Landscape is a changeable entity, what you see changes with the weather, the seasons, the years, and with human or animal interference. No landscape can really be seen as being permanent or eternal. But some landscapes can be much more ephemeral, and I have been thinking a bit about these kind of temporary landscapes.
Atmospheric conditions caused by ash from the Australian fires earlier this year changed the look and feel of the landscape here in Auckland New Zealand. Photographs can’t do justice to the eerie apocalyptic experience. The familiar was transformed into the uncanny. And then it was gone.
This image shows a series of gravel and snow piles pushed into imitation mountain peaks to clear the carpark at Whakapapa ski field. It is real and solid and beautiful, but only until it is transformed again by more snow, or melted away in the spring. The gravel that provides some of the structure will fall away with no snow and ice to hold it in peaks. I took this photograph last year. When I stand in the same spot this year, the landscape will be completely different. It is a landscape of chance and memory.
Rhubarb Pyjamas 