These pictures form a series of photographs made on an ongoing basis in a large common in the south east of England. The Common is also an extensive nature reserve, recreational resource and lowland heath, one of the oldest forms of British landscape. It is a place with a military history that is also used as a film location. This work therefore considers the question of how a commonly encountered modern English landscape, multi-layered with complex social, political and cultural histories might be represented through photography.

The process of making this series involves extended observation and field – work considering the significant visual changes the common undergoes seasonally, and involves references to artistic and literary representations of landscape in foregrounding the combined importance of history, mythology and topography in representing place. A view camera is used to slow the process of seeing and to emphasize the constructed character of pictures. This process produces highly detailed printed works considering questions of spectatorship through photography as a practice of picture making and as a pictorial form. The common is photographed in ways that enable views of the landscape to be alternately revealed and concealed throughout the seasons, documenting visible natural changes in a landscape that embodies histories beyond its visibility.

Exhibitions for this work to date:

Solo Exhibition: Fergus Heron: Common Measure, The Front View Photo Art Gallery, Whitstable, Kent, England, curated by Tom Sutherland and Julie Thorne, February 4th - April 22nd 2012

Open Studio at Phoenix Arts, Brighton, May 19th – 20th 2012