Robert Darch
- Mar 31, 2017
- 3 min read
Darch has done a MA in photography at Plymouth for 2 years as well as create a book as well as doing a MFA in photography of art. When Darch was studying his masters he was taught by Jem Southern which in my opinion I feel helped too influence his work named Veil. He has also been nominated for a book award.
Darch was also selected by the Haywood gallery curator form source magazine.
Darch's work focuses on the experience of place.
When doing his MA at plymouth, Darch started off with a limited interest mainly doing Landscape photography. He also did have other interests like the time of day, especially when it was early int he mornings and quite. Darch spoke of how he likes to try and give a sense of sharing his experiences in the landscape through his photographic imagery.
The way Darch works is by starting to take photographs that he finds interesting then seeing what happens from there, in a way his sketchbook is in his mind all his development happens in his head and while he is out exploring and shooting new information. When Darch is creating his work he likes to think about celebrating nature and the Sublime - how things look appealing to others also known as beauty in imagery.
A piece of work he created is called Vale.
Vale is about youth and nostalgia.
Vale means valley, The way in which Darch likes to work is having images that find elements of things or objects that are in real places and make them all link to seem they are all taken in one small area when most the time they are not, but due to the nature of his work and photographic practise they all seem to work together as a unit of work.
The river became integral too the work representing for Darch, life, flow and means of finding his feet as a photographer.
With this work Darch started off initial landscape images then development goes on from there. For this project he used a few lenses, a 35mm, a 50mm and a zoom lens which he borrowed form his university.
While doing this project Darch did some stills for his friend who was filming a horror, while in the house they were filming in Darch had time to go exploring through some of the rooms they were not using and the ones that were set up for the film, while exploring Darch looked at the small details.
Darch's inspiration comes from paintings, literature, fellow photographers, landscapes and film.
This image (above) is inspired by horror film due to the way in which the image is composed and framed. The framing of there only being part of the room visible due to looking through the door way reminds me of in horror films where they go into the rooms of places they start in the door way then pan into he room, this has the film still feel at the beginning of the frame. When Darch too this image he did not realise how the framing matched that of a horror film still.
Darch worked with people he knew would fit the concept of what he was going for, Darch was also quite lucky with the fact that the people he knew were rather photogenic people, which also brought a different feel too the work. Beauty of the landscape vs the beauty of the people photographed.The use of the image above works with the concept of dreams or imagination with the middle subject floating in water seeing relaxed and in a state suitable for the idea of dreams or letting your imagination run wild.
Another piece of work Darch has worked on during his masters was called The Moors -
Has had a fascination with Dartmoor. Started of as he usually does with taking landscape images and then it developed over time form there.Darch started taking photographic images and thinking about creating his own fictional place.
When photographing people in the landscapes Darch made sure the subjects had a link to the landscape, he would go out shooting images along the moors and other areas of Dartmoor.
Darch started building up enough elements too create a series of images. When looking for locations, Darch used many different methods, for example google maps, walking around and other such methods. The season in which Darch chose to shoot this series was over the winter for some of the images.
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