Nature in the Neighbourhood

Nature in the Neighbourhood
One of the best things about Sweden is the ease with which you can get out in nature. The Swedes also help by having a deep appreciation of the importance of nature to everyday life. So there are cycle paths, hiking trails, skiing tracks and overnight huts throughout the countryside. The first two pictures were taken yesterday morning at the beautiful Stångtjärn. It’ a ten minute cycle ride from Falun. You can see the trees fringing the lake are just taking their early autumn colours. The last picture was taken in mid winter – it’s a cross country skier going across the lake with deep snow covering the ice.

RODDY FOX

Roddy is a self taught photographer whose first camera, a Zeiss Ikon, was bought in 1974 from a second hand dealer in Glasgow. Through the forty years since then, he's taken landscape photographs with Pentax, Olympus and FujiFilm systems for his teaching and research as a geography academic at Kenyatta and Rhodes Universities. He has always been inspired by great nature and landscape photographers such as Nick Brandt, Beth Moon, Obie Oberholzer and Hans Strand. Since taking early retirement he has been able to pursue his passion for photography, published a photobook ’Symmetry in Nature’ and held three solo exhibitions at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa. 

His landscape photography is about light: often at low angles, of forests, mist and clouds, the night sky and lightning. He prints on different media depending on the affects he wants to produce: brushed aluminium for reflecting angled light; Hahnemühle German Etching paper for soft diffusion; Ilford Metallic Gloss for vibrant night pictures.

His conceptual photography uses mirroring and merging of layers to explore patterns, motifs and the feminine in nature.