From the human multitude to the cyclical silence of nature

Known for his photographic practice documenting the YBA generation, Johnnie Shand Kydd’s photography book Ramsholt has been published by Cheerio Publishing. We speak with the photographer about a practice that turns from human crowds toward the silence of nature, tracing questions of belonging, mortality, and the dark memory carried within the landscape

Interview: Merve Akar Akgün

Johnnie Shand Kydd. Fotoğraf: Christopher Woods

Your career began by documenting the highly energetic, boundary-pushing era of the YBA (Young British Artists) generation, followed by the intense, almost pagan streets of Naples. Now, with Ramsholt, we are in a much more meditative landscape that looks inward rather than outward, where you walk the same 50-minute route every day. What does shifting your lens from the human multitude to the cyclical silence of nature correspond to in your own existential journey?

When photographing the YBAs in the mid 90’s, I was swept along by their energy, optimism and sheer fun. The word “no” simply did not exist. Anything and everything was possible. No one ever seemed to go to bed. It was mayhem. Photographing the artists at work and play required a spontaneity and stamina on my part that matched the velocity of their own lives. I worked with a contax T2, automatic focus, fast flash. I would rarely bother to look through the view finder, opting instead to hold the camera at arm’s length hoping that something might come out. The quality was inevitably haphazard but suited the anarchy of the times.

Fast forward thirty years and I’m now in my mid-sixties and have never known the world to feel as scary as it does today. The fate of the planet seems to rest in the hands of madmen. In moments of crisis, one inevitably searches for reassurance and balm and in my case, both are to be found in nature. The beauty, refinement and integrity of nature is a perfect counterbalance to the bombast, vulgarity and greed of our political leaders. Nature needs to be treated with respect and consideration, so I now work in a very different fashion to how I did in the 90s. There is so much emphasis today on making everything faster and easier. Sometimes the very opposite is required so I now like to work slowly and to make the process as difficult as possible. Perverse perhaps but the results are beautiful.

Johnnie Shand Kydd, Ramsholt

In the book, we see you walking the exact same route repeatedly with your lurcher. How did observing the same space within the same cycle eventually transform your way of seeing? Akin to the Stoic practice of looking at each day and the same landscape with fresh eyes, what have these repetitions taught you about the nature of time?

Familiarity can so easily blind you to the beauty that surrounds us all. When I started the Ramsholt project, I set myself the challenge of rediscovering magic in that which can easily be dismissed as ordinary and banal, in the mud flats and reedbeds that I pass every morning. As well as providing the photographs of the book, I also wrote the text. The images may appear to be devoid of any human intervention, but the text offers another narrative, one that describes the incredibly rich and complex history of the area. The landscape may look like a wilderness, but has in fact been forged by human hands over many centuries.

Photographs from Ramsholt by Johnnie Shand Kydd

The press release mentions that the buildings around the river become a stage where centuries unfold, with traces of smuggling, slavery, and war lingering in the air. While looking at the healing beauty of nature, how do you position the residues of humanity's heavy and dark history within the same frame?

It’s funny. I showed the book to the director John Maybury and his immediate response was: “The images look like crime scenes” whilst Tracey Emin’s reaction was “your photographs are about death” so perhaps yes, the dark history lingers on in my photography.

For years, you witnessed the lives and creative processes of others—your close artist friends, the people of Naples. Now, you turn your camera to your inner world, your family's stories, and your own memory. How did stepping out from being the invisible witness behind the viewfinder to becoming a personal part of the narrative introduce a new vulnerability to your practice?

I wanted to make a body of work which was extremely personal but not in a “look at me” way. So, Ramsholt is about my relationship with a landscape I’ve known and loved for many years but of course I do not appear in any of the images. I recently read Jan Morris’s Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. Towards the end she admits that the book is not just a study of a city but an autobiography too. In describing the city, she also reveals herself. Ramsholt hopefully does the same with me. Not literally, but obliquely which is far more interesting.

Photographs from Ramsholt by Johnnie Shand Kydd

Ramsholt is described as a “meditation on the importance of home.” In today's world, the concepts of “home,” taking root, and belonging are deeply wounded for all of us. For you, after spending so many years across different geographies and among diverse human stories, has “home” evolved into a spiritual concept beyond just a physical space?

I’m not sure what “home” really means. I was born in London, before moving to Australia with my family at 3. I returned to the UK when I was 7 only to be sent to boarding school until I was 18. My parents divorced in the 1960s and my father moved to an island on the west coast of Scotland while my mother lived in Suffolk. For the biggest chunk of my life, I was a Londoner through and through. For a good two decades, Soho was the epicentre of my universe but if I walk through it today it means absolutely nothing to me. So, “home” is a variable. However, when I return to the Bawdsey peninsula which is where Ramsholt sits, something about the light, the sensed proximity of the sea, the lines of Corsican pines that thrive in the sandy soil, all these contribute to a sense of contentment, a sense of perhaps “coming home”. There are plenty of far more beautiful places in Britain but just as I don’t like smooth people, so I dislike smooth landscapes. East Suffolk is a bit rough at the edges which is what I prefer. I once returned to my father’s old farm in Australia. I must have been in my late twenties and had not been back since I was a small child. I remember my foot breaking through the dried mud of the riverbed emitting a pungent smell that immediately took me back to my six-year-old self. You can tamper with visuals but not with olfactory memory. I suppose what I’m saying is that home doesn’t have to be restricted to one particular place. 

By its very nature, photography freezes a moment; yet Ramsholt is built upon a fluid memory where the past, present, and ghosts intertwine. How did conveying a centuries-long flow and that sense of timelessness through a static image stretch your boundaries as a photographer?

I rarely set out on a photographic project with a set plan as to how to proceed or even with a sense of direction. I simply respond to what I see and then either take the picture or not. Then it’s a case of going through everything and starting the edit. That’s the moment of revelation when you discover what your subconscious was trying to explore all along. I often don’t process film for months so have no recollection of what I’ve taken. It’s only when I see the results that I might or might not discover a common thread running through the disparate rolls of film. I tend to use old cameras, each of which has its own mood and tone. The images have a timeless quality and could as easily have been taken in 1926 as 2026.

Photographs from Ramsholt by Johnnie Shand Kydd

Your book is published by Cheerio Publishing, which operates with Francis Bacon’s spirit to “intrigue, disturb and thrill.” Although Ramsholt may initially seem like a very serene book intertwined with nature, where does it intersect with Bacon’s unsettling vein? Perhaps this melancholic depiction of nature and memory creates that exact subversive effect by reminding us of our own mortality—what do you think?

As mentioned, Tracey Emin is adamant that my photographs are about death and I take that as a compliment. Tracey is curating an exhibition next month of the Ramsholt photographs and her selection definitely focuses on the darker aspect of my work. The text in the book is certainly saturated by death so yes, mortality pervades Ramsholt. I don’t see this as a particularly gloomy thing. Death is an essential component in the cycle of the seasons. Fungi grow on rotting wood, and you can’t have spring unless it’s preceded by winter. Nature is beautiful but can also be cruel. You’re as likely to stumble upon a Francis Bacon moment in the tooth and claw of the country hedgerow as you will in an urban bedroom.