This week I’ve added a new gallery to the Urban Landscape web site, work by Herman Schartman (b1963) a Dutch photographer living in The Hague.
On his own web site he stated that he “is intrigued by the transformation of cities” and seeks “images that have an aesthetic appeal but may at a closer look raise questions about the people living in this place or the causes of the transformation of the landscape that is depicted.”
Schartman works on 4×5″ and has photographed cities across Europe. His first project on our Urban Landscape web site is ‘Backyards of Kiev‘, a fascinating set of ten black and white images, taken in the backyards of building blocks in that city. As in most other East European cities, these are public places but also very much places that the people living in these buildings let their private lives spill over into, often with intriguing results. As he says:
You will find lots of parking spaces, old derelict buildings and new high-rise buildings, gardens and trees. You will meet young women driving a SUV, an older woman delivering the bottles she collected, a man walking his dog, a couple drinking a beer or a security guard.
But the images he presents of of these places are not of the life which throngs them by day but the empty stages at night, with an atmosphere of their own, and often exquisite lighting depicted in highly detailed rich tonalities.
Submissions are always welcome to the Urban Landscape site, and the contribute page gives some details of what we are interested in. You should also look at What is an urban landscape? to see if your work is likely to be suitable.
Currently the photographers with work on the site are: John Davies, Philip A Dente , Lorena Endara, Pablo Fernando, Bee Flowers, Nicola Hulett, Peter Marshall, Paul Anthony Melhado, Neal Oshima, Paul Raphaelson, Herman Schartman, Mike Seaborne and Luca Tommasi, and includes work from Europe, Asia and North and Central America.
Hello Peter, I like your desription of my photographs as ’empty stages’. Having designed some stages in the past, i often look at my compositions this way ! Herman