For over thirty years, Geoffrey James has been investigating Western society through two opposing themes: the ideal spaces – formal gardens and sylvan parks, and the sites that record the impact of culture on nature- the wastelands of mining sites, and the economic systems of a problematic international border. James’s photographs reverberate with a sense of history yet are solidly rooted in the present. His ability to locate human aspirations within built environments, coupled with a keen sense of pictorial structure, have allowed him to discover poetry and irony in both the planned landscapes from the past and in the visual complexities of our contemporary urban environments.