Jem Southam is one of the UK’s leading landscape photographers. He is renowned for his series of colour landscapes that examine the changing physical environment of the south and south-west of England. Using a 10 x 8in plate camera, Southam patiently observes and documents the changing nature of the English landscape. He observes the balance between nature and man's intervention and traces cycles of decay and renewal. His work combines topographical observation with other references: personal, cultural, political, scientific, literary and psychological. Southam's working method combines the predetermined and the intuitive. Seen together, his series suggest the forging of pathways towards visual and intellectual resolution.

This photograph is from the series ‘Paintings from the West of Cornwall’ made in the 1980s. Southam focuses on the processes and customs associated with making artwork. Here, his precise, detached style invites the viewer to scrutinise the café interior, the numerous artworks on the wall, the multi-coloured sunblind on the ceiling, the variety of signs and the way in which the static arrangement of the sitting accommodations is placed.