Draft Propsal

'Natural' Landscape?

When landscapes are thought of, an ideal comes to mind. A scene full of 'natural' elements. Trees, grass, rivers, mountains, etc. are the subject and contents within the frame that make up this landscape image. A scene with no human interference, a wild environment if you will.

In my photographs I want to be able to show that humankind and its creations are part of this natural landscape, that they are not something separate, not something different, but one.

The natural world we live in now has adapted and changed, its not what it once was. The day has long past when this ideal landscape was an accurate representation of the land. The natural landscape of the modern world contains these man-made structures. Cities are as much part of nature as forests and lakes.

Wildlife could appear within the frame and the image would still be classed as a 'natural landscape' photograph. But when something man-made is depicted with in the scene, such as a telegraph pole, a building, something as simple as a fence, the image seems to loose its 'wild' characteristic, it becomes artificial. But people are natural too, and its within their nature to build and create these structures within the land, so why are they not natural as well? Why do they carry this artificial label?

People are part of the world just as much as any other animal, yet when an animal such as a bird creates a nest, a structure, a home, it is deemed natural, but when humans do it, it's artificial, why?

My 'Natural' Landscape project will be a running series of images following a fine art style. They will have a black and white minimalist aesthetic and depict a progressive amount of human impact on the environment as the series goes on, starting off quite subtle and getting more aggressive and obvious towards the end.

Within my images I won't be trying to show the ugly, grotesque side of man's impact on the earth, instead my images will try and illustrate the beauty within these structures within the land.