Layered Landscapes / by Mister Tom

'This set of photos aim to capture the myriad of moods of the ocean, by focusing on the layered landscapes of land, sea, horizon and sky. It is intentionally minimal in character, and features like waves and misty islands are intrustions demonstrating the 'found' and unmeditated nature of the photography.'

This series became the main photographic exercise of the trip to Pembrokeshire. 

I really enjoyed the sparseness and fuzzy layers of colour which came with the rapidly changeable weather on the coast whilst we were there. It lent a certain ambiguousness to the normally apparent expanse of the horizon. The views from the tops of dunes and cliffs felt as big as you liked, except when you gave it scale; with a wave, or shoreline, and then it served to confuse the sensation rather than clarify perspective. I set about to explore this idea with a multitude of weathers and different 'scaling elements', to see their effect and attempt to capture the emotional attachment I have to expansive environments.

I have always been drawn to photograph landscape scenes which feel blank but draw you off the foreground into the unknown, across the horizon and into space. (I'll make a collection of previous attempts to follow and support this post). 

It's based on a fascination I have with feeling small, and enjoying being a tiny piece of intelligence in an unimaginably vast universe. 

Star gazing, people watching, listening to waves, the flight of starlings. These all have the same quality: trying to experience and observe the smallest to the largest in all their incredible complexity. The overriding emotion is always wonderment.

Please tell me what you think, of the photos or the explanation - this is my first really conscious 'series', which I mean to continue, so feedback would be very interesting to me. 

Email: mister_tom@btinternet.com

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