Evolver

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VISUAL ARTS
11
JEM SOUTHAM
Jem Southam is a photographer, traditional in approach
and in his use of equipment, until recently. For forty years
he has been lugging a large format camera and a heavy
tripod across the fields in search of a subject. Once
identified, he has returned repeatedly to the same spot,
photographing it in different lights at different times of
day and in different environmental conditions. Southam is
a storyteller, weaving together a complex narrative of
human intervention, the response of the landscape and
his own interpretation of the changes he observes.
He photographs the same place over a number of years.
Winter light, winter trees are his preference and he
frequently returned after sitting for an hour or more with
just one photograph. He waits for the optimum
conditions, “atmosphere, light and colour range have to
be right, otherwise there is no point”. Up until four years
ago, Southam had resisted the digital revolution. However
he has increasingly been frustrated by the deterioration
in quality of the available film stock and analogue
printing papers. So he reluctantly started to explore the
possibilities of digital cameras and the software that goes
with them. It has not been an easy task but in the last
year the new techniques have led to some very exciting
work. Freed, literally from the weight of his heavy
cameras, he has now wholeheartedly embraced the
possibilities of digital technology, finding it ‘enormously
liberating’ that he can now take as many pictures as he
likes, ‘probably too many’. He is “led by doing”,
preferring to use the word ‘doing’ rather than ‘process’.
He is currently showing three small photographs using
these new techniques in the Regions of Light exhibition
at Hestercombe Gardens near Taunton, which continues
until 2 July 2017. It is the first time that he has shown
his digital work and it is radically different to anything
that he has done in the past.
Taking photographs with a large format camera mounted
on a tripod facilitates the use of a very small aperture
and long exposures of a minute or longer. These
techniques and the resulting eight by ten inch negatives
lead to images which have unparalleled detail because of
the huge depth of field. In the Bend in the river series,
‘A BEND IN THE RIVER’ 5 DECEMBER 2016 (Archival ink-jet print)
the crisp sharpness where every twig and branch is seen
clearly into the distance is replaced by a painterly,
atmospheric mistiness. Pushing the technology to its limit
Southam relies on sound rather than sight to move his
camera into position and shoot into the darkness. Later
he reinstitutes the detail in Photoshop or Lightroom.
Photographed very early, pre-dawn or at dusk in the
darkest hours of December just before the shortest day
of the year, these works are more than evocations of
winter. They are deeply personal. They exude sadness,
the sense of an ending. Taken on the cusp of the end of
light they become a metaphor for change. Much of
Southam’s work has been about seasons, about decay
and renewal but in these images the rotting vegetation,
the detritus and debris left by humans has gone. These
photographs of still water focus on the swans, the sound
of the wing beat, the flight, the movement from land to
water at the end of the day and the grooming drinking
feeding that is part of these creature’s daily routine.
Southam’s working practice, spending long hours waiting
and watching for the right moment, is very
contemplative. It allows his thoughts to wander and to
consider other interpretations of the scenes before him.
For him the swans at the bend in the river are part of
that continuum from Leda and Zeus, to the Finnish epic
poem Kalevala and Sibelius’s music in response to it,
through to myths from other cultures. The change in
emphasis and equipment has opened up fascinating new
possibilities.
Fiona Robinson
Portrait photograph by Andrew Nadolski
‘REGIONS OF LIGHT’
Until 2 July: Hestercombe Gallery, Hestercombe
Gardens, CHIDDEN FITZPAINE, Taunton, TA2 8LG. 11am -
4pm. 01823 413923 /