The North as a fantasy playground: re-evaluating the literary influences in the landscape photography of Raymond Moore
The output is a book chapter exploring the landscape photography of Raymond Moore (1920-1987), a photographer has been contextualised as a minor footnote in the British documentary tradition of the 1970s, yet whose work deserves further scrutiny. Using my previously unpublished interview with the photographer recorded in the last year of his life, this paper explores Moore’s interest in literature and visual humour charts the influences that helped to shape his unique view of the north and the subsequent European conceptual photography movement.
- Submitting institution
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University of Chester
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-21/622806
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Proximity and Distance in Northern Landscape Photography
- Publisher
- Transcript Independent Academic Publishing
- ISBN
- 9783837649505
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- April
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The output is a book chapter investigating the influence of literature on the northern landscape photography of Raymond Moore.
The aim of my research is to create an additional interpretation of the photographer’s work and to suggest he is an unrecognised early proponent of deadpan visual humour and conceptualism and his practice is far more infused by literary influences than has been previously described.
The methods I have employed in my research were hampered by a continuing legal uncertainty over the legacy of his archive, which has contributed to a full critical re-evaluation of his work – his work is no longer accessible and as such, has not been exhibited or republished like many of his contemporaries. However, I was fortunate to interview the photographer shortly before his untimely death in 1987 and a transcript of this was published for the first time in my book chapter.
The research insights I have gleaned is that Moore, who expressed a fascination with Arthur Machen’s The Hill of Dreams and Mashuo Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, projected his own internally driven narratives onto bleak nondescript landscapes. A reflective pessimist looking for signs of finality, impending departure and desperation. Although Moore’s work drew influence from European and American sources, his work has a characteristically British undertone. Since his death in 1987, photography’s expanded field of practice has emerged, freeing artists and photographers to explore themes and concerns beyond the established silos of practice of documentary and landscape. Moore’s photographic career overlapped several significant points in the history of the medium, yet his highly individualised practice sat outside both established and emerging conventions.
My research has been disseminated nationally as a book chapter and a conference presentation.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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