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Shifting Landscape

Visual Art & Photography

via Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand

Urban Frags

Black-and-white grid of twelve dark photographic panels showing blurred vegetation, foliage, trees and indistinct landscape fragments, with subtle suggestions of reflected forms.
Pond Life

Urban Frags brings together altered photographs made with a mobile phone, using fragments of the urban landscape as raw material. The Salvador 84 lens in Hipstamatic was central to the process, introducing mirrored, rotated and displaced overlays that could then be photographed again using Hipstamatic’s multiple-exposure function. These accumulating layers were assembled into tiled mosaics and abstract compositions.

Buildings, containers, rail yards, bridges, pipes, trees and other fragments become shapes, patterns and recurring forms. As exposures accumulate, scale and perspective begin to slip, with recognisable elements shifting between architecture, geometry and landscape. The resulting images retain traces of their urban sources while becoming increasingly fragmented, layered and ambiguous.

Across the work, photography becomes a process of accumulation and reconstruction. Fragments are transformed, photographed again, repeated and brought together into larger visual fields, turning encounters with the city into constructed landscapes. Urban Frags sits alongside Scottish Machine Tools within this broader body of altered photographic work, where ordinary urban material becomes the starting point for something less fixed and more abstract.

  • Urban Frags 1-6
  • Black-and-white layered photograph of steel beams, mesh, cables and industrial structures, with fragments of printed signage overlapping through multiple exposures.
    Black-and-white layered photograph of tilted steel beams, diagonal supports and mesh platforms, with overlapping structural forms and fragments of printed text.
    Black-and-white layered photograph of steel framework, mesh, cables and cylindrical tanks carrying printed text, combined through multiple exposures into a dense geometric composition.
    Gridwork I -III

  • Black-and-white layered photograph of freight containers in a railyard, with overlapping pale and dark forms, diagonal lines and repeated container markings forming a fragmented geometric composition.
    Railyard Mosaic
  • Black-and-white grid of fifteen altered photographs of shipping containers, transformed through camera movement and repeated exposures into fragmented, spinning geometric forms.
    Spin Geometries
  • Black-and-white layered photograph of large industrial pipes overlapping a hazy landscape, with power lines crossing the sky and a transmission pylon visible in the distance.
    Black-and-white layered photograph of overlapping industrial pipes above a hazy landscape, with diagonal power lines, a transmission pylon and trees along the dark horizon.
    Black-and-white layered photograph dominated by overlapping circular pipe openings, with faint power lines and industrial structures visible through the multiple exposures.
    Black-and-white multiple-exposure photograph of overlapping industrial pipes, their circular openings and curved forms creating a dense, hazy abstract composition.
    Black-and-white multiple-exposure photograph of stacked industrial pipes across a hazy landscape, with faint power lines, a streetlight and low industrial structures visible through the layers.
    Black-and-white multiple-exposure photograph of stacked industrial pipes against a pale sky, with a bird in flight, streetlight and translucent circular pipe echoes visible through the layers.
    Pipe Dreams I – VI

  • Black-and-white layered photograph of stacked shipping containers forming an irregular, subtly head-like mass, with repeated corrugation, identification markings, numbers and shipping symbols.
    Container Head I

  • Black-and-white layered photograph of stacked shipping containers forming a large diamond-shaped arrangement with a subtle head-like presence, surrounded by translucent overlapping exposures and dense container markings.
    Container Head III
  • Black-and-white layered photograph of a bridge-like steel framework, with overlapping girders, platforms, cables and mesh walkways forming a dense geometric composition.
    Black-and-white layered photograph looking along an enclosed steel bridge structure, with repeating beams and mesh sides framing the city skyline and Sky Tower.
    Black-and-white layered photograph of a tilted bridge-like steel framework, with overlapping girders, stairs and cables and glimpses of city buildings beyond.
    Black-and-white layered photograph of a heavily tilted steel bridge framework, with overlapping girders and cross-bracing and Auckland’s Sky Tower visible upside down through the structure.

    Girders I – IV

  • Black-and-white grid of eighteen altered photographs of shipping containers and industrial structures, fragmented through repeated in-camera exposures into layered geometric forms with a faint suggestion of a world map.
    Black-and-white grid of eighteen altered photographs of shipping containers and industrial structures, transformed through repeated exposures into layered geometric forms with subtle echoes of pyramids, mountains and dark monumental shapes.
    Container Landscape

  • Black-and-white grid of twelve photographs of railway lines, industrial structures and landscape, made through repeated in-camera exposures while turning the camera, creating layered and angular forms.
    Railyard Geometry
  • Black-and-white grid of nine photographs of a roadside tree, shot through rain-covered glass, with droplets, blur and multiple exposures fragmenting the tree and surrounding urban scene.
    Tree Lines
  • Black-and-white abstract photograph with a floating black square near the centre, surrounded by blurred, overlapping architectural forms and pale reflective spaces.
    Black-and-white abstract photograph with a large dark arrow-shaped form emerging from overlapping corrugated architectural structures and pale geometric spaces.
    Black-and-white abstract photograph centred on a large dark square-shaped form, surrounded by overlapping architectural surfaces, corrugated textures and pale angular spaces.

    Dark Geometry I – III

  • Black-and-white layered photograph of stacked shipping containers forming a broad, subtly head-like mass, covered with repeated corrugation, numbers, labels and shipping symbols.
    Container Head II

  • Black-and-white four-panel image of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, repeatedly layered and rotated so its steel structures form a pale, symmetrical geometric composition.
    Harbour Bridge
  • Black-and-white altered photograph of an Auckland city street arranged symmetrically around a tall central building, with mirrored architecture, signage and road elements forming a vertical totem-like composition.
    Totemic
  • Black-and-white layered photograph looking upward through a steel stair structure, with overlapping stairs, platforms, railings and supporting framework forming a dense geometric composition.
    Black-and-white layered photograph looking upward through steel stairs and structural framework, with repeated railings, beams and latticework crossing at diagonal angles.
    Black-and-white layered photograph looking upward through steel stairs and framework around a large concrete silo, with overlapping structural elements forming a fractured geometric composition.
    Black-and-white layered photograph looking upward through a steel stair structure, with overlapping stairs and framework forming a distinct five-sided geometric arrangement.

    Iron Works I – IV

  • Black-and-white photograph of layered industrial structures converging around a dark central opening, with pale beams and architectural details forming a broad diamond-like geometric arrangement.
    Black-and-white photograph showing a dark central diamond-shaped opening surrounded by converging pale structures, with a faint railyard, buildings and horizon visible through overlapping layers.
    Black-and-white photograph of overlapping industrial structures tilted around a large dark central shape, with pale beams and repeated architectural lines radiating across the image.
    Black-and-white photograph looking down into an industrial structure, with broad concrete surfaces converging around a large dark central void and layered railyard details around the edges.

    Railyard Kaleidoscope I – IV

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