The View Is a Vehicle

Digital photography / train window / colour interference
27 May 2020

The View Is a Vehicle is a sequence of ten photographs made through a train window on 27 May 2020. Across the sequence, the railway landscape remains recognisable while the conditions of seeing take over. Poles cut across the frame. Reflections merge carriage light with trees and houses. Bridges work like shutters. Motion and the camera’s colour rendering pull the view towards blur and abstraction.

The landscape never appears as a stable subject. Each image is produced by a moving relation between exterior space, glass, camera and passenger. The sequence does not hide these conditions or correct their interference. It uses them as its material.

The final photograph turns towards an empty carriage. It does not explain the preceding views as a reveal. It brings the apparatus already present throughout the series into the frame: the seat, the window, the speed of travel and the temporary position from which the landscape was seen.

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Railway tracks and industrial buildings seen through a train window, divided by a blurred pole.
A Pole Cuts the Field, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Railway landscape under blue sky with a faint carriage-light reflection.
The Field Opens, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Overhead rail structure and reflected lights merging with trees and houses.
Inside Crosses Outside, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Blurred wall and graffiti translated into pale blue, pink and green.
Colour Translates the Place, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Bridge structure crossing the frame over tracks and industrial buildings.
The Bridge Becomes a Shutter, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Railway landscape dissolving into blur behind dirt on the train window.
The View Dissolves, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Rail yard filled with tracks, cables and trains beneath blue sky.
The System Reassembles, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Row of pollarded trees beside railway tracks.
Rail Geometry Enters the Trees, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Holiday Inn building tinted green through reflection and colour shift.
Green Takes Over, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph
Empty green train carriage with landscape moving outside the windows.
The View Turns Inward, from The View Is a Vehicle, 2020
Digital photograph