Davis was recommended to me by my Tutor for his b&w series Great Little Tin Sheds of Wales – this is available as a self-published Blurb book but also via Davis’ website.
The Red Hut I have been photographing at Rye Harbour is also a corrugated structure, so there are clear similarities. Davis, however, has a much wider range from which to create a series from in Wales, and uses this with some freedom – some of the sheds are not that little, being houses or old industrial buildings. A few seem to be churches and one looks like it is a pig sty. He does not employ a consistent style (i.e. the Bechers’ watertower approach) but this allows him to introduce aspects such as humour and the environment around the shed selectively to tell more of a story.
As Davis points out in his brief introduction, this story is more about the local people and their relationship with the space than the sheds themselves. Characterful “portraits” of the shed are to some extent environmental portraits of the Welsh, although of course the people are absent.
Black and white works well here – not only does it aestheticise the somewhat run-down aspect of many of the sheds but it lends a uniformity to the series which perhaps allows more free reign to the other photographic elements such as composition.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Davis, P. (1980) Caridigion. At: https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/tin-sheds (Accessed 30.9.2022)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Davis, P. (2017) Great Little Tin Sheds of Wales. Wales: Blurb (self-published) and At: https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/tin-sheds (Accessed 30.9.2022)
Level 3.1 Learning Log 
1 thought on “Pete Davis”