Benedict Brain is a UK-based photographer, journalist and artist. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel. He is also a past editor of Digital Camera Magazine, and the author of You Will be Able to Take Great Photos by The End of This Book.
Humanity’s relationship with nature and the environment is a theme that underpins much of my photography practice as I travel the world.
I chose this month’s image, taken on the Caribbean island of Aruba earlier this year, as it speaks to this relationship – plus, I like it! Thinking back, it was probably a masterclass from the American photographer Lewis Baltz when I was studying photography at university that sparked an interest in this aspect of my practice. Baltz was one of the New Topographics and he, along with photographers such as Stephen Shore and Robert Adams, has without doubt inspired and influenced me.
The New Topographics movement, which emerged in the 1970s, focused on depicting human-altered landscapes with a neutral, almost deadpan aesthetic that rejected romantic vistas and instead emphasized banal, everyday environments shaped by urbanisation and industry. I love their work and would urge you to look them up.
To create the slightly surreal vibe of this photo, I used an on-camera flashgun. I often use flash when I’m travelling. With little control over when and where I can take pictures, the pocket-sized sunlight can be a useful, sometimes vital, tool. Regardless of whether it’s necessary or not, it also creates an aesthetic I like. The ‘fill flash’ can create a hyper-real look to a photograph. This is something I like. It’s what I did here. As such, there’s an intensity to the colours and textures of the vibrant blue crumbling sea wall.
Someone recently commented that the image reminded them, in a way, of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the famous woodblock print by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai created around 1831. It was a generous and flattering comparison that I’m not entirely convinced by, but I can see where they were coming from and there are some visual and thematic connections. Hokusai’s wave captures the power of nature, uses blue hues, and offers an unusual perspective.
In a sense, I, too, was exploring a suggestion of the fragility of humanity against the force of the sea and nature, with the crumbling man-made structure next to the ocean symbolising decay or the passage of time – and, like the New Topographics a certain beauty in the banal.
• Other articles in the Art of Seeing series
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