Artist Terence Lane FRPS has focused his camera on the porous boundary between nature and urban development in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The result is an ongoing project, OutForest, and an RPS Fellowship, the highest Distinction awarded by the Royal Photographic Society.
Here, Lane explains what motivated his submission for a Fellowship in the Contemporary genre. You can read about seven other successful Fellowship submissions in the September/October issue of the RPS Journal.
“This project, OutForest, is running alongside my related long-term work Sciryuda, being undertaken in and around managed – and what I perceive to be ‘at-risk’ – Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. OutForest is all about the tension between the rural forest and urban development.
“I found it fascinating to have expert photographers [on the RPS Distinctions panel] look at, consider, discuss and understand my work. I think any Fellowship recipient will be delighted when the Chair announces the result. I certainly was.
“In terms of producing the work, though I had a plan of what I wanted to do, out in the field the work was intuitive and while I was obviously guided by my senses and thoughts, I wanted to articulate those thoughts in my 'statement of intent' as a stream of consciousness, rather than as an objective or linear description of the work.
“The project won’t stop here. I am concerned about the environment, but I am not an activist and there are complex problems. To use a comment that the photographer Edward Burtynsky HonFRPS recently made, the work should be seen as “revelatory rather than accusatory”.
“I hope others can see and understand the narrative – how I, as just one member of a local population, might feel about the expansion, the creeping boundary of development – and that this might inspire others to at least think about the compromise, the balance.”
All images from the series OutForest by Terence Lane FRPS
Discover seven other Fellowship successes in the September/October 2022 issue of the RPS Journal and find out about the prestigious RPS qualifications.
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