APRIL 2025: JIM RICHARDSON
PHOTOGRAPH: CONTEXT
THE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
From Jim Richardson: “Context includes all the things that you put within the frame of a photograph that contribute to make it into a storytelling picture. It's how we know and how we interpret photographs when we look at them. It's hard to do, but it's such a valuable skill when you think about the inclusion of context and how/why it contributes.”
To see an example of Jim working with context in a photograph, see the photograph below.
HOW TO ENTER. IMPORTANT NOTES ON FILE SIZE AND ENTRIES
Send your entry to stories@photowalk.show. Your picture should be 2,500 pixels wide, if possible, for online optimisation. Or send the full-resolution photo, which we will optimise. Feel free to provide text as well if you think it will help explain the location, context, etc. Please don’t add borders or watermarks, and be sure to send FULL URL links to your websites and socials so that we can link to your work on this assignment page. We’ll use a selection of photos you submit on our Photowalk Instagram to showcase your work to our community and help build connections.
Entries are shown below. Good luck!
Neale
JIM RICHARDSON
Here’s an example of a photograph with context, made when I went out to the Isle of Muck. I was photographing Lawrence MacEwen up on top of his island, Muck. Lawrence makes a great portrait. I mean, he's got these eagle eyes and this hair blowing, and you know he's just a great great character, but within the picture, is his sheep dog over on one side of the frame, with the island stretching out into the sea. The bay is over on the right side of the frame, and the Isle of Eigg is in the background, so it's not just a tight portrait of Lawrence, which would have been good too, but it's Lawrence in context, in his environment. He's in his world. This is what his world looks like, and it enriches what we know about him because there is context.
MAC McDERMOTT
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of the US. It starts all the way in the Canadian Rockies, meanders through eastern Washington State, then carves the natural boundary between Washington and Oregon as it rushes to the Pacific. Today, the river is a multi-mode highway; deep-sea cargo vessels can reach all the way to Portland, grain barges connect ports to agriculture in Idaho, and there are freight lines and interstates hugging both sides of the river.
This photo, taken at the end of March this year, was my second visit to the Columbia River Gorge. The TVA Logistics Semi, representative of some of the largest typical road-bound vehicles in the States, is miniscule compared to the Columbia Gorge carved over millennia. The semi is on the Oregon side of the river while I was shooting on the Washington side, 1/2 mile (~800 m) away. At this part of the gorge, the river is about 600 feet (~180 m) below the top of the cliffs on the Oregon side, and about 1700 feet (~520 m) below the tops of the cliffs on the Washington side.
