What's this picture about, Tony?
What a very surprising question - to me at least.
Do pictures, not least landscape pictures,
have to be "about" anything?
What are landscape pictures generally about? Light, atmosphere, a sense of place, the lie
of the land, traces of human activity, shape, colour - perhaps nothing more sometimes than line
within the context of land and our relationship to it.
In this instance I liked the interactions of all the lines, the strong tree line, the marks
on the field... they give the lie a little to what, as you have observed, might otherwise be
considered a rather static scene.
Generally I try and eschew giving any kind of prominence to specific objects because then the
picture becomes a picture "about" those objects rather than the land itself and that holds
little interest for me personally.
In this instance I have nevertheless included a tractor - it's visible in the ruts that the farmer
has made turning in this corner of the field.
I had observed these shapes previously but declined to bother shooting them. On this occasion
though I thought that the muted colours and the cold light and the frozen stillness might work
in conjunction with the lines to produce an image of sorts.
I would describe it as an "action" shot - and it's "about" a farmer who drove a tractor in his field.
By my usual standards it's very dynamic.