Gerhard Stromberg - Two Moons
24. February 2000
Today, my first negatives from the New Forest.
The route I took with Linda yesterday is a journey I would like to repeat every day. There is nothing more beautiful then feeling something or somebody become more familiar and closer. Prejudice and fear slowly make way for trust and affection.
There is no use in trying to see all of the Forest. This residency cannot be a survey but must be a process of approximation. The more personal an experience the drive North from Sway to Godshill will become, the greater will be the likeliness of pictures to emerge.
Relationships with landscapes are not different from relationships with people. I measure what I see in this Forest against the relationship I have with the landscape in East Anglia. What seems familiar and comfortable is not so in its own right but through memory.
And yet, I know that the landscape here contains characteristics I have long searched for. Ever since I made Town (Kodaikanal) I had a desire for landscapes which unfold vertically as well as horizontally. The situation I found at and around Black Gutter Bottom [Link to Black Gutter Bottom large.jpg] matches these longings. The road runs in a wide semi-circle along a ridge which, at certain points, allows a seemingly endless view down across an expansive valley plain and gently up toward mellow hills with defined and lively horizons. I would be very happy just to arrive at, say, half a dozen views of this landscape, all very similar at first sight but rich in subtle differences upon closer scrutiny.
