Thinking: Edge

After weeks of trying unsuccessfully to make my memory project work I have decided that my project focus will be ‘edge’. I'm going to keep the memory project bubbling away in the background so it might re-emerge.

I first started thinking about edge in 2004. As I looked at Sean Scully’s abstract compositions in the ‘Body of Light’ exhibition at the NGA in Canberra, I was drawn to the quality of the transition from one block of colour to another. The edges were complex, not sharp, and I have since wondered what this means in the context of photography. Sometimes I feel that photographs are too sharp; they have such a definite boundary with the edge of the image containing the content and there is an expectation of sharp focus on the subject being documented.

Sean Scully, Paul (1984)

This has led me, in a very random way, to use my camera in an exploration of edge-ness in the built and the natural environment. (I purposefully choose not to say ‘the edge’ or use the plural ‘edges’ because I’m not thinking of just one thing or even a group of things that can be easily bundled together.)

In relation to the built environment I have documented the detail where buildings, and parts of buildings meet.