Overview

In Imperfect, photographer David George brings together 300 unpublished photographs – striking night-time colour images, and fine monochrome photogravures using the century-old intaglio method. It is the culmination of eight years’ work, drawn from more than 4,000 images made while walking hundreds of miles over carefully planned routes along the major river corridors of North-East England. Uniquely, George has deliberately relinquished control over the final outcome, accepting ‘imperfection’ as part of his process. The result is a body of work of exceptional power and subtlety: a memorable record of land shaped by industry. Images that invite us to think about our landscapes – and what they reveal about our society.

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9781912528653

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Reviews

David George’s Imperfect is a project one can feel as well as see. The purposefulness and observational intensity of the walks, the studied care for processes, analogue or digital, in field or in studio seep into the work. While the images often focus on the scars and relics of a specific post-industrial era and territory, there is a universal melancholy to their simultaneous ‘then and now-ness’. To steal from Tarkovsky, of whom these photographs and photogravures are at times reminiscent, here is an artist ‘sculpting in time’.    Michael Upton Head of Teaching and Learning Development London Metropolitan University  David George’s landscape photography is an exploration of place, time, and memory, a sustained eight-year journey along three rivers - The Tees, The Tyne, and The Wear - and the rugged coastline from Hartlepool to Berwick. His work is both documentary and poetic, capturing a landscape shaped by industry, nature and human presence and absence. Through this prolonged engagement, David George exposes the subtle transformations that occur over the years, revealing the traces of history embedded within land and river.  The night photographs are special. David George uses the nocturnal landscape as a stage for quiet contemplation, where artificial and moonlight merge to create a sense of heightened stillness. His long exposures soften the boundaries between reality and memory, transforming familiar environments into mysterious, liminal spaces. These images evoke not only the geography of the North-East but also its history - haunted by the remnants of industrial pasts and illuminated by moments of unexpected beauty. Complementing the photographs are George’s photogravures, which add a tactile, almost archival quality to his visual narrative. The delicate tonal range achievable through the photogravure process reveals aspects of drawing, making you feel a memory - the material presence is almost painterly. Together, the series forms a meditation on endurance, transience and belonging. In walking these waterways and coastlines, David George has captured more than landscapes: he has traced the enduring pulse of place and the quiet persistence of memory within. Zelda Cheatle FHRPS International Photography Curator David George chases memories of the wild and the wonderful as he journeys through the familiar but evolving landscapes of his childhood in the North-East of England. Both his explorations and photographic approach reflect the imperfect nature of memory and the jeopardy of existence: sublime colour images express nostalgia for lost industries abandoned like the carcasses of giant beasts in an untamed land, while ethereal photogravures sketch the edges of memory, exposing a deep-rooted emotional attachment to place. These are works of love and loss.   Susan Andrews Emeritus Reader in Photography London Metropolitan University 

Author Information

Raised in Middlesbrough, David George has worked for 45 years as a freelance photographer, exhibiting and publishing nationally and internationally. He teaches analogue and alternative-process photography at London Metropolitan University and lives and works in East London.

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