Amanda Tinker

Small Animal | In this series of photographs, I arrange details of the natural world collected from my family garden, children’s books and vintage identification guides. Each photograph looks at the natural world as if it were held just for our observation, suspended far from any recognizable landscape. Nature’s small beauties, such as birds, butterflies, twigs and petals become objects of contemplation, organized into layered configurations.

The 8x10” view camera used to make these photographs factors greatly into the work. The rather large piece of glass at the back of the camera, where each image is composed before exposure, offers inspiration. It is a projection screen for my interest in the early history of photography, particularly as a tool for studying nature. One can imagine an era just before the dawn of photography where views of nature stirred on the glass of a camera obscura. Nature had been transformed through optical devices giving way to a diminutive view; the landscape on a smaller, more intimate scale. This project, situated in the 21st century, reflects a more ambivalent, if not estranged, experience of the natural world. amandatinker.com/home.html