Landscape Photography

Fergus Heron’s hand-printed, framed photographs interrogate the process and theory of landscape photography, drawing on historic practice and contemporary methods to record British landscapes. Eleven photographs were shown in three exhibitions, collected under the titles: ‘A View of London’, ‘Albion Street’ and ‘Cawdor’.

The photographs build on projects across Heron’s wider work exploring how photography pictures strange and familiar places including Charles Church Houses (1996-2007 and 2009-14) and ‘Shopping Centre Interiors’ (2013). The research extends understandings of how photography concentrates looking, and renews interpretations of place and time. Heron’s method pays careful and precise attention to images from the history of photography. The urban pictures reference early photographs, including Nicéphore Niépce’s view from a window across a rooftop (1826) and photographs by Louis Daguerre and Eugene Atget. He also uses as reference points photographs by Victor Burgin from the series UK76, which depict everyday English scenes as unconscious places, and urban landscapes by John Davies.

Heron investigates how photographs reveal hidden cultural significance in everyday views. Placing opposing viewpoints in close proximity, pairs of images concentrate present looking, reflect upon the past and offer imaginative spaces for the projection of possible futures. The works offer insights into the cultural and historical construction of photographic points of view, as well as that of the landscape itself. Through exhibition the photographic strategies of landscape representation aim to influence attitudes and beliefs, the photographs as aesthetic artefacts giving visible form to feelings of belonging and estrangement.

The works were exhibited in Brighton, Sheffield and Nottingham between 2015 and 2019 along with artist discussions, presentations at exhibition events and a short published text.