Robert Law- FOG ~ FIELDS ~ FROST
I’m an emerging photographer based in Wales in the UK. Using traditional cameras and film, I try to capture the everyday, sometimes the incongruous, and enjoy producing images that challenge the viewer into questioning photographic stereotypes or arousing curiosity. I enjoy involvement in the more minimal genres of photography as well as the broader field of ‘new topographics’. It’s only since returning from digital photography to the medium of film, radically slowing down, removing technical variables and simplifying the process of observation and execution, that I’ve hopefully been able to produce an emerging body of work that is consistent and coherent. Above all, I’ve never enjoyed the process more, or the ability to study or interact with other artists.
Alternative winter studies of north western European agricultural and industrial landscapes. When the season’s cold grip has produced no snowfall.
I always try to offer an alternative to traditional photographic narrative and this is a series of agricultural and urban landscape studies.
With terrain gripped in frost and frozen water, shrouded in fog or beset by a uniform, chilling dampness, I feel the need to record this rather melancholy aesthetic. These images were shot on a journey starting in south western Germany, through to northern France during a long lasting, cold spell of settled weather. The scenes include frozen crops, empty pastures, meadows and ‘beautifully forlorn' industrial estates.
As a regular visitor abroad to my partner’s family in Germany, the current political upheaval and future uncertainty is hopefully conveyed in these images where, for the time being, the terrain is dormant and anything distant is not discernible. Indications are sparse and scenes remain empty.
I hope that by making honest observations on film and capturing the muted, commonplace or overlooked, the viewer will be able to form a more visceral and meaningful connection to these cold landscapes and their extended social and political significance.
Twitter: @robs001
Instagram: @with_the_grain_photo
Facebook: /withthegrainphoto
Website: www.wtgphoto.com