Monday 18 November 2013

BvTB

If the work so far in In Flux could be described as a form of gathering, drawing a parallel with hunter-gatherer societies, where I am looking for elements of interest, i.e.. signs of change in the environment that are passive rather than active ( equivalents to sweet chestnuts, or blackberries, gathered through photographic means), that I then repeatedly re-visit and follow through time-lapse photography, then this project could be described as hunting. In fact, it is hunting, not with a weapon, a gun or a blow-pipe, but through trapping.

As one of the initial objectives of this research has been to find better ways to interpret the environment through photography, particularly grasping some current cultural environmental concerns, then it is logical to test my approaches gained through research and practise in a suitably current, pertinent situation. So, when I was asked if I would like to photograph the processes involved in the vaccination of badgers, by my friend and ecologist Dave Mayer, at the beginning of last summer, I saw that here was just such an opportunity to to test whether or not I had reached a point where I am able to offer a more connected and communicable approach to an active environmental dilemma that is effecting the rural life of Britain through arts practise.

The problem of Tuberculosis in cattle in Britain, Bovine TB (BvTB), has reached a point were it impacting directly on the lives of cattle and badgers, the livelihoods of farmers and is costing the taxpayer. It is generally agreed in scientific circles that the spread of BvTB is linked to badgers, who also suffer from and spread the disease amongst their own populations and to cattle. What is not agreed is how to deal with this problem. As I write this two pilot schemes in Somerset and Gloucestershire to cull 70% of the badger populations in specific areas are coming to an end. These schemes go against the direct scientific advice commissioned by the British government about the feasibility of such a policy. Vaccinating the badger population from BvTB is the alternative to culling and this is what Dave does, some farmers and organisations like the Wildlife Trust are undertaking this work, who form his clientèle. I could at this point go further into all the disagreements and difficulties involved in this issue, but would be making a very long posting before I actually get to present the results of my first encounter with the process of  badger vaccination as undertaken by Dave, indeed, my first ever real encounters with badgers themselves. This is my reason for making this post.

Perhaps firstly I had better make it clear that I, and by extension, the work I produce, is not an attempt at an objective or unbiased viewpoint, I have my own thoughts and feelings about this, I am against the killing of badgers. This does not mean that I do not have sympathy with or I am unwilling to engage with those who hold other opinions, or those that directly suffer (be they human or animal) as a result of bovine tuberculosis. Engaging in a project that entails me reflecting on and developing strong opinions and feelings should be a good position to be in, a good reason to investigate, interpret and communicate via visual means.

I certainly accept that I am beginning to undertake a journey that involves the gathering (or hunting out of?) information and experience that will be interpreted with visual art, mostly photographic works, but also short film works too.

So, to begin, I travelled to Stoke and stayed with Dave for about ten days, over which I was, in a sense, embedded with him as he undertook his work and introduced to the process, for it is very much a process in the environment. Unlike the work of In Flux, where I am undertaking a process in the environment (the making of artworks as an interpretation of my own perceptions of the environment), in this case I am engaging with another process, bringing two processes together, the making of the work and the trapping and vaccinating of badgers, for I was not just observing but also working with Dave, helping when he needed.

Starting this project I realised that there were three objectives competing for attention;

1.To produce work that would be integrated with the In Flux series (My initial impulse to do this work)

2.To investigate Badger vaccination and develop methods and methodologies that are appropriate to this issue.

3.To produce work that would help Dave and others promote their cause (Their is definitely a need to reciprocate the access and hospitality shown to me by being part of the project directly).

Bearing this in mind, I knew that there were going to be conflicts between these factors and accepted that in order to resolve them I will have to wear more than one hat when working and re-visit the project, allowing for gestation, processing and discussion to occur in the intervening periods before the project is satisfactorily resolved.

So, the work;

The first step is survey of the environment to be trapped. I was not present at the initial visits, but signs of badger activity and locations of set must be established and mapped. Along with the sets there are run-throughs, the more ephemeral signs of badger movements across the land.

Track-way #1

Run through #1





























The lower work is a badger run-through, the upper piece the human equivalent, a track-way cut through brambles for us to access a set that we referred to appropriately as the brambles set.

       Track-way                                                                               Run-through

Again, a human track-way on the left and a badger run-through on the right. As well as the sets themselves, there are other signs, like badger hair caught on barbed wire (photographed but not presented here) or bedding dragged out of the set.

Set entrance with bedding
Obviously one of the sources of the problem. if cattle eat this, and the badger is infected with TB, then the possibility of passing on the disease is there.

Dave combines OS maps with  satellite images to make a map of the area, and in consultation with another ecologist, decides where to put out the traps. These maps and the subsequent relative positions are available to me to make work with. At this stage I do not see this as a priority, although it is there as a possibility. First of all I wish to concentrate on what happens at the sites and how this occurs. This process, like my own practise in In Flux, involves repeated site visits but over a shorter time span, days rather than the months or even years of In Flux. Nevertheless, change does occur, In the daytime the humans (and the cattle) occupy the space, whereas at night, the badgers roam, leaving their own signs of activity.  This day/night dichotomy is something yet to be addressed. I think I am right in assuming that my presence at night on these sites would be detrimental to the vaccinating process, disturbing the badgers and making it harder to trap them, so on the specific sites this would not be viable, so this is one of the questions that arises from this first visit, how do I get a sense of or for the nocturnal nature of the badgers? Which leads me to my first instinct-how can I make work that reflects upon the badgers viewpoint? How does a badger perceive the environment?

They are lower to the ground (and often underneath it in sets)
They are very short sighted
Their sense of smell is 700 times better than a dogs

In addition they are very social animals, living in family groups and interacting with other badgers.

I decided that I would work close to the ground and use a shallow depth of field, but found that this was not always feasible. When working with others and trying to fulfil more than one objective, then time becomes much more of an issue. Speed was important, as well as actually engaging in the process myself rather than leaving this to Dave and on a couple of days, his assistants Cheryl and Claire. I will pursue this low perspective further in future.

At the centre of this process are the traps themselves. This is the locus of activity. Early on I decided to make works looking into the traps.

Traps at the first stage













At first the traps are just put in place and bait (badgers love peanuts) scattered around, inside and under a stone at the entrance to tempt them in. The traps are not set but fixed open. This is a point in the process where you get a sense of the beginning of a hunt, that we were beginning to manipulate the actions of the badgers to our own ends. It starts with Dave's experience and in no small amount his intuition. I will ask him to explain how he decides were, and how much it is obvious, (next to a set is obvious, but were next to a set?) What subtle inter-plays are at work? As Dave points out, badgers are wild animals and not as predictable as one might assume. It is obvious to me that Dave is developing a relationship to the badgers, a complex one worth investigating further.

Baited

After the night has passed we return in the morning and check if the peanuts are gone. If so, then the traps are" dug in", which means that they are filled with soil and made secure, peanuts are liberally spread around and the stone moves inside the entrance of the trap with a pile of peanuts underneath. Again it is not set. I made many attempts to create composite works of the inside of the traps, the above is the only one that was anywhere near successful. I now think that this was over complicating things and in future I will find a comparative method with single images, more in keeping with the three images above. This interior space of the trap, with  it associated confinement and a view, from the position of the trapped, of the environment around , has enough further potential to get at some of the subtleties around this process and the wider context.
The baiting process usually occurs at least four times, as the stone with the bait is gradually moved to the back of the trap, each time the trap is left overnight and checked for activity. The decision to set a trap depends on the frequency of badger visits and it location, for instance, if a trap is very close to an active set then it will continue to be baited, but never set, as a trapped badger near a set will probably cause undue stress to other badgers in the group. A trap is set using string.

Setting

Set



























The work,Setting, above, is one I will have to consider. If this composite, temporal work of a process is to be included in this work, then others may have to be made. This project has marked a return to using single images, when appropriate. It has also included the making of film works too, something that was not envisaged at the beginning. This was as a result of a suggestion by Dave that I film the process, largely for training purposes, but also for general publicity. This link will re-direct to the video on you tube;


The video was the first shot and in many ways the most successful. Obviously the temptation is to fulfil a desire to show the full process and an earlier piece included a video from a similar position of a badger being vaccinated and then released (see below). The combined video needed something more to act as a transition between the setting of the trap and the vaccination, the most obvious being the badger being trapped. This would be difficult to film and would require specialist equipment. Something that needs further consideration.

As I mentioned above one of my aspirations is to make works that will sit well within the In Flux project, so I followed the same methods of making composite images of the element of interest  in the environment, the traps from the outside. Then followed this up with time-lapse. I had a more formed idea of what I wanted here, working toward an imagined, conceptualised work. Perhaps because of this I have encountered some friction between what I imagined and subsequently encountered in actuality. The idea was changing as I experienced the process, as I state above, I found myself working with the idea of incorporating my imagined idea of how a badger would perceive the environment and this clashed with the already established methods in In Flux. I think a period of gestation and consultation is needed to resolve this.
There were two different approaches here, firstly I needed a quick method that fits with the work being undertaken as I travelled around the 40 or so traps around the environment under scrutiny with Dave. Here I do not use a tripod but shoot composites quickly and then in post processing I use another method from the usual (Aligning and blending in steps rather than using a fuller form of automation) to achieve the results;

Trap # 8 below (bracken trap) and trap # 19 (nettle trap) above (Dave's numbering)

Trap #8 (Bracken trap) with badger
















































I am surprised to find that these works are more successful than the more conventionally produced works, at least at this stage;
Baited trap





































This may yet prove suitable. Other pieces were made but this was the most successful. The initial idea was to have a trap with a badger in it, but this proved to be too time consuming to make under the circumstances.

The first day of trapping arrived and it was pouring rain. Each of us headed out at dawn to check the traps individually before proceeding to the vaccination and release. Dave instructed us not to disturb a badger if it was in the trap and to close the traps that were empty. I felt a rush of adrenalin, when, alone I saw my first trapped badger. The hunt was successful. We had a further four more that day. In the rain and under time constraints I didn't make any work but proceeded to check further traps and reported back to Dave.

 There are a sequence of events in the process of vaccination;









Injection
 Clipping hair


 Marking

























Followed at the end by release.

This process is distressing for the badger and is undertaken quickly and quietly. Beyond documenting the process in this way, suitable for Dave to use in his own work, I am not sure how they sit in the interpretive context of this project. It is hard not to just be an observer, again some thought needed. Perhaps the film is a better way of presenting, although the following work suffers a little from the camera angle in comparison with the earlier piece on setting the trap;

vaccination

There is very little time for making work between that moment when the trap is opened and the badger making a run for it, but it is an interesting process, varying between badgers. Sometimes the badger needs to be coaxed out by Dave, whilst in other cases you can observe the badger realising that the trap is open and plucking up the courage to run. Sometimes they look directly at the camera, at me if I am behind it. There is a sense that they are judging the situation. I am reminded here of Tim Ingold's description of the Cree hunters' relationship to their prey, that there is a moment of recognition between them. "At the crucial moment of eye-to-eye contact, the hunter felt the overwhelming presence of the animal; he felt as if his own being were somehow bound up or intermingled with that of the animal"1 This short duration with the badger is the time when I resolutely feel the badger's being as a living thing, and have a sense of connection to it, something that needs to be teased out of this work;




























This is the point that the badger decided to dash for freedom, just after pausing to assess the situation.

Finally the badger is not the whole of this issue, as Dave clearly understands and formed many of our discussions together. They are part of a triangle, of which the other two elements are tuberculosis and cattle. How to visualise, or otherwise interpret these elements is one of the next steps in this work;

Badger's view of cattle

Trapped



















































I have photographed the vaccine bottles but know that further work is needed both on the cattle and on an interpretation of tuberculosis, work that may be studio based in the case of TB, and may involve photographing cattle being tested for TB.

After the last release



To end I would like to thank Dave Mayer of Ecology one-stop for inviting me to work with him and I look forward to further work when the vaccinating season starts again in the spring.












1. Ingold T. (2000) The perception of the environment; essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, London and New York P.25

Monday 30 September 2013

A Summary of In Flux

The aim of this project is to investigate perceptual mechanisms and conceptions of land as a site of constant change using photographic practice as a form of visual communication.


Felled #3 Version #1



































      

This work was initiated as a response to the sense that much environmental issue based photography is problematic, in that it tends to rely too heavily on the sublime, alienating the viewer with an over reliance on the depiction of environmental degradation and the use of methods such as aerial photography, distancing the viewer and leaving them with a sense of dis-empowerment and disconnection, lacking any understanding of the dynamism of land as a site of constant change that we are participants in and affected by in our lives.


A deer in the woods


































         

By drawing on  phenomenology, the philosophy of the senses, in the works of Bergson, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, this project has sought to apply an understanding of the mechanisms of perception in the formation and communication of senses of connection to and resonances with land. 


The Cage #1 Version #2


































      
The work has concentrated on how we understand a scene we encounter through a combination of optical information from the eyes and the constructive processes involved in the mind of interpreting this scene. I investigate this perceptual gap that Merleau-Ponty (1968) describes as the chiasm, through photographic com-positing techniques.

Rather than making the work seamless, I deliberately include distortions, breaks and repetitions of elements resulting from both automated and manual digital construction, thereby reflecting on the actual and durational construction processes that occur in the mind of a scene.


A Fox, I thought version #1





































       


A Fox, I thought version #2




































           


A Fox, I thought version #3

The work does not take a site specific approach, rather, it examines woodlands as a site type from Britain and Ireland. This multi-site approach involves many revisits and the use of time-lapse imaging to emphasize difference and change both of the scene and of my perception of it. Although this process is a form of place-making for myself, the artist and participant in the environment, as Lucy Lippard and Hamish Fulton point out, the experience of place cannot be expressed in an artwork. Hence I am not documenting sites, but interpreting them as a generic environment of perception and change. To do this I approach each scene as a dynamic space with many elements of interest, a coherent environment, rather than a specific place.


Tree-fall #1 version #1




































Tree-fall #1 version #3








































One recurrent and common element of the woodland is the tree-fall. These works were made as a result of the confluence of stimuli from the environment and from my own personal memories of excavating the remains of tree-bowls as an archaeologist. When I first encountered a tree-fall I was reminded of three instances in three different locations across two countries and spanning ten years. I was also reminded of the prehistoric sites I had excavated and the imagined lives of those living there on the basis of the evidence gathered through excavation dating from 2000-6000 years ago.
Although these multiple memories prompted me to make these works, It is acknowledged that the viewer of these works are not going to respond in the same way, they will bring their own interpretations to the scene as they participate in the viewing experience. 
This emphasizes the ambiguous nature of photographic visual communication, leading to multiple readings that are not unilinear or temporally chronological, neither are they geographically fixed.


Blue Land #1



































       
This ambiguity was highlighted when I displayed a large scale version of the above work to a group of PhD arts students and asked them to note, without conferring, what the image brought to mind. There was a consensus amongst a number of them that the work reminded them of a graveyard, something that I, as the one with experience of the actual place, had not thought of.

The works, then, take on their own lives, reflecting on both the nature of perception and memory, and on the dynamism of the environment, allowing the viewer to act as a participant in this process of engagement and creating resonances and personal connections to the scenes depicted.

Thursday 25 July 2013

A first visit

A drive out to Coillte land, a Forest plantation near a reservoir called Farran woods in Cork County. A first visit  is unique.  Movement into the unknown. I cannot know what is going to be found. I have ideas, limitations of what I think (and know) is possible, but ultimately every turn around a corner has a newness absent when crossing the ground again.

Both stimulating and perplexing simultaneously because of the expectation of finding something that will add to this project, and the fact that beyond a general approach in the project, overall there is as yet no strategy evolving on this new site.

In essence I have no specific memory of this place, no identity is formed. The only references I have to go on are not spatially specific or temporally fixed, but associations built on responses to stimuli of similar engagements in other places. These are responded to in the making of work, but I am also influenced by the task I have set myself of finding differences in woodlands to the elements I have already encountered and made work about. The idea of difference is what motivated me to go to a forestry plantation, as opposed to the deciduous woodlands  I have already investigated.

Tree-felled #1 Version #1
 Walking into a new site, the first problem is when to start working? I never quite know, sometimes it's an obvious stimuli, some sign of change or a curious ambiguity that is a combination of my state of awareness and the elements in the environment simultaneously, intuitively, cohering. This time there was no sudden decision to make a work. Hence the perplexity I experienced. In this case the environment was so different to what I had encountered before. Harvesting of timber was evident all around, so much so that it was difficult to decide on a specific scene to start with. In the end I just walked off the path and made the work above, with little confidence of it's success. This was the beginning of a few works on the day that I had little confidence in, and was pleasantly surprised with the results;
Tree-felled # 3 Version #1




Tree-felled #6 version #1


 The activity of harvesting provides a new encounter, an obvious sign of the cultural use of woodland that has so far been absent from In flux. The fact that the activity is recent  lends a sense of recentness in the resulting works, even when, after the passage of time, it will no longer be a recent event in the landscape. This new event-ness will  still be, or be stilled, within the works. It will be interesting when I return what the effect of time-lapse of these scenes will have on this newness, will it be diminished (in the context of a body of work) or continue to resonate?

In addition to these tree-felled works (as opposed to the tree-fall series started  earlier) there were two works that I made because of the scenes resonances with earlier work at other sites. In this case it is not difference and newness at work, but similarity that was the motivating factor;

The right angles #1 Version #1
This work resonated with the earlier work;

Blue Land Version # 1

Both of these works offer a sense of ambiguity that leaves open questions for the viewer of a work, I know little of what has or is occurring in both these cases. In this sense the openness allows the viewer to become an interpretive participant in a similar way to my own perplexity on encountering such ambiguity in the field.
Further visits to the above will allow for change, but not resolution of the content of the scene. I see no reason to achieve this resolution. Knowing what is going on or has gone on with everything one encounters in environments is never the case. Understanding is subjective and the lack of understanding, or interpreting is a normal state, thereby it is an intention of mine, in utilising such ambiguities to bring this to the fore in the works, and to achieve some empathy with my audience.




The second work is less ambiguous;


Hut #1 Version #1































This reminded me of the series The cage (see earlier posting below). More obviously a sign of change, as the hut has collapsed. A further visit here is planned.
A strategy is emergent here, there are areas in this wood as yet unvisited or visited and not worked in. Returns to the scenes already encountered will be made for time-lapse work to be undertaken. I noticed two elements worth considering - but with techniques that offer a departure from the present method. Tree stumps and stones. Increasingly I am seeking way of advancing and enhancing this research with new approaches whilst simultaneously keeping within a structure, or strategy that forms In Flux.










Wednesday 3 July 2013

Back to the cage

Quote from Field Notes

Entering the wood and a large mass of buzzing mosquitoes rise from disturbed vegetation extensively to feed on me . Time to get bitten again and very hot. I cover my skin, wearing a hood but have no gloves.
Slightly annoyed with myself for not pre-empting these encounters (I should know, see the beginning of this book) Not, though for most of my time dwelling in the wood, annoyed with the mosquitoes. Occasionally I kill one and blood, my blood, smears out across my skin. The risk and annoyance of the mossies adds a tension I know I must overcome. I am reminded of earlier visits here through the summer last year and know the hostility the environment naturally, haphazardly and un-premeditatedly subjects me to. I have to work at keeping calm - and fast, no time to stand, or sit and contemplate  or engage in a relaxed way.
Here is a different dynamic. The environment pierces my skin. It is the third time I have photographed this now collapsing pheasant cage. I want a different work from my first piece to go with the more successful second piece, hopefully offering suitable difference. It took about half an hour to do the work, punctuated with occasional bites, deaths. they are not fast, distracting me mostly at moments of concentration. Fast work and forced intensity a definite interaction, a different interaction.
Finishing I move on - out of the wood back to the moto-x. I need a rest from predation.

This is the first time I have made a third work at the same site from roughly the same position, each piece relates to a different season;




































The Cage #1 versions 1 to 3

Representing a sequence covering all seasons does not particularly interest me directly, the viewer will make this connection without having to be pointed to it. Tempting though it is.

Temporal shifts and the role of memory


Quote from Field Notebook

I move away up the bank I've moved up and down before away from Shomere toward a tree-fall to do again and a messy tree scene. Vegetation resists me much more and I cannot see the uneven ground for brambles and a sticky plant I cannot remember the name of. I occasionally stumble.
Ist - Tree-fall #8 revisited. Last time I fragmented the image by proximity to the lens of branches, this time leaves.
2nd visit to the messy trees I literally stumbled upon on the way to "blue land". I nearly didn't make a work. This hesitancy is due to the ever present mosquitoes. I stop and they try to bite me. They do bite me. I set up in roughly the same position as before and shoot fast with a single focal point, as I did on the first occasion.

For the moment, I am considering these pieces as diptyches ;


Treefall #8 Versions #1&2




















Untitled (rhizomatic) Versions #1&2


Each of the second versions of these works where made entirely from memory of the first pieces. I never take prints into the environment with me, as I see the role of memory, of remembering the scene itself as I saw it before and the subsequent works made as an important part of the process of making.

The aim is not to make each image as close to the previous version as possible; this is not an analysis of purely observable changes, but also an acknowledgement that memory is not precise, not entirely factual, but partly fictional. Partly by omission, but also because memory is not  location specific, but dependant on stimuli, other places and times are randomly evoked in the process of remembering and therefore connections are made to other places, as well as to the site inhabited at the time of remembering.
Memory is also a vital part of understanding specific environments, of the process of developing a connection to places over time through repeated visits during habitation. An important element in developing connections to environments that we inhabit is the observation of change. Change is constant, those of us who live life rooted for a long time in one environment are those that notice the changes keenly in their (kn)own place. The process of recognising change builds layers of memories specific to that place and forms the individual's understanding of the identity of the place they occupy. This is enforced by memories of other places, remembrances of differences and similarities that build a matrix of understanding that is multi- centred, not fixed to the specific. Knowing one place is therefore enhanced by knowledge of other places, through memory.

The use of Rhizomatic in the title of the second diptych alludes to the concept of the rhizomatic as put forward by Deleuze & Gittari in 1000 plateaus; Capitalism and schizophrenia and is not a reference to the biological meaning of Rhizome. In this case it alludes to sets of relationships between multiple elements that are capable of merging together from seemingly disparate sources. Deleuze & Gittari put this forward as an anti-genealogical, relational stance that is expanded on in the work of Tim Ingold in The perception of the environment; Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Here Ingold uses the rhizomatic to investigate how our perception of the environment around us is strongly linked to our memories of past experiences, that are not necessarily connected to the environment being inhabited directly.

The second version of tree-fall #8 is in need of re-processing. As alluded to earlier, the question of how close I am to elements in the works is something I am working on. In this case the fragmented leaves in the centre of the work are too dominant, interrupting the coherence of the piece excessively. 

A Fox III

A recent return to site of the fox facilitated the opportunity for a time lapse revisit of Oh, a fox I thought. both growth and decay had occurred in the interim;


This work is distanced in comparison with the earlier work, perhaps appropriately leaving the viewer to imagine the extent of decay in the body of the fox. Further passage of time may allow for a return to a closer interpretation of the work. The full set of works, when complete, will probably not be viewed side by side. But paced through the wider body of work, for the viewer to return to the scene, temporally as they move through an exhibition, or turn the pages of a book.




Oh, a fox I thought Version #2




Saturday 18 May 2013

A fox II


Oh, a fox, I thought II
(scroll down to view the start of this dialogue) 

After processing the first image of the fox, and subsequently modifying it, I decided that there was scope for a better rendition. A return was a suitable response. To try again. This is different from a re-visit to make a time-lapse image of the scene, as I have done with other sites. 

So I headed back out. By placing the camera on an extended mono-pod and thrusting it up into the air I was able to make a composite image.

This is the result;

Oh, a fox, I thought version #2

Thursday 9 May 2013

A fox

Oh, a fox, I thought

Some time has past since I did this work, so this commentary has both the advantage and disadvantage of some time to reflect. The disadvantage is that I no longer feel connected to the experience, those fleeting and nuanced intensities of concentration and feeling that constitute the experiences in the field. The advantages of time passed are gestation and analysis. By leaving this and concentrating on the rest of life the work, the processes and experience are digested. Time and space have changed.
Checking my field notes, there is the following text written after the discovery of the fox;

Gunshot in the distance, on the other side of Shomere. Makes me wary - danger of being mistaken in my movements for prey, makes me extra vigilant, less confident or comfortable here edgy, just as I had been all day. Light is fading but I continue on looking for more possibilities.
A fresh cartridge and a scatter of feathers, no corpse. I do two more linear pieces crossing the edge of the flooded wood, the water/ground edge as it is now. Stillness. Now the wind. 
Across the edge #1








I give up and move back to the track out of the wood. Dark skies as I walk, glad to be on my way and I nearly miss the fox, lying on the side the track, Dead. Small, unmarked. There for a short time. Oh, a fox, I thought.
At these moments I know that these are composites of a set of circumstances;

1st- The Object, I recognize something that resonates with the In Flux project. 
The fox. - is a suitable subject/object.
A second object, behind is a tree-fall, this layers the image.
An earlier manifestation – the image of the corpse of a dog (is it a dog?) a temporal reminder, spatially different, but this time connected through object.


- Fox as both a cultural and environmental object/subject, also suitably multiple in possible audience responses.
- Time of day- dusk is suitable, matches the object.
 

I struggled with the light and some strange colour shifts occurred but succeeded.

Almost dark when I got back.


That was the end of a long text and a long day, as I remember it. This was my first visit to the fox. This is how the image turned out in the beginning;

Oh, a fox I thought Version  #1


 





































 Returning to the text from my field notes, it never occurred to me that the fox might of been shot by the gun in the distance. I think the fox had been dead long before. There was no sign of why it died.

The making of this and the subsequent fox images is a good example of how perception, engagement and experience in the environment works. It also raises some interesting questions about the cultural environment too.

Firstly in the text I start talking about subject / object, it is obvious at this stage I wasn't sure which term to use, but what is it I'm alluding to?

Object suggests objectivity and would offer a detached assessment of the fox, as a species, a biological entity (Vulpes vulpes, to give it it's Latin name). This generalizes the thing before me, rather than considering the animal itself as a recently deceased creature. My prior knowledge can and does augment this understanding. I know a certain amount of information from two distinctly different positions, learnt knowledge and previous experience, (encounters with other foxes and associations of triggered memories). At the point of the first encounter and the making of the first image this is all I have to go on, but further research alters my subsequent responses. A set of subsequent actions have been set in motion.

As I have suggested above, one aspect of learnt knowledge comes from science, from biology and ecology. A further learnt aspect, that I would describe as cultural (science is cultural of course, but it is always an attempt, based on facts and evidence, to create a trans-cultural position, or a communicable truth). The scientific knowledge I bring to this encounter is limited to my own understandings, and different from the understandings of others. There is, therefore, no reason for me to explain what I know, in that this is not available in the subsequent works.

When I encountered the fox, I did not consider it in a scientific way, as an object of study, primarily my response was twofold, the anticipatory excitement of finding something to make work about and a sadness, a melancholy, experienced on encountering the corpse,of a life cut short, the life of a young fox, recognised as an individual. The object of interest, then, is more a subject.

When considered as a subject, in this case it is the subject of a photograph, or the subject of interest as what I am drawn to as I work in the environment, I move from a state of simultaneous perception, a state in which I am taking in all the stimuli of my senses simultaneously, wholly as a constant temporal experience of the entire environment as I encounter it, to concentrating on the subject of interest. In this project I then have to work out how I want to make a composite image of the scene, as a piece of work. To do this I have to work back toward simultaneous perception, to observing the scene in front of me as an environment including my subject of interest. As my field notes above state, there is a second subject included in the scene, a tree-fall, the subject of many other works in this project. So from only having one subject there are now two, both of which indicate changes to the land as I continue to encounter it. Part of the decision making process that is going on is about how to include this in the composite image. The fox, as the main subject is at my feet and easily included, but I must proceed to position myself (and therefore the camera) in a position that will include the tree-fall. 


There is a tension between the two elements in the as yet unformed composite image. They vie for my attention at the expense of all the other elements of the scene. The fox is the strongest element. The one that elicits a strong response in me,  the tree-fall is something I consider useful as a potential reference to other works in the project. A thematic repetition, different from temporal repetition, but repetition none the less.

Once in position, then the extent of compositing is my next consideration, What are the edges of the image? As I look there are no edges to what I see, I only need to move my eyes, my head or my whole body to broaden my visual perception of the scene. This is also continuous, not static, in the way that photography seems to still time. I start the compositing with an idea of the scope of the scene to be depicted, but I rarely find that the computations that follow in post-processing the image correspond to how I see it in the scene, but this is hardly ever exact.. Repeated practice has meant that I have more control of this than I had in the past with earlier images. Additionally, even if I have established theoretical boundaries to the compositing process I do often decide to extend the edges, either on the basis of further interesting content lying just outside the conceived edge, or because I am not certain that I have captured enough shots to form the edge, and hence over compensate.

In the case above, I was unhappy with the aspect ratio of the result, not expecting it to be so high in relation to it's width, I decided to crop the image;




Oh, a fox, I thought Version #1 (cropped version)

I also stretched the image downwards to take away some of the distortion to the body of the fox, a result of post-processing. 

More on the fox in my next posting.