Born in 1950, Jem southern is a British photographer known for his landscape photos situated in the Southwest of England where he lives. His photos have been displayed in galleries across the United Kingdom and the United States such as the Tate St. Ives and the Yale Centre for British Art. Jem Southam describes his photography as “It’s about celebrating the fact that I can be here, that I’m taking all of this in. That all of this is available to us, that the world is such an absolutely, staggeringly extraordinary place to spend some time. We’re so lucky, as humans.” Jem saying this shows that he is grateful for this beautiful world and wants to celebrate that by capturing its beauty

In a review by Joerg Colberg he describes Jem’s photobook ‘the river Winter’ which showcases nature and landscape photos of the River Exe which Jem captured across eight winters. Joerg Colberg describes his landscape photos as ‘intimate’ with him saying “Usually, intimacy is not a word I associate with landscapes. Landscapes usually tend to be sublime, because that’s what is demanded of them. I don’t think many people would think of their garden or backyard as a landscape (unless they’re part of the 1% and own gigantic parts of land). But I think Southam might. I want to think that. I know that I certainly do.”

Photos by Jem Southam

Image Analysis

This photo is part of a collection of photos Jem took for his book ‘Rockfalls and Ponds’ published in August 2011 and was also shown in at an exhibition called ‘Before Time: Bleda y Rosa’ in Madrid, Spain a year before the book was published. The book is actually about documenting topographical changes at a location over many months and years to see how the landscape changes over the years due to natural and manmade changes taking place.

The photo uses quite a dull colour palette mainly consisting of browns, greys and backs due to the weather and location the photo was taken at as for this series Jem is focused on documenting the cliffside over time regardless of its beauty, however it is still an interesting photo with the cliffside creating diagonal leading lines which leads the viewer across the coast and into the cloudy horizon. All the rocks on the beach and the rocky cliffside gives the image a hard and rough feel/texture to the photograph however this does somewhat contrast the grey clouds which does soften the image and creates a balance between hard and soft in this photograph but could possibly imply the natural and manmade changes taking place to our natural environment and coastlines.