Dartmoor Light & Shadow Exhibition: The Initial Spark
“Wild Swimmers” by Nicky Thompson
You can’t have an idea without inspiration in my opinion. Understanding why you want to pursue something further requires time to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing and research. This research doesn’t even have to be sat at a desk pouring through online journals as I did throughout most of my Bachelors degree - it can also come from pop culture, practice, and day trips.
On 7th September 2024, I decided to go on a trip to Neadon Barn in Newton Abbot where the Dartmoor Light & Shadow photography exhibition was taking place. I was already aware of the exhibition after submitting an entry into the Phoebe Wortley-Talbot Legacy Project at university though I never intended to go until I committed to continuing my studies at postgraduate level.
Deciding to take on a Masters was a very last minute decision. I’d been struggling heavily with depression at the end of my Bachelors degree and my path for the future was clouded as a result of this. I was well versed in Commercial Photography but deeply regretted not pursuing a personal practice as my work had stagnated and my portfolio wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I needed to get out of the studio and back into nature where I could attempt to come to terms with my struggles in a unique, different way. Dartmoor’s beauty had always intrigued me whenever driving through in the car. So much exploration to be done right on the doorstep: an empty canvas of expression and possibility that was calling to me. But to do that, I felt I had to understand the landscape I would be immersing myself in by seeing other creative practitioner’s approaches to it.
Made up of 25 photographers, the exhibition made an immediate impact on me as soon as I walked into the barn. Beautifully curated, carefully selected images, the atmosphere of only a couple of people present…. it was the perfect showcase.
Here are notes from the experience about certain photographers that stood out courtesy of extracts from the book “Dartmoor: Light & Shadow” by Simon Butler.
1. Robert Darch
From ‘The Moor’ (2018)
Robert Darch is a British artist-photographer based in the South West of England. He has published widely and his photographs reside in public and private collections.
His practice is motivated by the experience of place, in which the physical geography and material cultures of place merge with impressions from contemporary culture that equally influence perception. From these varied sources, both real and imagined, he constructs narratives that help contextualise a personal response to place.
‘The Moor’ depicts a fictionalised dystopian future situated on the bleak moorland landscapes of Dartmoor. Drawing on childhood memories of Dartmoor alongside influences from contemporary culture, the narrative references local and universal mythology to give context but suggests something altogether more unknown. The realisation of this dystopian future is specifically in response to a perceived uncertainty of life in the modern world and a growing disengagement with humanitarian ideals. ‘The Moor’ portrays an eerie world that shifts between large open vistas, dark forests, makeshift dwellings, uncanny visions and isolated figures.
The sense of an ongoing narrative is reinforced by the reoccurance of characters, often appearing on edge, in peril or distressed. The inherent wildness of the landscape heightens this fragile sense of existence, witht the suggestion of an unseen presence adding to the isolation and tension.
The fiction is grounded within the landscapes of Dartmoor, using found locations instead of overt staging, artificial lights or constructed sets. Shifting between pseudo-documentary and constructed photography ‘The Moor’ blurs that liminal space between fiction and reality.
2. Juliette Mills
From ‘My Moor’ (2010 - Present)
Juliette Mills is a British photographer based on Dartmoor and has been taking pictures since the age of 12. She specialises in documentary work and portraiture and has won various international awards over the years. She is known for her candid, poetic images, with a strong documentary feel and pull towards nature, in everything she does.
‘My Moor’ gathers special moments, places and characters from Dartmoor that have come into her life.
Describing a thread throughout her work, Juliette says “I’m drawn to capture the interrelationship between people and animals and nature as well as the healing power of one over the other - tender moments, friendships, solace.”
3. Nicholas White
From ‘Crucible’ (2020)
Nicholas J.R. White is a photographer based in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. His long-term projects are centred on landscape. From 2015 - 2018, Nicholas worked on ‘Black Dots’, a body of work exploring the UK’s network of mountain bothies (remote refuge huts) and the community of strangers that temporarily inhabit them.
From 2020, Nicholas turned his camera towards the valleys and tors of Dartmoor. Through walking the footpaths and open moorland, he began to collate a series of photographs in an attempt to reconnect with the landscapes of home. As part of this process, he collaborated with artist Garry Fabian Miller on ‘Crucible’, a collection of works that aim to visualise Garry’s imagined pictures made over the last 32 years.
