One Year is a project I stumbled into just over twelve months ago. I started wondering about a view I looked at every day, the one from my office window. Would it look the same a year from now and how would it change each day? So I began taking a picture of that view every morning before I started work, the same view every day for a year. This montage is the result. It seems to me that landscape, any landscape, is not so much an objective reality in itself, but a constructed projection of those who observe it. So, sit back and observe one year in six minutes thirty seconds.
This is what I said when I started One Year back in September 2013:
The purpose of this project is to explore continuity and change. Over the course of a year, I will build up a daily visual record of the same view. Despite my best efforts, though, I will not be able to replicate the ‘same’ view each day: it is subject to changes in the environment, such as the weather or the time the sun rises. But it is also affected by changes caused by me, the observer. For instance, my feelings that morning may change the way I hold the camera or, inadvertently, the image may show my breath on the glass from getting too close to the window.
All images, lens reflections, shakes, under-exposures and over-exposures are by Bobby Seal. With grateful thanks to the wonderful Martin Thulin for the use of his musical piece ‘Pictures of Woods’. Why not take a look at his site and maybe try a download or two.
I somehow expected the two distictive tall trees to merge or entwine over the course of the year. But no – always some distance apart!
er distinctive.
On windy days they dance together! Thanks for all your support over the 12 months of the project, btw.
Loved the changing light and foliage.
Yes, it’s ever-changing but locked into a seasonal cycle. People moan about the British winter but, looking back at the images, we have some fantastic sunrises in the winter months.