Clive Landen

Clive Landen is a British photographer who's work focus's on British wildlife, whilst his earlier work documented people and their surroundings, his later work focused on the 'darker side' of nature. 

The photograph below is from his series 'Familiar British Wildlife' where he documented road kill in the country side. The image below is very powerful because when you first glimpse at it, it almost seems as if the bird is in motion due to the way it is positioned and its central composition. However, when you take a closer look you can see that the animal is dead on the side of the road. Clive photographs all the images from this series in the same way; straight from above and on a tripod. Overall, this series of work almost has a shock factor which makes the audience know exactly what is being shown in this series of images. Although it can be seen as an abstract subject matter to take photographs of, this series of work can be of interest to a wide audience due to the familiarity of the subject and again the abnormality that makes viewers what to know more.

The image below, is from another series created by Clive Landen called 'The Abyss'. These images were created to show the Foot and Mouth crisis of Great Britain. The image shows the cows which were effected by the disease after they had been slaughtered to help prevent it spread further. The techniques used in this photograph highlight the horrific scenes of the situation, specifically through the use of colour. The image has a gloomy setting which reflects the mood. The smoke in the background exaggerates the nauseating scenes of that is happening in the foreground. Again, the image is powerful and has that shock-factor that would entail the audience to ask questions and see more. 

Overall, Clive Landen's work has helped my develop my own ideas when it comes to choosing a subject matter. He explained the lengths that it took him to gain access to some of these images and it has inspired me to be more bold when trying to make a picture. The techniques that are used in his images are also different to what I have done before so it will be good to try and use them in my own work.