I'm sorry to say I won't make it there this year, but the details are here if anyone is going. Personally, I say wait for winter solstice and hope for clear weather.
The photo is by Bill Brandt, and the edition of the magazine is given over to questioning Britain and its future in the austere aftermath of the second World War.
For those of us in the Northern hemisphere it may seem a little contrary to be showing a snowscape in June. I have two reasons. From a pragmatic point of view, there are very few strong images of the place. It does not photograph well and many artists bypass it in favour of nearby Avebury instead so there is a degree of Hobson's choice. The other is that I have been questioning the role of photography in my practice. Bill Brandt was arguably the finest landscape photographer to have worked on these shores. There's a decent little biography of him on the V&A website. For me the most telling quotes is about his work with nudes: "Instead of photographing what I saw, I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little, and the lens produced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never observed."
I am grappling with whether I can be persuaded to see my photographs as an art in their own right instead of just as a means to an end. This question has an increasing urgency now as I have a fair few pictures I have taken as prep work for upcoming projects which are breathtaking in their own right and I find myself asking again and again what painting them would add. In what way would that make them stronger, richer or more economical? This year I have begun to find ways in which photography can have a less impulsive, more considered and creative approach but I still think of them as pictures, rather than art. Sometimes, as he lets his camera surprise him before turning that surprise into collaboration in the darkroom, Brandt crosses that divide. The question is, can I?
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