BRUCE CHARLESWORTH
MAN AND NATURE
PHOTOGRAPHIC SERIES
PHOTO-NOVELLAS
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#38, 1989
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'MAN AND NATURE' took the idea of fabricated landscape further than the earlier series 'Trouble', which include images using combinations of back projection, model-making, forced perspective and re-photographed figures. The photographs of small figures in huge imaginary landscapes from this series relate to the 18th Century idea of the sublime, in which the uncontrollable power of nature can be interpreted as an externalization of uncertainty and fear.
Among the twenty images from 'Man and Nature' are landscapes, large urban and indoor settings and intense close-ups of human faces, resulting in extremes of scale and distance within the series.
Many of these images required several weeks of full-sized set construction or building of scale models. For the miniatures, characters were photographed, printed small, cut out and placed into scenes. These are pre-digital photographs and are presented as seen by the camera.
'Man and Nature' (1989-92) was initially exhibited in two parts of ten photographs each.
