Shul: Inside the Outside; Chora and Terrain Vague: Matthew Conduit

I subscribe to and follow the Inside the Outside webpage. Inside the Outside are a diverse group of photographers who portray the world in highly individual and personal representations of the land around them. Their founding members are: Al Brydon, Joeseph Wright, Rob Hudson and Stephen Segasby. They take inspiration for their name from the famous quote by John Muir: I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Recently they featured two works by Matthew Conduit: Chora and Terrain Vague. I was immediately struck by these works as they bore an incredible resemblance to what I was trying to portray with my bewildered aspect of the Shul project, i.e impenetrable undergrowth. In fact I joked with my Hangout Group that I had got there first and he had obviously seen my work!!! In reality though we had both been working along similar lines without realising it or even knowing each other. Born in Nottingham and studying in Mansfield and Sheffield, Conduit now lives in Sheffield, where he has photographed for over 35 years. Like myself he believes in working locally. I have increasingly come to this conclusion during my studies with OCA. Rather than visiting honey pot locations and placing my tripod in the holes of more famous photographers who have gone before, I firmly believe that the way to really get to know an area is for it to be local and to visit time and time again in all weathers and all seasons. My favoured areas are the woodlands close to home in Lincolnshire and the Lincolnshire coast. Conduit says that each new image informs the next. There is no 'project' - no 'end'. I totally empathise with this and find it impossible to stop photographing footpaths and 'bewiderment'. Like my work, Conduit points out that there are no skies or horizons and few focal points - on cases no 'landscape'; we both also like flat, soft, neutral lighting. Unlike my work, however, which I crop to square, Conduit employs a horizontal format in order that the images assert the stability and compactness of the real; the acute awareness of colours, lines and variations within the frame realise an enticingly sensuous abstraction.

Images by Matthew Conduit from Chora and Terrain Vague:-