Water is at the heart of the Somerset Levels. Once sea, it has gradually become land through a succession of salt marsh, freshwater wetland and rich summer pasture. Human intervention has seen rivers diverted, bogs drained and an intricate network of ditches, sluices and sea defences installed to keep the water at bay.
In recent years this land, damaged by drainage, agriculture and intense peat extraction, has been returned to marsh, creating a ‘new’ ancient landscape of water filled rhynes, damp fens, wet fern woodland, salt marsh and open water, fringed with reed beds.
I visited this landscape at a time in my life when loss and uncertainty had become very present. It became a place to reflect, a place of silence and recollection. The fluid and shifting nature of this ancient landscape spoke to me of the past and also of presence, that life is transient but also constant, that the past can be tangible as well as elusive.
These photographs tell the story of this watery landscape, tracing encounters with the changing of the seasons, the gradual return of marsh flora and fauna, the contant shifting of light, weather and tides; a reflection on the nature of impermanence and of transformation.
Selected images from Amanda’s A Fluid Landscape series are shown below (click to view image at full size / format)
ABOUT AMANDA HARMAN
Amanda Harman is an award-winning photographer, based in the South West of England. She studied photography at West Surrey College of Art and Design and has an MA in Photography from London College of Communication. She has worked on a range of commissions, residencies and projects for galleries, museums, charities and commercial clients. Her work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally and is held in a number of collections, including the V & A, London and The National Media Museum, Bradford. Her first book ‘A Fluid Landscape’ was recently published by Another Place Press.
She is interested in our relationship with the land, how it has been consistently bent to our service, how we constantly strive to control it, through farming, industry, horticulture, gardening … and the impact that these interventions have on our understanding of landscape and wilderness. Photographing in the landscape is Amanda’s way of observing and exploring this relationship, spending time in an environment to become attuned to what is there; this can take many visits, moving through what is surface, what is obvious and starting to notice what may not be immediately ‘visible’. She tends to make work ‘close to home’ using photography to explore the everyday or the overlooked, in the places and people around her.
Website: amandaharman.co.uk
Twitter: @amharmanphoto
Instagram: @amharmanphoto
PUBLICATIONS
The book of A Fluid Landscape has been published by Another Place Press and is available to order through their website here:
https://anotherplacepress.bigcartel.com/product/amanda-harman-a-fluid-landscape
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Amanda Harman
