In the series “Troubled Land” from 1987, Paul Graham deals with the conflict in Northern Ireland, where he combines landscape photography with classical war photography, which was completely new at this time and opened doors for other photographers. In the pictures you see just by a closer look references of the war.

Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1987 © Paul Graham

Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1987 © Paul Graham

Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1987 © Paul Graham

Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1987 © Paul Graham

Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1987 © Paul Graham

“At first sight [the photographs in A Troubled Land] seduce you into viewing them simply as landscapes which accounts for people’s desire to engage with them. But they’re booby-trapped and launch the viewer into another area altogether. They play off that particular kind of sentiment which (Britons) have for landscape—a position which engenders Constable-like fields and Turner-like skies—against sentiments associated with political allegiance, British and Irish. If you don’t delve any deeper, you might see only the flags, signs and graffiti. But these symbols should also be read within the context of the landscape in which they reside, the Union flag in the richest and most fertile lands, the Irish tricolour against the rockier and hillier ground. These different layers of reading within the photographs only come out slowly.” - Paul Graham (from Paul Graham: The Troubles by Paul Bonaventura)

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