The body and the land. Mother nature and constructed realities.

Edward Hopper, Office in a Small City, 1953

What locations should I choose for my project? Where is the perfect space to place my childhood memories?

Should I take these memories back to the places where they were created? Or find a similar location. What merit is there in the original location? 

Looking at the images I want to use as part of the nostalgia element of my project, there are no strong elements of location within them. They are largely devoid of a sense of place, mostly they could have been taken anywhere and there’s no connection to the place other than hand scrawled notes on the slides letting me know the date and place.

When shooting the locations, the liminal spaces, for my project, am I shooting a landscape or constructed reality? The constructed reality of the city, man-made space, willed into creation and controlled by man. Or a constructed reality of space in front of my lens?

Well, it is both. Both constructed by man and by myself. The reality of the space I construct in my camera is dictated by the inclusion and exclusion within the borders of my photograph. It is also constructed by my subsequent treatment of the image. Does this dream scape really exist? I doubt it exists outside of my mind and my camera making it the perfect backdrop for a memory. 

If we consider the landscape to be female and this man made place to be landscape, then it is the mother of my memory and supports the child I have placed within, both nurturing and sustaining it?

Gregory Crewdson, untitled (Penitent Girl) from the Twilight Series, 2001 - 2002