how you can physically. And from what I gathered from the edit session, the flow of the narrative is one of the most important elements, the ability for an image to feel visually and thematically close to one another is essentially what creates the narrative in the first place. I’m happy that I made such an effort to do as many shoots as possible. It really paid off when we were able to cut down my selection of images by more than half, after I’d already cut them down initially. This means I’m left with only the strongest narrative through my work, and generally only the very best images.
Dummy Book Design The design of my book is an important part of the work, and one that I’ve enjoyed, as I’ve always had some love for graphic design. Making a dummy, or even multiple is not only a good idea, but extremely important, especially if planning a larger print run. Book dummies allow for mistakes, which are absolutely inevitable in some form, especially at first. For the design in my book I’ve adopted the use of bold, italic, Helvetica Neue text, which I love visually. It has an air of stylish design, while still feeling formal enough to fit a historic journal or study. I’m pretty happy with my dummy design, though it’s not perfect and there are a lot of changes I’d like to make. The book opens with the definition of a barrow, and a preface that I wrote. They are a fair size, and after seeing the book printed the text size was a little big for my liking. I’m more of a fan of smaller text, but that brings me onto the next issue, the preface. As I had to get the book printed in a hurry before the print centre closed for Easter,
the preface was rushed and short. Smaller text may have looked strange because the block of text would have been tiny, so really I would have liked the book to have a longer and more thought-through preface. Going forward, though, I’d prefer for it to have a foreword written by someone else, or even an essay alongside. My cover design matches my inside, with the same text, with a suitable barrow shape of the same width. I’ve had this made up into an embossing plate, which will be pressed onto the cover of the book to raise them and make them visible, though in future I’d love to look into gold embossing, to go alongside the gold theme that I’m interested in exploring in the future. I haven’t been able to with this dummy, but in future I’d like to continue with the gold theme, with gold endpapers, gold thread, and gold embossing on the cover. The inside design of my book is
still fairly simple at this point, with photos mostly on a single page on the right, some on the left, and some double page spreads. While I still intend to use more text in the future, at this stage I haven’t, which is something I don’t regret, as the use of text and poetry can completely change the narrative of the work, and I don’t think I can incorporate poetry or other old texts into my book until I’ve had the time to put in a significant amount of research into the area.
Binding the Book Binding my book has been a fun process, though it’s admittedly a long and difficult process. My book pages had to be ready almost a month before the deadline to give me time to have it done for the submission. My haste to print the book means that after a few weeks there are changes I want to make, but I’m still happy with the form it’s ended up in. I used InDesign to create the book and perform the imposition, with the book consisting of 8 or 9 sections, containing two sheets (8 pages) each. I sewed these together and then glued the spine in a simple
press that I made. My press was a little awkward to use and my sections weren’t perfect, but the pages turn well and it’s great to flick through. I put a thick layer of medical gauze on the spine giving it a lot of strength while still allowing it to be flexible. Making the cover went well, and with precise measurements everything seemed to be perfect. I put the cover through a press with the embossing place and it came out quite well, especially considering I was doing it alone. Putting the book into the cover however, everything started to fall apart. I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong, but the case seemed too small and
the book block stuck out the end. At least it was a useful experience, as I certainly won’t be making the same mistake again. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bothered, though it wasn’t perfect initially, and it’s just left me even more excited going forward, where I can expand my work and use many more exciting design elements like shiny golden papers and threads.
Evaluation - Pt.1 Intersections is easily the photography project that I’ve enjoyed working on most, as well as giving me the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had when taking photos. That’s of course not to say that I don’t usually enjoy my working, as I absolutely do, but this had been another level of enjoyment for me. I think part of this enjoyment is through the act of sort of connecting with nature and history. This would have been completely out of character for me previously, and thus represents a huge change in my interests that I’ve noticed in the past year, and living in Bristol has been a part of this. I previously lived on the outskirts of a town, slap bang on a hard edge of rural and suburban. Growing up in this environment I never had an ounce of interest in the countryside, actively avoiding it at all costs, I’d much rather be in a city. Growing up more and living in Bristol has completely changed my attitude. While I still absolutely love the city, the constant business has given me a true appreciation
for the quieter parts of life. This may all be sounding irrelevant, but it’s incredibly important for me to recognise and understand, as if I hadn’t grown fond of the countryside, I would never have made this project in the first place, a project that’s gone on to be my favourite of all my work so far. My longing for a chance to explore more peaceful places was very severe, and before I started this project I had another idea, though I’m glad I didn’t follow through with it. This initial idea revolved around individuals, themes of wholesomeness, and a relatively self-sufficient and happy lifestyle. In my head, I was picturing an old bloke that lived in a cottage, grew all his own food, and made tables for a living. These people exist, but I can tell that it wouldn’t have worked well. Partially I think this is because I’m just not ready for more intimate or involved portraiture work. I can force myself to photograph a person, though I won’t enjoy it, nor will I get good
results. I don’t think it’s a practicemakes-perfect scenario, it just comes down to my personality. If I grow bolder and more adventurous as a person without huge anxiety, I’d love to explore environmental portraiture. Which brings me to this project. I was overjoyed when I found out I didn’t have to make portraits, and I could find other ways to explore something outside my immediate sphere. Due to my growing interests, the other areas I have really gone into are countryside landscapes, archaeology, and social folklore. Like I state in the preface of my book, I feel like I really have been drawn to barrows (specifically round barrows) since I was young, due to an idealised picture in my head of a smooth, pristine, and thriving grass surface. I think it’s the sort of image that can make a child go wild with excitement, just like letting a dog loose in a field. This may have been my initial interest in the subject, but my interest and knowledge in the subjects has grown exponentially since then
Evaluation - Pt.2 due to the countless revelations I’ve had along the way, due in large part to the access I gained into the Dorset Museum Library. My initial investigation into barrows was into the set of barrows that I’ve grown up in the shadow of, Bincombe Bumps. I ventured up with a tripod and my medium format camera to see what I thought of the location. The barrows really are a powerful location, and not just in some metaphorical emotional kind of way – up on the ridge is windy, but going up another 7 feet to stand atop a barrow is another level, like some magic force channelling the wind through you. Even after my first shoot of barrows I was having a great time, and knew I wanted to get much deeper into their background. Which it obviously turned out, was very deep, no pun intended. Unlike my last project, I did no scouting with a digital camera, nor did I do any large format work. While I would have loved to use large format, making a book from large format colour images
could easily cost me hundreds. Travelling was also a major part of this project, from almost corner to corner of Dorset, which is already a fair distance from Bristol. My liking of the 6x6 medium format along with the fact that I own a camera meant the choice was plain as day. Even if I did prefer another format, booking equipment along with travelling for long periods would have been a huge hindrance to me and really harmed the volume of quality work I would have been able to create. Volume of quality images was especially important to me with this work, as I’d been set on a book from the very beginning. Like I learned from my last project, when wanting to make a book in a short period – you need a lot of images. Even if I couldn’t fully finish a book, creating a project with a book in mind has huge implications, and is therefore a useful and powerful learning experience. And indeed, it was, with me shooting 10 rolls of film (120 images) over around six or seven weeks, giving me time to design and bind, which it mostly did.
Having to plan the project in such a drastically different was actually really enjoyable, and I cherished the time I was constantly spending on just going out, exploring new landscapes and making images. I was so set on a book so early because of the much more interactive elements it adds, like tactility, adding an inherent wealth due to the physical nature, along with things like paper stock, case cover and design, text, and more. My project continued to develop for a long time, going through various ideas such as: use of dirt physically, in studio, other studio still life based images like miniatures, poetry, stories, archive imagery, and installation ideas. Most of these ideas haven’t been used, though many absolutely could be, and I think this is what may be most exciting to me. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in such a short time, through mostly my own work and research, with help and direction from others. At this stage, the project is far
Evaluation - Pt.3 from perfect – there are so many things I’d love to add, change, and explore. Where I could have been disappointed that I haven’t made all my ideas a reality, I don’t feel this way at all. I set my sights very high, and falling somewhat short of that has still made a great project. It’s not that I even fell short of my realistic expectations, I simply didn’t attempt many of my ideas, as I could tell that the work would be better suited at this time just to focus on strengthening the elements that it does have. At the moment, this project is an exploration of barrows in Dorset, and an entrance into the world of historic folklore, while it’s not overbearing. It’s done mostly through landscapes at this time, and I feel that perhaps it’s a little on-the-fence in terms of the space it occupies. There’s many different approaches I’m excited to take the project in future, and I’m mostly looking for a way to really bring the work to life with mystery and folk tales. I’m so excited to go forwards,
and I’m excited to try using sound, home-made props, use of gold, studio work, and maybe even experiment with studio portraits. I’ve carried out a lot of in-depth research, some of which I haven’t even been able to feed-back and document due to time constraints. My large amount of contextual research has informed me on the complex histories of barrows and folklore, and informed my thought processes about the project as a whole, as well as when shooting. The more I read, the more I find out, and the more I’m excited to try new things. Recently I’ve been reading about ritual, fires and burning, and the relationship between monuments and barrows with each other. I never stop coming across ideas, but because I wanted to have a go at making a dummy book, there are so many ideas that I haven’t been able to put into images yet, which just makes me want to continue my project even more. The topic is so rich with information and ideas, this work doesn’t even scratch the
surface of what could be achieved. In general I think I’ve done a good job in this project, I’ve made a book full of strong images with a clear narrative, that isn’t incomprehensible, though nor is it simple. That being said, I have made some real mistakes. For the most part, I’m really happy with my time management this time around. I started shooting extremely early on, and kept shooting consistently to build up a large selection of images, and so I could get feedback on the directions I should continue. The wealth of research sources I was given was beyond me to learn everything about in such a short time, though everything I haven’t looked into is still very much on my radar, and I think will prove extremely useful going forwards. My weakest point, in terms of time management and in general, has been towards the end. Due to the Easter break I had to get my book printed before the holiday, meaning I didn’t have a huge amount of time to get the interior fully fleshed
Evaluation - Pt.4 out, leaving it a little barebones, lacking in text and flavour. After sewing and gluing the pages over the holiday, arrangements I had afterwards meant I also only had a single day to create the cover and glue the book in. I made a mistake in the measurement, and the book cover ended up too small for the book, but I at least know exactly what the mistake was for future reference. Going forward, I think this is the project I want to pursue, though even another year won’t be enough to try out all the different mediums and subjects I want to explore. Previously, I had my final major project planned out in great depth, but the more this project has gone on, the more and more I want to continue it. A lot of works tend to widen in scope and ideas, before narrowing again to focus on something specifically. In my head, this project’s ideas were just widening and widening exponentially, so I had to narrow it down in time to create an understandable and cohesive work in time. But it would have preferred
not to. This is exactly why I think I need more time for this work, giving me time and space for my ideas/scope to accurately expand into a much wider range of discourses, before refocusing on the end goal of narrative, to make a coherent piece of work deeply inspired by a range of approaches. I have enjoyed the Intersections project more than any other. I’m continuing to learn and grow as a photographer, while enjoying my work more than ever before.
Dan Vann Intersections Golden Coffins & Gappergennies