Landscape

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Rob...

Can't use it... it's been trademarked.

[AreBee]

Slobodan,

Can't use it... it's been trademarked.

As the trademark owner I hereby grant you permission to use "Rob" in perpetuity.

[Rainer SLP]

I know exactly what you mean - I have many like that and when I try to 'see' what there is there for a neutral observer I am left thinking that I like the image because I was there and it was a 'whole immersion' thing that just seeing an image cannot replicate. This is what makes it difficult for the neutral observer and I think this is where many of the "CSI-Miami landscapes" come from - you are no longer there to 'experience' it as a whole so the temptation is to ramp up the saturation etc to re-create the 'WOW' by other means.
So where does that leave me? Your image is clearly of a very enjoyable day, pastel colours everywhere, blue sky and a wonderful morning(?). I understand what Rainer is saying but for some reason the composition gels more than a mere random snapshot so there must be something there even if I find it hard to put into words what it is. I think it is one that would work very well as part of a photoessay better than it does as a standalone image.

Too many times I see scenes like this and over-analyse it (sort of pre-empting the sort of comments Rainer made) and end up talking myself out of taking it - and I usually end up regretting the decision. I wish I could loosen up a bit and go with my instincts more and your photo is a reminder that I have to, and that not all images have to be of a quality that gets my peers fawning over my porfolio.

Hi Spidermike,

(sort of pre-empting the sort of comments Rainer made)

Please explain in simple english words what does that mean so I do not misunderstand it 

[spidermike]

Hi Spidermike,

Please explain in simple english words what does that mean so I do not misunderstand it 

I see a scene like that, I realise it has "no WOW" [your phrase] so do not take it. Instead what I should do is take it because it appeals to me for whatever reason and at least I have the shot in the bag and can decide later if I want to keep it.

[Rainer SLP]

I see a scene like that, I realise it has "no WOW" [your phrase] so do not take it. Instead what I should do is take it because it appeals to me for whatever reason and at least I have the shot in the bag and can decide later if I want to keep it.

Ah, OK, I have a lot of such shots   and sometimes post them for critiques in order to learn ...

... or I post them here http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?board=1.0

 

[RSL]

Russ,

Perhaps Ansel Adams sought to maximise the strength of the landscape by removing non-landscape features.

But when the hand of man is there, it's part of the landscape, Rob. And without man, landscape is nothing. Landscape is beautiful in our eyes, but only in our eyes. Including man or the hand of man in a landscape is to complete the picture and give it meaning.

[RSL]

Too many times I see scenes like this and over-analyse it (sort of pre-empting the sort of comments Rainer made) and end up talking myself out of taking it - and I usually end up regretting the decision. I wish I could loosen up a bit and go with my instincts more and your photo is a reminder that I have to, and that not all images have to be of a quality that gets my peers fawning over my porfolio.

Hi Mike,

I can understanding bypassing something if you're shooting with a view camera and sheet film. I used to do it fairly often. After the visual analysis too much trouble to make the shot to justify all the hassle. But with digital, never, never, never fail to make the shot. It's basically free, and you don't need to unload the film, process it, and contact print it to make your final decision.

[AreBee]

Russ,

...when the hand of man is there, it's part of the landscape... And without man, landscape is nothing...Including man or the hand of man in a landscape is to complete the picture and give it meaning.

Q1. Do you consider that every photo of a landscape unaffected by the hand of man should feature a human?

Q2. What "meaning" do you consider that including the hand of man or a human gives a picture?

[RSL]

Hi RobTM,

Obviously I didn't make myself clear. I think that without man to observe it, nature, landscape in this case, from the point of view of man, doesn't exist. Oh, yes, as far as physics are concerned it exists, as do galaxies beyond the range of our sensing devices, but at that level it's an abstraction. I think the relationship between man and nature is what's important, and from the standpoint of visual art if you take man out of the picture you essentially have nothing very interesting.

[luxborealis]

... from the standpoint of visual art if you take man out of the picture you essentially have nothing very interesting.

Couldn't disagree more, Russ. Nature and landscapes are far better off without the hand of man, woman or anything else human (okay, maybe Neolithic man). There are some stunning and compelling landscapes wrought by the hand of man, but natural landscapes without the hand of man are just as important - if not more so, as they remind us of how much we've done to diminish this poor old planet. The nice thing is, Earth will recover, once we are gone.

[spidermike]

but natural landscapes without the hand of man are just as important - if not more so, as they remind us of how much we've done to diminish this poor old planet.

So man is also an important part of an untouched landscape because the fact we are screwing the planet up makes us appreciate the untouched ones even more. Man is always there...even when he isn't.

Part  and part  and part 

[RSL]

¿ You want to see some of my work ? Go here www.rsfotografia.com , the images are bit small, as when I started that webpage, now abandoned due to personal reasons, the existinhg monitors were not as big as nowadays 

The size of the images doesn't bother me. It seems to be technically competent work of a very formal and static variety. How about going out and doing some current shooting and posting it on LuLa so we can see what you're able to do now.

I know there are rules but there are also tere for to be broken. I do not care much about rules.

Rainer, I can't begin to tell you how many times I heard that statement from callow youths who brought "art" into my wife's gallery during the ten years she owned it. If you're serious you probably ought to consider dropping that line.

Coming now to my suggestions. Looking at your image, one can see that you can move. You are not nailed down onto that point from where you took the picture, but your answer for me is not rational, because you are nailing me down to a point and telling me that I have to go there to see more. I have some imagination and seeing your image I can see that there are possibilities to walk around or drive around.

Actually, Rainer, you have no idea how much I walked around the subject or how many frames I shot, or what any of the problems were/are with that particular subject. I see this kind of thing far too often on LuLa: "Here's what you should have done." -- always coming from people whose only knowledge of the subject is what's visible in the crop of the photograph. There's no way you can even guess what was possible.

[RSL]

Couldn't disagree more, Russ. Nature and landscapes are far better off without the hand of man, woman or anything else human (okay, maybe Neolithic man). There are some stunning and compelling landscapes wrought by the hand of man, but natural landscapes without the hand of man are just as important - if not more so, as they remind us of how much we've done to diminish this poor old planet. The nice thing is, Earth will recover, once we are gone.

Easy, Terry. You're talking politics now, not art, and I see Mike has gone off on the same tangent. "Once we're gone" what the hell difference is any of it going to make? No landscape is stunning or compelling to anybody other than man.

[Rainer SLP]

How about going out and doing some current shooting ...

It is raining quite strong right now ...

[Tonysx]

Good lord! Comments that it's not a landscape to "now you're talking politics"! It's an image! Rainer's second post offered several decent alternative angles of view. None including yours can be described as exciting. Any philosophical or physical comments can be shrugged aside as totally immaterial. It's an image. Not bad. Certainly not great. Nice image.

[RSL]

As they say in Canada, "Eh?"

[AreBee]

Terry,

Nature and landscapes are far better off without the hand of man, woman or anything else human...

The presence of a human in a landscape photo can provide a sense of scale that otherwise would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

[AreBee]

Russ,

...what you're suggesting is that there HAS to be a specifically selected, tight point of focus in a picture for it to hang together. In street photography I'd agree with you. In landscape I don't.

By what means did you place focus? Feature specific? Hyperfocal? Other alternative?

[RSL]

I'm not talking about camera focus, Rob. I'm talking about a prime emotional focus for the scene. As far as the camera is concerned I was shooting with the D800. I probably focused on the fence, but at f/8 everything's in proper focus. As far as the emotional focus point is concerned, Rainer's right. There really isn't one.

[AreBee]

Russ,

Jeffrey and Rainer both consider the subject of your photo to be ambiguous:

For me, it lacks a clear subject.

...you have there 3 main objects fighting each for being the main object in the image.

I wondered on what basis you decided where to locate the focus plane, given that you do not consider it mandatory for a landscape photo to have a principal subject:

...what you're suggesting is that there HAS to be a specifically selected, tight point of focus in a picture for it to hang together. In street photography I'd agree with you. In landscape I don't.

I considered that your response may indicate what you subconsciously consider the subject of the photo to be, potentially helping you to understand why you like it:

I keep passing by this picture in my archives because it strikes me as merely pretty, "merely" being the operative word. But I still like it. Since I've been a pretty serious photographer and enthusiastic visual art aficionado for about 72 years it seems to me I ought to be able to understand why I like it. I don't really, but I still like it

However:

I probably focused on the fence...

Apparently you either do not recall where focus was placed, or you considered placement of the focus plane unimportant.