UNFINISHED OPEN CALL

stephanie stanton

the way.

Throughout 2020 many of us got out and walked around our local areas as a distraction from the pandemic. We developed new patterns, habits and routines. We actively sought new ways to make ourselves happier in the simplest of ways. To retreat from the challenges and distractions of modern life we searched for a moment of solitude and contemplation. In an effort to switch off or reconnect, we turned to nature. As nature helps us to switch off it also helps us to wake up, to question and seek answers about ourselves and about others. We use this time to rationalise and to make sense, to give meaning and to escape. This year, living within the National Forest I found myself visiting the same few locations close to home and each time making new discoveries. I was identifying new scenes and witnessing subtle changes. Each time I visited with a sense of apprehension about what I would find, convinced there would be little left to explore, I was repeatedly proven wrong. I learnt more about the forest and more about myself. I began photographing the things I noticed and eventually the people I met. This is what led to the development of The Way. The Way is a photographic documentation of the National Forest Way, a twelve stage collection of walks designed to take you on a 75 mile route from east to west across the forest. The photographs aim to capture the changing landscape as you travel across the area taking in both urban and rural locations, documenting the people and places discovered along the way. This project is not possible to be confined by any timescale, it is an infinite project that will remain ongoing for as long as I continue to walk and re-walk the set route across the forest. Ultimately, The Way should create a body of photographs reflecting the location and individual personalities that together reveal the authentic character of The National Forest. It is not the intention for any of these photographs to have any sustenance at this moment but act as a time capsule, a work in progress for the future.