OutForest RPS 2022

The images on this page were submitted as part of my application for a Fellowship with the Royal Photographic Society.  Supporting text is also required which should state the aims and objectives of the work, this requirement is mandatory but the actual message can be implicit or explicit and can form part of the overall work.
The Statement of Intent (SoI) does not explicitly explain my approach or why I have done what I have done. It is unorthodox, but it should become clear if the viewer looks, is curious and asks questions. The SoI in this case is a question. I have tried to articulate without punctuation, using a similar approach to some of the writing by James Joyce, in the form of a stream of consciousness. This is how I thought when in front of the subject(s). So, making these images was partly intuitive, but even when making them in that manner, something is feeding and levelling the intuition out.
So, although appearing as text the statement is not written or spoken communication but thought, I don’t use punctuation as such or need to take a breath when I think (does anyone?), the stream just flows from one thought or idea into the other, sometimes two things or even more at once.  Expressed as a kind of panic and ending in a question rather than relief or comfort. 
There is an irony to what is going on.  Much care, time and consideration with image sequencing, the developers invite people to live in a forest yet they chop the forest out to build the houses.
The Statement of Intent appears a little further down this page, but the following image provides a starter.

The site of a new housing development and community:

 ' The Hawthorns '

STATEMENT OF INTENT.
OutForest
the old forest boundary for hundreds of years and the lookout keeping guard can you see and the fence but further down another stalwart field marker is surrounded by dancing saplings and it is clear we have complex problems and this is all for show we need to live somewhere the fields are no good but the forest is inviting so let’s root them out and make a clearing and live there and our houses can have a motif on the gable like a tree high that will do but now the cracks appear and I see a new tree with other new grey ones behind with branches each that whirl in the wind and they make some light work somewhere but I can still just see glimpses of the forest so there is hope as I look one way and the saplings still dance around new houses celebrating their build not built and then the other way and the thin end of the wedge is cutting but I can rest on the bench made of one that was felled but it’s fine there’s another one nearby but then dividing and supported by another one felled and the saplings will restore and each fence upright dead stands memorial to those felled as I go around and around just circling until I see the end of the path and look there’s loads more to take out and I am directed towards the forest reach and from the shadows we can only see complex problems and it’s all for show and it is relentless and we are out of time and I am tired now on the OutForest and I am looking in do you follow what the lookout can see because who can it’s just not clear
is it?

the old forest boundary for hundreds of
years and the lookout keeping guard

can you see
and the fence

but further down another stalwart field
marker is surrounded by dancing saplings

and it is clear we have complex problems and
this is all for show

we need to live somewhere the fields are no
good

but the forest is inviting so let’s root them
out and make a clearing and live there

and our houses can have a motif on the gable
like a tree high that will do

but now the cracks appear

and I see a new tree with other new grey
ones behind with branches each that whirl in
the wind and they make some light work
somewhere but I can still just see glimpses of
the forest so there is hope

as I look one way

and the saplings still dance around new
houses celebrating their build not built

and then the other and the thin end of the
wedge is cutting

but I can rest on the bench made of one that
was felled but it’s fine there’s another one
nearby

but then dividing and supported by another
one felled

and the saplings

will restore

and each fence upright dead stands
memorial to those felled

as I go around and around somehow dancing
until I see

the end of the path and look there’s loads
more to take out and I am directed

towards the forest reach and from the
shadows

we can only see complex problems and it’s all
for show

.

and it is relentless and we are out of time and I am tired now on the OutForest and I am
looking in do you follow what the lookout can see because who can it’s just not clear
is it?

The following is an extract from an interview for the Royal Photographic Society Journal:

Series explores tension at the edges of urban development
CIARAN SNEDDON for the RPS Journal
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.
“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

 
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