Phil Aitman


About

It will come as no surprise that we live in a world where the pace of life is best described as frantic. We are rarely given, and as a consequence rarely take, the time to slow down and to be at one with the environment around us. I believe being at one with the environment allows us to be at one with ourselves.
I approach photography as a contemplative process. I wish to know the landscape, to understand my relationship to it, to find what at first may be hidden and to use what I have found to drive my understanding and vision.

Weather plays an important part in my creative process. Our landscape changes so slowly, yet the changes in our weather are rapid and often dramatic. I utilise a number of long exposure techniques to exploit this relationship, highlighting the visibly static nature of the land, the transient nature of the weather and the ever moving nature of our earths greatest traveller, the water.

I'm often asked why I shoot in black and white; After all, we live in such a beautiful colourful world. I see colour very literally it's either right or wrong, that failing in my perception means I find colour work extremely restrictive. Removing the colour immediately skews our perception and draws us into looking deeper into the image. Textures become more prominent, contrast and depth are enhanced and the world takes on a whole new ethereal look. I shoot with both digital and film, however, I never state which images are created with which medium as I don't want the 'which is better' argument to influence the viewer, to further blur the lines I frequently crop my images square to match the digital to the shape of medium format film.

I hope you enjoy my view of the world, but more importantly, I hope my work inspires you to think about our magnificent environment and to look beyond the surface beauty to that which hides beneath.


Works

Into Darkness I fall

Bare branch creaking - Cracking ice, Welcomes the years first snow.

The Copse

Edge of the Storm

Airwaves

Into Darkness I Fall 2

Spoils of the Mountain

Traveller