Born in 1954 in Zambia, and raised in the lush Luangwa Valley, Jonathan’s passionate relationship with nature can perhaps be traced back to a piece of classic Italian design in Bakelite: a brand new Ferrania camera.

A gift from his father on his sixth birthday, Jonathan used the camera to capture images of wild animals being relocated to make way for the construction of the Kariba Dam.

Jonathan was shortly relocated himself as his family moved to Yorkshire, England, before returning to complete his schooling at Michaelhouse in Kwazulu-Natal. Thereafter, he majored in Mathematics at Rhodes University, but the call of the Art and Photographic Departments soon saw him departing for a new life in Johannesburg, a newly-acquired wife, and a new job as a press photographer.

Cutting his teeth on serious documentary work, Jonathan soon came to the realisation that “photography cannot tell an absolute truth” as it represents a particular perspective, an edited moment that translates news through pictures – and often leaves the photographer searching for an aesthetic in tragedy. He subsequently moved on to film, with a brief stop in the “frivolous” world of fashion along the way.

Much of the next two decades were spent as a commercial film director with projects spanning the globe. But, as he was to find out, commercials have a short life span; images live on.

His current exhibition embodies a short-term narrative, delivered by a series of “moving” still pictures taken at over 250km/h from high-speed train trips through Germany. At these speeds, interpreting details of the landscape becomes challenging - only archetypes and anomalies catch one’s attention. Jonathan took series after series of images, each one with diminishing detail and simply reflecting an “impressionist panorama”.

These images allowed him to explore with new depth an emerging evolutionary philosophy while searching for archetypes and the reason why we recognise them and their place in art. He also questioned how abstract an archetype can be before it is rendered useless. So began his serial documentation method, with each journey pushing the boundaries a little further. His nudes – despite the fact that they require the same technology to capture - are more commercial.

Jonathan is already at work on his next project, one that expands his current fascination with this style and photographic technique.