In the book of Genesis is narrated how God created the world in six days, and as the sixth day created man in His image and likeness, urging him to dominate and subdue all the creatures He had created before:
“And God said to them [male and female]: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the beasts that move on the earth.”
In spite of the poetic or mythical character of the passage-or biblical or philological interpretations of it that it will surely have- it always seemed to me that the divine plan gave man carte blanche to commit all the outrages that he felt against nature, and it is the foundation of the whole narrative of submission and domination present in the historical relationship of the Western Culture with the environment and its creatures.
And in what at times seems like a battle between Man and Nature – with continuous skirmishes from one side and the other – it seems that the last word is not written: pockets of “green” resistance strive to free themselves from human domination and recover slowly the lost territory. The same rules apply as in conventional warfare: borders, barriers, arrests, ambushes, victories, conquests, offensives, counteroffensive and defeats … and always defeats.
The INVASIONS project explores these spaces where small skirmishes are being fought between the two contenders – what Adrian Kinloch calls “liminal spaces” in his essay “Where the City Meets the Wild.” It is not the picture of the Great Battle being waged in the great threatened natural spaces (the deforestation of the Amazon, the extinction of the species, the climate crisis …), but low-intensity aggressions in the border areas of our cities, out of our daily vision, to avoid conjuring the greater evils that lie ahead.
The project is inserted in a discursive space similar to the one proposed by Joel Sternfeld in his series “American Prospects” where he shows some of the wounds and contradictions of the American dream, and how the debris of these recent ruins builds a crude social landscape of contemporary America. John Pfahl also questions the landscapes idealized by the pictorial tradition in his series “Power Places” where he shows images of nuclear plants and power stations set up in a style more typical of a postcard than of an industrial facility. Andreas Gursky reflects in a more subtle way on the domination of natural spaces by the tourism industry in images such as “Klausenpass” or “Seilbahn” where, after the apparent appearance of a beautiful landscape, he perceives a new defeat of Nature. All these photographers, explores the problematic relationship between human beings and nature (or landscape).
Some of the photographs belonging to the series that Atget made in Sceaux between March and June 1925 have been very inspiring for this project. This abandoned and overgrown royal park was discovered by Atget shortly before the renovation works began and inspired “Atget’s richest, saddest, meditations on life, nature, and photography” (Papageorge, 2011).
Due to the conceptual nature of the project, the images included are not intended to be a true documentation of real situations, and although real scenarios are shown where these small battles seem to be taking place, some photographs are metaphorical recreations that reflect aspects of this confrontation. From a technical point of view, the choice of the square format responds to the challenge of giving coherence to the whole. The number of pictures that exceeds the maximum required obeys to a desire to constitute a set of pictures suitable for a future photobook or an exhibition.
Accompanying each image with a literary reference to a war event in ancient history was one of my first intentions, but I decided not to do so in order not to anchor a unique and subjective meaning to the image, leaving room for the viewer to make his own reading.
As a dissemination tool for the project, I made a video montage, where through the sequence of images and the character of the music I insist on the sublime character of the series.
Invasions
Assessment criteria
Demonstration of technical and visual skills
At the beginning of the assignment I did not consider the format (landscape and portrait) of the photographs important and I decided the composition/format according to the requirements of each subject. Later I realized that using a common format for all the images would give more coherence and unity to the whole. The fact of not having previously planned the format question has forced me to repeat some shot. When this has not been possible, I have resorted to cropping; Although in most of the images the new format has no provoke to lost relevant information, in some other cases cropping has caused a dramatic change in the composition, which has compromised the original meaning.
In relation to what I learned in the exposure measurement section, practically none of the scenes presented any special difficulties, except for the last image that had to be repeated three times until I got the correct exposure for the small area of the sky at the top frame The weather conditions – heavy rain and fog – were also taken into account to achieve the mysterious aspect of the scene, so I have to struggle with cover rain paraphernalia for this picture.
For the benefit of the whole, I developed all the images within a similar tonal and colour saturation range.
Quality of outcome
Although I have avoided pleasant and pastoral scenes, not all the images are in the same emotional plane; while some seem to adjust adequately to the concept of sublime, summoning a certain feeling of discomfort, in others there are some distracting elements that produce more peaceful feelings. For example, the photo of the two chairs was taken on a sunny day, which apparently involves a feeling of comfort. I got similar reading from some OCA fellow students, and although I could agree on the “weakness” of this and other images, I think that a socio-cultural reading of these “weak” images offers interesting and not negligible possibilities for consider including them in the selection.
In my opinion, the viewer of the series must perceive the invasion effect through the continuous repetition of this type of scenes, and experiencing a kind of overwhelming feeling. Although the number of selected images exceeds the maximum requested for the assignment, if it were intended to use the project in another area (book, exhibition) they could even be insufficient.
Demonstration of creativity
I can’t tell if the assignment fits the definition of Landscape Photography, in the sense of photographing great scenes or open spaces. With respect to some of my previous works, this project has allowed me to distance myself slightly from the chosen subject, which has been an interesting novelty, which may benefit future projects.
Although the idea of the project is simple, the concept allows a development in different connotative planes, creating metaphors and allegories that transfer the interpretation to other scopes of meaning. So for example, has happened with the photograph of the advert of the Government of Spain, in which some believe to see a political intention related to recent events in Catalonia, or the last image in which it is not necessary a great effort to imagine other shameful walls.
Context
The Museum of Modern Art. (2018). Eugène Atget | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/artists/229 [Accessed 23 Jan. 2018].
Cohen, J. (1989). Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Rosenblatt, J. (1992). Modern Philology, 90(2), 243-246. [online] Available at: http://www.jstor.org.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/stable/438755 [Accessed 19 Jan. 2018].
Adrian Kinloch. (2018). Where the City Meets the Wild – Adrian Kinloch. [online] Available at: http://adriankinloch.net/where-the-city-meets-wild-slate-adrian-kinloch/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2018].
Jacobs, Steven. “Blurring the boundaries between city and countryside in photography.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 14, no. 3, 2012. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A313346731/AONE?u=ucca&sid=AONE&xid=864c3476 [Accessed 19 Jan. 2018].
Papageorge, T. (2011). Core curriculum. New York: Aperture.
Photography 2: Landscape 
Hi Blas. Interesting work. I wonder whether you have come across Richard Maybe’s book, the Unofficial countryside? My tutor recommended it to me after I finished the second assignment. It addresses similar themes and is a really good read. I think you might find it useful.
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Thank you so much Elizabeth. I will look for the book of Richard Maybe.
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