Foreword by Brett Rogers

In an era when the speed of image production and circulation exceeds anything we have previously experienced, the opportunity to slow down, take time to reflect and meditate on our relationship to Nature is becoming a rare yet essential tool for survival. To pursue a practice focussed on man’s relationship to Nature is a hard-won task for a 21st century photographer keen to avoid the obvious tropes of documenting environmental change or the deleterious impact of growing materialism.

Nicholas Hughes work may best be described by the term ‘slow photography’ to the extent that he prefers to use analogue film and heavy large-format cameras – which by necessity slow down both the activity of the photographer as well as the gaze of the viewer. The rewards are sensory as well as spiritual, providing the possibility to reengage with the experience of being in the landscape.

In turning not just towards Nature but equally to words and music, Nicholas Hughes has over the past 15 years consistently created series which whilst alluding the environmental destruction wreaking the planet, finds moments where the residue of the Sublime is still palpable. With many of the titles alluding to musical analogies, these works fall within a poetic/symbolist landscape tradition, which found its photographic origins in the turn-of-the century Pictorialist movement. Yet whilst one can appreciate the continuity of this particular approach in his work, Hughes embraces a modernist formal language informed by aspects of Minimalism, Abstraction and even gestalt theory.

Look hard at any of his series – In Darkness Visible (produced in London public parks) or Field (in Cornwall) and you will not find images of post-apocalyptic destruction and gloom. Hughes’ deeply nuanced engagement with Nature has not made him completely pessimistic about our fate. Whilst reflecting on man’s folly in images of great turbulence and destruction, he also provides hope that the earth will heal itself.

Unlike the early British photographers such as Roger Fenton and Francis Frith, who travelled far and wide beyond Britain to capture new topographies, Hughes is unusual in setting himself a self-imposed constraint of now producing each series within walking distance of his home, whether that be London, Cornwall or North Wales. The specificity of those particular areas is not of material concern but rather points to his interest in exploring the more transcendent aspects of the sensory world which can be found almost anywhere, if you have the ability look, feel and immerse yourself fully in Nature.

Having supported Nicholas Hughes through our Print Sales Gallery for the past 15 years, we are delighted that there is finally an opportunity for a mid-career publication which enables a wider audience to reflect on the connections between six different bodies of work. Whilst the photobook revolution over the last decade has resulted in a plethora of self-published books by artists of all generations and persuasions, it is timely that a British artist dealing with issues arising from a personal engagement with the land has produced a photobook which combines finely reproduced images alongside critical writing which examines the special place he occupies within the wider terrain of contemporary practice.

Brett Rogers, Director
The Photographers’ Gallery