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Landscape and memory combine, for me, as a means of seeing and documenting the world. Here the emphasis is on trees. Their presence (or absence) out there today can rarely be separated from human history and human intervention. Here I explore that hybrid space between nature and society, and between nature and memory.

Along the western frontier of Ukraine, at every crossing, and at certain points in between, Ukrainians are fleeing for their lives, pursued by freezing north easterly blizzards, yet freed from Russia’s bloody expansionist war.

This volume contains images taken on various continents over the course of twenty years. Franklin tries to summarize some recurring themes through the lens of history, work, leisure and globalization, to which the four main sections of the book correspond. The selected images trace a subjective path through the modern metropolis, in search of the signs of the process through which cities and their inhabitants mutually molded each other.

Sea Fever” is a beautifully produced book about the changing face of Britain’s coastline. High quality duotone reproduction of Stuart Franklin’s stunning black and white photographs take the reader from the impact of storms in the Outer Hebrides to the aftermath of the flash flood in Boscastle, Cornwall, covering some of the major maritime events of the year, including the Festival of the Sea, the re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar, Cowes Week and the Solent Fleet Review.

Addressing many of the concerns and pressures that are changing our shoreline, “Sea Fever” is an inspiring book that explores environmental and social issues such as shipbuilding, fisheries and the protection of the coast. It is a major cultural contribution to SeaBritain 2005 – a celebration of landscape and livelihoods.

“Sea Fever” includes a number of Franklin’s photographs that appear in ‘The Coast Exposed’ exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, London, and at The Lowry, Salford Quays, Manchester, U.K.

Narcissus is a collection of extraordinary landscape photographs taken by Franklin over a five year period in the region of Møre og Romsdal on Norway’s western fjordland. Beginning in 2009, Franklin bought a cottage by a lake on the island of Otrøya, spending a great deal of time there over the following years. The resultant body of work documents his experience in this remote place, which led to a deeper understanding and sensitivity for the abundance around him in an environment that at first seemed barren. These very tranquil, contemplative, anthropomorphic and introverted landscape photographs time and again seek references to human beings—a path, a chopping block in a far corner of the property, the reflection of the silhouette of a mountain in a lake that seems to melt into a human portrait. An urbanite encounters a small, special piece of nature and sees his reflection in it.

The book confronts nature, landscape, and memory. Stuart Franklin wrote after Maurice Merleau-Ponty that we see the world through the spectacles of memory. He suggested that when we look out at the landscape, at the world around us, we search for something meaningful, a triggered affinity, or reminiscence.

Exploring the landscapes of Dante (Florence), Thomas Hardy (Dorset), Rebecca West (Bray), James Ellroy (Los Angeles), Charlotte Bronte (Lancashire), Louis MacNeice (Carrickfergus), Charles Dickens (East London) etc.

Work in progress … more soon.

This work was commissioned by Magnum Photos in collaboration with Time magazine in May/June 1989. It follows the evolution of a grievance movement in China following the death of Hu Yaobang to a widespread uprising, the eventual crackdown and slaughter in and around Tiananmen Square, Beijing in early June, and the plight of the ‘Tank Man’ as he confronted a row of tanks on June 4th, 1989.