I have never experienced the real tundra landscape so I am making do with this photograph of an old corrugated metal fence that has weathered into something that sparks my imagination into seeing as tundra. Banks of treeless hills rolling off into the distance with bubbling clouds that merge into a feast of lichen for a group of wandering reindeer. They are always on the move to avoid being a sitting target for the clouds of mosquitoes that, fortunately, I cannot evoke through this artwork.
It's a harsh land to our eyes, devoid of comfort and battered by the elements. And it is similar elements that have created the flaking, rusty metal on this fence. I cannot quite claim that they are the same elements as tropical Thailand where the fence lives really is a world apart from the arctic edges where the reindeer roam. But the natural process of creating a particular form through temperature, water and wind is the route for both. Time is the entity required for both.
For this composition I did think about adding many more reindeer on the more distant hills to create a vast migrating herd filling the landscape. However, doing this makes it less likely that anybody looking at the picture sees the background for what it is. Too much wildlife and all you see is wildlife. I aim to find a balance where even a casual viewer sees and appreciates the rich detail of colours and patterns that are nature's work not mine and readily available in any urban space!
Here is some of that detail slightly closer.
And here's the old fence that I spent half an hour photographing a few weeks ago to created the artworks that I've been posting recently. This one is a detail at the top of the fence slightly left of centre but it is hard to spot at this scale!
Patreon for digital downloads
Displate for prints
