Making good landscape photographs is challenging. Mountains and canyons are often photogenic, but other landscape types are less obviously engaging. Forests can be a miasma of detail, and prairies at first glance may appear to be devoid of interest. Chuck Kimmerle has photographed the American West, especially the prairies, for many years, producing striking, engaging black and white images that exploit the strong graphical elements of the plains. Kimmerle uses these images to impart his ideas about black and white photography.
Given the photographic challenges of prairies, I found this book useful for its discussion of finding and framing images, a topic also covered, as "seeing", by Freeman Patterson. Kimmerle writes: "I am not at all convinced that beauty, by itself, is enough. So, I try to add something extra with each photograph to give the audience a reason to stop and ponder: a visual teaser, a play on shapes, or something unexpected." Including this something extra seems to me to be a major challenge for landscape photography, and is what moves an image beyond just a good picture. Instead of telling a story, Kimmerle states that a good image can tell just part of a story, to show that something is going on, encouraging the viewer to wonder what happened before, and what happens next.
A theme that emerges is that the extra something originates partly in the openness of the photographer's mind. Various chapters deal with getting out in all light and weather, exploring all scales, getting high, and low, taking several exposures as light changes.
Image capture and processing work together to convey the impression collected by the photographer in the field. Kimmerle points out that his recollections and RAW files sometimes diverge dramatically. "...my perceptions of a scene are often in disagreement with what the camera records. One of us was wrong, and it wasn't me." Kimmerle insists that memory trumps the limitations of silicon and software. All facets of light adjustment and cropping are on the table, but retouching is apparently not.
Most of the processing aims to bring the image closer to Kimmerle's recollection. A few treatments go much further, for example, turning a sunny scene into a dark and moody composition. We all find our own degree of comfort on the continuum of transformation. Kimmerle asserts that he is producing art, not journalism.
Several chapters discuss the philosophy and methods of processing. The intensity of labour is a little surprising: one example image had 30 curve adjustments. Kimmerle emphasizes the iterative nature of processing. For example, white and black points may need to be adjusted repeatedly as other changes are made to contrast and local brightness.
I bought this as an ibook downloaded to an iPad. Advantages of this format include seeing images that fill the screen, having it handy for perusing while traveling, an index with links that jump directly to the selected topic, and instant gratification. The chapters are short, usually comprising four or five paragraphs and a few relevant images. All images are discussed in the text. The book is carefully organized and well-written. Recommended.
