MAP6 are a group of ten Photographers who use photography as a means to explore the relationship between people and place. They take a week each year to go around a location, new to each member, and work collectively to produce a photographic impression of that place and the people in it.
Another part of their work is that the photographs are often accompanied by text, giving some more context to the photo, helping to explain it, and adding to the depth of the photograph, bringing in a more personal link to the place they are documenting.
Another part of their work is that the photographs are often accompanied by text, giving some more context to the photo, helping to explain it, and adding to the depth of the photograph, bringing in a more personal link to the place they are documenting.
"Due to the Shetland islands geographical positioning as the UK’s furthest point north, it has had a long history of being used by the military to observe and defend the UK from foreign activity. During WW2 there were many observational posts that were used to defend key areas of the island to stop invasion. During the cold war strategic observational posts and communication systems were set up on Shetland, observing through radar any activity in the north, including that of the Russians. This included a radar station at Saxa Vord and NATO’s ACE High communications system, allowing long-range communications between NATO’s high command. At Saxa Vord the Radar station has recently been reinstated to monitor the Russian threat once again.
Richard Chivers visited key sites on the Shetland Islands, to photograph the landscape and the remaining Military buildings that exist." |
"Birds, delicate creatures, hiding both strength and fragility in their small frame, make arduous migratory trips every year, year after year, visiting these geographically and strategically important islands, over 200 km from the Scottish mainland. The true symbol of freedom, they ignore fences, borders, cultural differences and nation states. They soar above it all, hiding in plain sight, floating, like beings from another world. Driven north to find breeding space, these creatures find the hardest, most brutal coast. Exhausted, they see Shetland and are welcomed home."
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Their work stood out to me, as it relates almost entirely to what I want to pursue in photography. The main influence from them is the aspect of travelling and documenting places in a meaningful way, and accompanying that with writing to contextualise the image and help to tell the stories of that place.