Thomas Joshua Cooper is a landscape photographer. I am a big fan of his work as I find it very inspiring and peaceful. He would find places on a map and then locate them to photograph them. A lot of his images are borderline abstract and it would be almost impossible to track down the areas he has photographed, as demonstrated in the image below. The title of the image is what gives away the location the image was taken.
Cooper, T. EAST-MOST - LOOKING TOWARDS SCOTLAND - THE NORTH CHANNEL AND THE IRISH SEA - BURR POINT, THE ARDS PENINSULA - COUNTY DOWN, NORTHERN IRELAND - THE EAST-MOST POINT OF IRELAND, 2013
His images are very reflective and in a way calming. The darkness of the shadows and the beautiful light that is let in allows one to sit and think and just be.
“Emptiness and extremity are what I was searching for, with the firm belief that it’d kill me or transform me.” - Thomas Joshua Cooper
This is such a deep quote but so meaningful that he would go to these extreme landscapes for his practice which, as he states, would either change him or kill him, and he was willing to take that risk for these beautiful photographs. I really find this motivation to be so pure and profound, feeling so strongly for a photograph that one would do anything to get it. I feel at times, that when I am behind the camera, nothing can hurt me, it almost feels like a protective shield, I often climb dangerous rocks which I would be afraid to do if I did not have my camera, but when I do, it feels like I can do it without any anxiety. I am not too sure why I feel this way.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, THE BUTT OF LEWIS, THE ISLE OF LEWIS, THE WESTERN ISLES, SCOTLAND, THE NORTH-MOST POINT OF THE WESTERN ISLES, 1990S - Thomas Joshua Cooper
Between the Dark and Dark
Looking through Cooper’s book, it is really inspiring and interesting to see how this book was put together and how the text was added, it makes me really think about the layout I would like my book to be in. Do I want each page to be a similar layout? Different sized or same sized images? Text on the adjacent page? Or pages to follow?
Looking at this book has made me ask myself all of these questions which I really think will help me towards making my book.
I found my images to be quite similar in terms of composition and subject to those of Thomas Cooper’s. I also like to work with that abstract type feel but also filling the page with natural landscapes and making it impossible for the viewer to have any recognition of the place in the photograph. I think this-makes it so much more interesting and in a way shows how something or somewhere you walk past often could be captured in a completely different way when photographed compared to seeing it with the naked eye.