Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: rabanito on December 01, 2018, 04:27:27 pm
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I am not so sure. I accept that subjects in "street" are usually moving and, with some bad luck, could strike back
But there is all it is to it
If you are doing landscape there is the rotation of the earth and the meteorology changing the light continuously and, if you are not there at the right time and with the right weather, the static objects are changed.
They are "Morphing" :-)
It is a different dynamic but IMHO absolutely not static.
Landscape is not only the "objects".
It's not "l'instant decisif" of HCB but you have to move, take as an example "The Making of 'Moonrise - Hernandez' "
A short while later all is gone. Probably forever.
They are different realms.
Opinions?
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I'm not sure worrying about whether something is static or moving is all that helpful. What are you trying to achieve at that level of analysis?
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I'm not sure worrying about whether something is static or moving is all that helpful. What are you trying to achieve at that level of analysis?
You have much to learn about Spanish political thought process!
:-)
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I'm not sure worrying about whether something is static or moving is all that helpful. What are you trying to achieve at that level of analysis?
I'm asking for opinions on a subject that interests me.
The subject was commented in another topic and made me curious.
I'm here to learn from the more experienced, not to "achieve" anything.
I could just post pictures and look at the pictures of others. But I expect more from a forum
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You have much to learn about Spanish political thought process.
I have much to learn about many things. Unfortunately, time is running out.
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Inter-departmental rivalry is a fact of life. Sales hates Marketing, Accounting hates both, and vice versa. The same with genre photographers. Street photographers look down on Landscape photography, and vice versa.
The whole thing is just plain silly and does not deserve a serious debate.
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I have much to learn about many things. Unfortunately, time is running out.
I gave up trying when I found my failure level.
They say that when you fail you should try, try, and then try again. However, if you fail again after that, give up because there's no point making a fool of yourself.
That was sound advice!
:-)
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Hum trees are moving and growing rivers are flowing and so is lots of things in the landscape so are the static? It depends on how you determine static. To show weather in a landscape is how you can make great landscape images, the ones with out seem lifeless.
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I'm asking for opinions on a subject that interests me.
The subject was commented in another topic and made me curious.
I'm here to learn from the more experienced, not to "achieve" anything.
I could just post pictures and look at the pictures of others. But I expect more from a forum
You are right to expect more.
1. You are not correct in your analysis of street, because as is painfully obvious in this community, streets are where people often get lost amid all kinds of twists and turns and false signals. It is not a simple open and shut situation but, indeed, very much like Pandora's box.
2. You make a valid point about Earth being in a state of perpetual motion, but it is still when observed from the perspective of the man about to click the shutter, things such as wind being an unavoidable reality, especially if you live on an island or near the sea.
Regarding the morphing from season to season, taking the longer view, as it were, then people have already performed the experiment of shooting within their own tripod holes at regular intervals in order to track comparative stages of the annual bump and grind of Mother Nature. I'm not sure about the morality of this process, but what would I know? Neither do I know if those people have proved a point or simply completed a project of doubtful value.
On the concept of landscape being creative, which I kinda think is where you are looking for debate, then I have to say that again, I'm not a true believer. That said, not for a moment do I deny that some rare photographers have the ability to take what's already there and, via technique, turn a pig's ear into a prettier ear, but an ear is ever an ear. Simply selecting an angle and a lens, waiting like Job for a change of circumstance, doesn't quite cut it for me, because all of those steps appear passive. If you can't get landscape to respond to you, do something to your request, then you admit you do not have final control, and can only make the best of a tough situation. Perhaps final control is where painting proves the painter's superiority as artist?
Regarding Hernandez, if the tale is to be believed, it was closer to a case of street than landscape: no time to ponder, just to react. Does that make St Ansel a genius?
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Yes, landscape photography is static - if you make it so.
No, landscape photography is not static - if you make it so.
Perhaps you’re feeling like me: SSDD. I’m seeing a lot of the same old same old, and am tiring of it: different places, but all shot at the golden hour with or without moving water. Landscape photographers seem to have progressed through the eras of the “painterly black-and-white” then the “‘straight’ grand black and whilandscape photography is static - if you make it so.
No, te” and into the era of the “golden hour moving water” (with some astrophotography thrown in for good measure) and are stuck there.
My feeling is landscape photography needs a new paradigm. Maybe Ed Burtinsky is on to something – and I’ll add ‘sadly’ as the environmental state of affairs is not looking good.
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Yes, landscape photography is static - if you make it so.
No, landscape photography is not static - if you make it so.
Perhaps you’re feeling like me: SSDD. I’m seeing a lot of the same old same old, and am tiring of it: different places, but all shot at the golden hour with or without moving water. Landscape photographers seem to have progressed through the eras of the “painterly black-and-white” then the “‘straight’ grand black and white” and into the era of the “golden hour moving water” (with some astrophotography thrown in for good measure) and are stuck there.
My feeling is landscape photography needs a new paradigm.
That's why the spacecraft to Mars.
Rob
P.S. And that made 20,000 posts, and I'm knackered.
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P.S. And that made 20,000 posts, and I'm knackered.
Wow! That’s quite a feat, Rob. Congratulations!
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The whole thing is just plain silly and does not deserve a serious debate.
A somewhat hard way to put it.
Still, in my short life I've learned even from the "silliest" persons.
And "silly" is only a point of view.
They say (not me, for God's sake!) that there are no silly questions and something about the answers
Maybe this apply to debates too :-)
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You are right to expect more.
1. You are not correct in your analysis of street, because as is painfully obvious in this community, streets are where people often get lost amid all kinds of twists and turns and false signals. It is not a simple open and shut situation but, indeed, very much like Pandora's box.
2. You make a valid point about Earth being in a state of perpetual motion, but it is still when observed from the perspective of the man about to click the shutter, things such as wind being an unavoidable reality, especially if you live on an island or near the sea.
Regarding the morphing from season to season, taking the longer view, as it were, then people have already performed the experiment of shooting within their own tripod holes at regular intervals in order to track comparative stages of the annual bump and grind of Mother Nature. I'm not sure about the morality of this process, but what would I know? Neither do I know if those people have proved a point or simply completed a project of doubtful value.
On the concept of landscape being creative, which I kinda think is where you are looking for debate, then I have to say that again, I'm not a true believer. That said, not for a moment do I deny that some rare photographers have the ability to take what's already there and, via technique, turn a pig's ear into a prettier ear, but an ear is ever an ear. Simply selecting an angle and a lens, waiting like Job for a change of circumstance, doesn't quite cut it for me, because all of those steps appear passive. If you can't get landscape to respond to you, do something to your request, then you admit you do not have final control, and can only make the best of a tough situation. Perhaps final control is where painting proves the painter's superiority as artist?
Regarding Hernandez, if the tale is to be believed, it was closer to a case of street than landscape: no time to ponder, just to react. Does that make St Ansel a genius?
Hernandez:
Possibly I didn't express myself well. Blame it on my poor English :-)
The case of Hernandez was just an example. My idea is about LIGHT changing, not over the seasons but from one hour to the other. This doesn't make anybody a genius and I didn't imply that.
I'm a great admirer of HCB, Robert Doisneau and others. But it is not what I do.
I play guitar like others play clarinet. Different sounds, both music (or noise)
And if a painter is superior to a photographer depends on what he/she paints.
Garbage is garbage, independently of the medium :-)
As for having control, other than "Le Baiser de l´Hotel de Ville" ;D ;D I consider street photography just to happen
The photographer just interprets something according to his projections, as probably do the public
Nothing wrong with that but probably the same mechanism as with Landscape
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I am not so sure. I accept that subjects in "street" are usually moving and, with some bad luck, could strike back
But there is all it is to it
If you are doing landscape there is the rotation of the earth and the meteorology changing the light continuously and, if you are not there at the right time and with the right weather, the static objects are changed.
They are "Morphing" :-)
It is a different dynamic but IMHO absolutely not static.
Landscape is not only the "objects".
It's not "l'instant decisif" of HCB but you have to move, take as an example "The Making of 'Moonrise - Hernandez' "
A short while later all is gone. Probably forever.
They are different realms.
Opinions?
Hi Rab, Interesting that you should use Moonrise Hernandez as an example. Ansel slammed on his brakes and, as he put it, "almost ditched the car." He couldn't find his light meter when he was on top of the car and had to guess at the exposure. He tried to make a second exposure but by the time he closed the slide, pulled the film holder and reversed it, the sun had left the crosses. It was an awful lot like street where you never have quite enough time for what you try to do. Read http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhyClicktheShutter.html for a comparison between Moonlight Hernandez, and Moonrise Yosemite Valley, which is much closer to normal landscape.
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A somewhat hard way to put it.
Still, in my short life I've learned even from the "silliest" persons.
And "silly" is only a point of view.
They say (not me, for God's sake!) that there are no silly questions and something about the answers
Maybe this apply to debates too :-)
You realize that the comment about “static” landscape was a bait from landscape haters and you took it? Who cares if the landscape is static or not? Debating virtues of landscape photography with landscape haters is... well, futile (if you don’t like the word “silly”).
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It is a different dynamic but IMHO absolutely not static.
Landscape is not only the "objects".
There is a saying from the 5th C. BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
So yes, nature is every bit as dynamic as "street." Maybe even more so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkLp9d7HKuA
Kent in SD
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There is a saying from the 5th C. BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
So yes, nature is every bit as dynamic as "street." Maybe even more so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkLp9d7HKuA
Kent in SD
Agreed. In fact, I’d argue that the fundamental nature of man is much more rigid than the changing of the world around us.
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The landscape is obviously not static but it seems to me the Landscape Photograph is mired in some kind of static aesthetic. If a photograph is worth a thousand words I find that frequently landscape photography simply says "pretty" over and over a thousand times. Its like a 7 course meal consisting of nothing but desert items. May sound like fun but it quickly becomes monotonous.
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My father was a landscape photographer.
He could wait hours for the correct light to fall over a landscape. Eventually he went back in another season to get the good light.
If the second hand of your clock is your measurement, landscape is static, it changes if you slow down and work according the hours hand or even a calendar.
And yet it can be a matter of a split second to catch that line of shade or that reflection in the water.
Seriously underestimated discipline.
Mastering the effects of the calendar and the hour of the day and pushing the button on that split second makes stunning photography, not only landscape.
Add this to the effects of the era, social and political, and you get the unbelievable exciting playground of the open minded photographer.
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You realize that the comment about “static” landscape was a bait from landscape haters and you took it? Who cares if the landscape is static or not? Debating virtues of landscape photography with landscape haters is... well, futile (if you don’t like the word “silly”).
HAHAHAHA.
What do you expect from a "newbie"?
Imagine you register to the webpage "The Luminous Siamese Cat" and meet there a lot of Siamese-Haters!
Now I know better, have even been ascended to Junior Member. :-)
One learns from experience
But anyway, if you can't chat about this or that in a civilized manner for fear of breaking a taboo, well...
Above all, when you don't know what the local taboos are...
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Hi Rab, Interesting that you should use Moonrise Hernandez as an example. Ansel slammed on his brakes and, as he put it, "almost ditched the car." He couldn't find his light meter when he was on top of the car and had to guess at the exposure. He tried to make a second exposure but by the time he closed the slide, pulled the film holder and reversed it, the sun had left the crosses. It was an awful lot like street where you never have quite enough time for what you try to do. Read http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhyClicktheShutter.html for a comparison between Moonlight Hernandez, and Moonrise Yosemite Valley, which is much closer to normal landscape.
An unlucky choice? I just wanted to illustrate the idea of rapid changing environment conditions with an example everybody would understand.
For me "Landscape" or "Street" is what you see in the final print, whatever the way you obtain it.
And Hernandez is then "landscape". But that is just the way I see it.
Liked your article, thanks !
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My father was a landscape photographer.
He could wait hours for the correct light to fall over a landscape. Eventually he went back in another season to get the good light.
If the second hand of your clock is your measurement, landscape is static, it changes if you slow down and work according the hours hand or even a calendar.
And yet it can be a matter of a split second to catch that line of shade or that reflection in the water.
Seriously underestimated discipline.
Mastering the effects of the calendar and the hour of the day and pushing the button on that split second makes stunning photography, not only landscape.
Add this to the effects of the era, social and political, and you get the unbelievable exciting playground of the open minded photographer.
I liked this answer.
Actually yesterday I thought:
"Hmmmm...it seems that in this forum you should not discuss these subjects:
-Politics
-Religion
-Photography" :)
But I changed my mind. At least on the topic "photography"
Thanks to all
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The landscape is obviously not static but it seems to me the Landscape Photograph is mired in some kind of static aesthetic. If a photograph is worth a thousand words I find that frequently landscape photography simply says "pretty" over and over a thousand times. Its like a 7 course meal consisting of nothing but desert items. May sound like fun but it quickly becomes monotonous.
Well said, Martin. People like Hans Kruse make lovely, technically exceptional landscapes, but the fact that it's essentially the same thing over and over again eventually leads to glazed eyes. As I wrote in http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhatisPhotographyFor.html:
"The camera is a recording instrument. It's not the kind of tool that lets you express your own ideas about what reality should look like. If you're careful it can give you images that are pretty, sometimes verging on beautiful. But it's very difficult to make it give you an image that'll grab you and shake you with a transcendent, spiritual experience – that sudden flash that goes beyond anyone's ability to describe or explain. And that's really what art is about. It's not about making records of things."
Which leads to the point that landscape as art usually is done with a brush and paint. Yes, it's static when you grab it with a camera, but it often has led to a spiritual experience when done with a brush.
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Given that most landscape pictures are really weather pictures, I'd answer the OP's question with a resounding no. The act of landscape photography is anything but static.
We say "the light is changing fast", but what we're really observing is changes in weather.
On the other hand, one might argue that landscape photography is static in that the images look much the same today as they did fifty years ago. They're just better realized now due to technology advances.
YMMV :)
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...Imagine you register to the webpage "The Luminous Siamese Cat" and meet there a lot of Siamese-Haters!...
Fair point.
Unfortunately, that is the paradoxical reality of this site, as even this thread is demonstrating.
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Lately I've been taking off in yet another direction with my photography. I quickly get bored doing the same thing over and over, or the same thing others are doing. For most of this year I've been shooting glass plates with first generation lenses (1840-1865.) The past two weekends I've been going out with my little Chamonix 4x5 and three modern lenses (90mm f4.5 Nikon, 135mm f5.6 Rodenstock, 180mm f5.6 Fuji) and picking scenes that are more about decay. I take full advantage of the soft, gloomy light I've been given, shooting Ilford FP4.. I think the best photos are more about a feeling/emotion than anything else. While not landscapes per se, I've been looking for scenes showing the slow decay of the fading small towns on the Northern Plains. I'm more after "gritty" than "pretty".
Kent in SD
Crooks, South Dakota
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... lovely, technically exceptional landscapes, but the fact that it's essentially the same thing over and over again eventually leads to glazed eyes....
And how many people sitting (static!) in cafe shop windows before a yawn?
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Interesting that the topic is somewhat mute IMO given that "Landscape Photography" has specific connotations (many explained in this thread) and the word static comes from science and has altogether different connotations (stasis, kinetics, etc).
Anyone photographing a waterfall or a stream or river in flow knows that nature is not static, it is moving.
During Hurricane Michael, many photographers photographed trees being uprooted and far flung by nearly Cat 5 winds.
Pretty much not static.
But as many have stated, who cares? It is what it is. To treat the question as though it's a Zen Koan is perhaps futile, IMO.
But really, if this is your rabbit hole, go down into the warren and see what you come up with.
There could be an equally intriguing question: "...is the camera static or moving"? Not in a scientific vein, but rather in terms of genre, considering the realm of motion blur and panning.
Good luck with it all.
Mark
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And how many people sitting (static!) in cafe shop windows before a yawn?
Hah ha Slobodan -
Q: If a person yawns in an empty cafe and there is no one there to see it, does it make a sound?
A: Only if there is a security camera recording...
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And how many people sitting (static!) in cafe shop windows before a yawn?
Oh hell yes. How many old farts sitting around at flea markets you might ask. It’s not limited to landscape by any means.
I don’t think landscape is inherently static but as it is frequently practiced it is. Too much repitition, not enough creativity, too much focus on the technical, not enough thought given to any sort of message.
I’m of course not talking about stuff moving in a landscape. I did n fact notice that there is movent of clouds and rivers and stuff. I’m really on about the static and repetitive nature of so much landscape photography.
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And how many people sitting (static!) in cafe shop windows before a yawn?
Exactly the problem, Slobodan. Far too many photographers think that's effective street photography. Of course it's easy, and you don't have the threat of being chased if you shoot some old guys through a window. But. . .
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Not sure that my brain can cope with this thread. I must still be at the Piaget Concrete Operational stage. If it is about Landscape and Street photography, I think it is a case of Landscape being uninhabited and Street being over-inhabited, rather than issues of static or not.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
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Not sure that my brain can cope with this thread. I must still be at the Piaget Concrete Operational stage. If it is about Landscape and Street photography, I think it is a case of Landscape being uninhabited and Street being over-inhabited, rather than issues of static or not.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
Actually I meant: "Is Landscape Photography 'static'? ".
I could have titled the topic all the way around "Is Landscape Photography 'dynamic'? "
I give my poor English the blame, not your cognitive development ;D
Regards R.
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Wow! That’s quite a feat, Rob. Congratulations!
Thanks - I think?
Keith might be able to rework that into hours that have flown forever...
:-)
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Not sure if this answers the OP's question, but here goes.
I eat everyday. Often the same thing I ate yesterday. I still enjoy eating it even if I ate it a thousand times before.
Beside that, street shots are redundant often as well. So they're static in that sense.
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Thanks - I think?
Keith might be able to rework that into hours that have flown forever...
:-)
Actually, he'd say, here's to the next 20,000!
;-)
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I'd say landscape photography is (or can be) pretty dynamic but the time frame for change may not be the same as other genres. Although sometimes it is.
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I'd say landscape photography is (or can be) pretty dynamic but the time frame for change may not be the same as other genres. Although sometimes it is.
You think? I'm trying to think of the most diverse landscapers I can in a "then and now" sense, and it seems to me the gulf between Ansel Adams and say, Marc Adamus, is tremendous. The same could be said for the gap between HCB and Martin Parr, and I'm sure Rob (or bcooter if he lurks in these parts) could enlighten us on some widely divergent fashion work between the 60s and today.
Point being, I think we agree. I don't find the state of landscape (or photography in general) to be static at all, unless one consciously and deliberately restricts good "landscape photography" to a narrow range that becomes static not by definition, but by intent. (Intent to be dismissive of the genre, I mean)
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You think? I'm trying to think of the most diverse landscapers I can in a "then and now" sense, and it seems to me the gulf between Ansel Adams and say, Marc Adamus, is tremendous. The same could be said for the gap between HCB and Martin Parr, and I'm sure Rob (or bcooter if he lurks in these parts) could enlighten us on some widely divergent fashion work between the 60s and today.
Point being, I think we agree. I don't find the state of landscape (or photography in general) to be static at all, unless one consciously and deliberately restricts good "landscape photography" to a narrow range that becomes static not by definition, but by intent. (Intent to be dismissive of the genre, I mean)
Well yes and no. I was actually talking about the act of landscape photography being dynamic and the elements that change being anything from light to wind to clouds, to seasons and astronomical events. I was thinking it was less dynamic than something like sports where things are constantly changing and moving. So maybe I misunderstood the question. ;D
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The wisdom of a Serb nails it again.
Don't take the bate! :-)
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And how many people sitting (static!) in cafe shop windows before a yawn?
For me, one. How abut you, Slobodan?
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For me, one. How abut you, Slobodan?
One is one too many for me, Russ ;)
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Well, you have to see at least one to understand what a cliché it is.
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Ah, cliché!
I was sitting in another bar yesterday having a cheapo lunch -filling in winter until that favourite Frenchman reopens in, I think, February - and as I waited (they have no wifi) I gazed blankly around the walls at the various painting hanging there. None is great art, I'd suggest, but one thing struck me: however simple and unpretentious, every one is unique and a measure of that painter's ability to apply paints to a surface. I'm sure there are those would argue the same could be said for the guy who applied it to the walls and ceiling. And the thing is, however good or bad the art, there is no mechanical or electronic device altering it. WYSIWYG - honest representation of a person's skills.
No matter how many Med pines, rocks or fishing boats, they are never quite the same as anybody else's paintings and so even if clichéd they remain pretty unique in their own right.
There are conclusions to be drawn, I think.
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The wisdom of a Serb nails it again.
Don't take the bate! :-)
Thing is, if people refuse to rise to bait, then the site might as well be closed, for its readership would suddenly have nothing left to contribute to, or to read from fellow members.
Can you imagine how bored Jeremy would become? He might even relocate to France!
Rob
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I don't know what the original "static" comment meant, but there is a basic difference that's worth exploring.
A landscape (generally, not always) lacks reference to a larger human story. Sure, there's a story there, but nobody cares all that much about the story of a raindrop or a blade of grass of the wind and clouds.
A photograph taken on the street, or really of people, (generally, not always) has at least some slight reference to a human story. A girls perfectly still in a cafe, but still one might wonder why the enigmatic expression, the half-smile. One imagines a lover, a job, a burnt breakfast egg.
There's other things that can go either way. A still life of a craftsman's tools might suggest the human story, whereas a still life of some flowers, or stones, might simply be pretty.
Maybe I am stretching things to call one "static" and the other "dynamic" but I think it's a very important difference between one kind of picture and another kind of picture.
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I don't know what the original "static" comment meant, but there is a basic difference that's worth exploring.
A landscape (generally, not always) lacks reference to a larger human story. Sure, there's a story there, but nobody cares all that much about the story of a raindrop or a blade of grass of the wind and clouds.
A photograph taken on the street, or really of people, (generally, not always) has at least some slight reference to a human story. A girls perfectly still in a cafe, but still one might wonder why the enigmatic expression, the half-smile. One imagines a lover, a job, a burnt breakfast egg.
There's other things that can go either way. A still life of a craftsman's tools might suggest the human story, whereas a still life of some flowers, or stones, might simply be pretty.
Maybe I am stretching things to call one "static" and the other "dynamic" but I think it's a very important difference between one kind of picture and another kind of picture.
I think you’re right... but I would suggest that your romanticizing of humanity isn’t an argument unto itself. “Street” to me, the way some people push it here, seems dependent on the idea that there’s something mysterious, interesting, or even worthwhile about ordinary people going about ordinary people, but I’d suggest that in many cases that’s no more so than the interpretation a first year art student pushes upon a pile of trash in an alley, or a single red dot on a blank canvas.
This isn’t to compare people to trash, to be clear. It’s just to point out the possibility that the “meaning” or mystery we ascribe to unknown humans isn’t inherently more important than a meaning we might find in a field of new flowers or a barren desert.
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Well, people find people interesting, for one thing. Interestingly all sorts of stuff like "leading lines" and "light advances" and whatnot are all a crock, what eye tracking studies consistently find is that people identify the faces and human figures in the frame, and look at those, and that's pretty much it if there are any people.
As for meaning? I dunno. There's more human meaning in a random figure walking down the street than in a waterfall, no matter how dull the former and interesting the latter, isn't there? The waterfall is beautiful, sublime, perhaps the hand of god, but it's not *human*.
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Well, people find people interesting, for one thing. Interestingly all sorts of stuff like "leading lines" and "light advances" and whatnot are all a crock, what eye tracking studies consistently find is that people identify the faces and human figures in the frame, and look at those, and that's pretty much it if there are any people.
As for meaning? I dunno. There's more human meaning in a random figure walking down the street than in a waterfall, no matter how dull the former and interesting the latter, isn't there? The waterfall is beautiful, sublime, perhaps the hand of god, but it's not *human*.
"Interestingly all sorts of stuff like "leading lines" and "light advances" and whatnot are all a crock,"
Yes, and that's the problem that people who want to set themselves up as teachers of photography, art and the like face: you can certainly teach the history of those subjects, and it should be taught wherever people gather to learn about the arts (something totally, and understandably, absent from my obligatory night-school course when I became a company photographer trainee), but apart from teaching the mechanical how-to bits, the ability to teach another human being how to see or, rather, get something graphically and sensually pleasing onto that blank canvas or sheet of film/sensor when confronted with a subject - is a dream. Yes, you can demonstrate how you, as teacher, would do it, but does that imply that the student can then go on and extrapolate a personal development through that example into his own future work? And even if you could, would you, then, be reproducing clones of yourself? The student first has to have the ability in his makeup. If he has that, you can go on to hand him the tools and point out some short cuts. You can't create the genes. Does it make sense to produce all those silly sketches of visual reverse-engineering and expect some poor sap to carry that index file around with him in his head, along with the complicated camera in his hands? Paralysis seems a likely product.
But insofar as landscape not being static: it depends what you define landscape to mean, whether you refer to the physical bits, the influence of the seasons etc, upon how those bits look. Claiming that a waterfall falls and thus, by definiton, can't be static is a bit disingenuous. Saying you can't stand in the same river twice is also twaddle: of couse you can, and you do every time you clamber into your waders and go fishing in it - only the water is changed (even if of exactly the same quality), not the river. There things are just handy little phrases that people latch onto because, on the face of it they look like truisms, but they are really just false analogies and misapplications.
When you can't change the object or control it, hey, you have to accept that it won. All that you can do is skirt around the problem and adapt whilst the object itself remains immutably itself.
Then, you have to decide whether the importance to you is that you are creating something new, or whether it is sufficient for you to observe what is happening and would still be happening, regardless of your presence there or not.
Do you want to start with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, or are you happy just to read?
People photography, in the sense of street, is no more creative because you still lack control beyond standing in one spot and waiting for something to happen. If you start to direct people, then you are hardly doing street: you are creating cameos of whatever you had in mind. It might be fun, it's creative, but it an't street!
Rob
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When you can't change the object or control it, hey, you have to accept that it won. All that you can do is skirt around the problem and adapt whilst the object itself remains immutably itself.
This, for me, is the heart of photography — the object strikes back!
Then, you have to decide whether the importance to you is that you are creating something new, or whether it is sufficient for you to observe what is happening and would still be happening, regardless of your presence there or not.
To give a sense of the persistence of objects, independent of human observation, seems a worthwhile task for photography — more important than street photography's fixation on human drama, or landscape photography's pursuit of the picturesque (a very human concoction).
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I think the original remark regarding static and dynamic was merely a reference to the fact that trees generally do not run away when you set up a tripod with intimidating looking MF gear. You have time to set up and anticipate your shot, you have time to anticipate the dynamics. Whatever one thinks streetgenre should be, we all agree it is about fleeting moments that can hardly be anticipated in the same way.
That said, I do seem to get an interesting revelation from all this bickering. Apparently, landscape does not allow metaphor or simile, where street might be almost entirely about metaphor or simile. In that sense, on the ladder of recognisability, "nature" as a genre is one step ahead of "landscape", since we do recognise behavioural patterns and even simile in animals or groups of animals. Examples of this are left as an exercise to the reader.
Now stop monkeying around.
PS to Keith: No, you don't get to repost your "moderator" picture for the umptiest time to illustrate the point.
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Aw shucks, can I: pretty please.
;-)
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“I don’t like how the forest is organized !” Complained the Birch.
“Don’t mind the Birch, he will be gone before we know. “ said the Beech to the Oak.
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I don't know what the original "static" comment meant, but there is a basic difference that's worth exploring.
A landscape (generally, not always) lacks reference to a larger human story. Sure, there's a story there, but nobody cares all that much about the story of a raindrop or a blade of grass of the wind and clouds.
A photograph taken on the street, or really of people, (generally, not always) has at least some slight reference to a human story. A girls perfectly still in a cafe, but still one might wonder why the enigmatic expression, the half-smile. One imagines a lover, a job, a burnt breakfast egg.
There's other things that can go either way. A still life of a craftsman's tools might suggest the human story, whereas a still life of some flowers, or stones, might simply be pretty.
Maybe I am stretching things to call one "static" and the other "dynamic" but I think it's a very important difference between one kind of picture and another kind of picture.
Well said, Andrew. There's another thing in street photography that makes it work: ambiguity. A bit of ambiguity forces you to fill in the blanks yourself, as you have to do with the girl in Slobodan's "best street picture of 2018" which makes it a lot more interesting than something (landscape, for instance, but not always) that simply tells you, "This is the way it was."
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Why the people who bash Landscape flock to the site Luminous Landscape ??? Go away!
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Why the people who bash Landscape flock to the site Luminous Landscape ??? Go away!
Hahaha, why would you feel threatened? Nothing but urban & cityscapes from you...
;-) <-------------
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Hahaha, why would you feel threatened? Nothing but urban & cityscapes from you...
Not threatened. Just annoyed.
(https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/img/s/v-3/p1857246035-6.jpg) (https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/p504554869/e6eb35353)
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Not threatened. Just annoyed.
(https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/img/s/v-3/p1857246035-6.jpg) (https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/p504554869/e6eb35353)
Ha, didn't we open a thread specifically dedicated to your winning images so we could safely ignore those and stay in our own filterbubbles of assumed excellence?
Ban!
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Not threatened. Just annoyed.
(https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/img/s/v-3/p1857246035-6.jpg) (https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/p504554869/e6eb35353)
What a fantastic morning image. Wish it was mine.
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Ha, didn't we open a thread specifically dedicated to your winning images so we could safely ignore those and stay in our own filterbubbles of assumed excellence?
Ban!
No, you didn’t, but you should have ;)
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What a fantastic morning image. Wish it was mine.
Thanks, Martin.
I occasionally repost my old images for two reasons:
A. To annoy old members
B. To show it to new members
;)
P.S. This image happens to be a good example of a non-static landscape. The whole spectacle lasted a minute or two, in which I had to find a parking spot, jump out, set up a tripod, and fire a dozen overlapping shots. Come to think of it, the photographer wasn’t static either.
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Yes Slobodan. I do feel that much of landscape is static. As I said before I don’t mean in terms of moving trees and water and the like. I mean so much of landscape is copied from winning formulas and is rehashes of succesful images.
Obviously it’s not inherant to the genre and I’m certainly not alluding to this image that you have just shared.
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No, you didn’t, but you should have ;)
Well, i was half right then.
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=109683.0
(Why oh why does my brain store this stuff and not the more useful stuff like where-did-i-leave-my-keys-last-night stuff?)
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Why the people who bash Landscape flock to the site Luminous Landscape ??? Go away!
If they did, who'd contribute anything much?
You'd be left with the proverbial daisy chain...
:-)
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The fact that the purist Landscape shot lacks "the hand of man" and therefore, by definition, lacks connection to human stories makes it harder, not easier.
You could as well argue that "street" relies on the crutch of cheap and easy human stories to generate interest, as you could that "landscape" is static and therefore uninteresting.
I am, explicitly, arguing neither of those things.
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The fact that the purist Landscape shot lacks "the hand of man"
Who says?
Jeremy
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Who says?
Jeremy
Be careful, Jeremy. One could argue that the hand of man is everywhere in the landscape, especially noticeable where there are open fields with cattle grazing, or fields full of beautiful sunflowers.
Even if a landscape appears to be completely natural, one could argue that the verdant lushness of the vegetation is partly due to human emissions of CO2, or that the excessive dryness depicted in an image is due to human-induced climate change. ;)
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The fact that the purist Landscape shot lacks "the hand of man"
And, as somebody asked a while ago: "What's a purist?"
Still waiting for an answer on that one...
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Who says?
A purist, duh.
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The fact that the purist Landscape shot lacks "the hand of man"
And, as somebody asked a while ago: "What's a purist?"
Still waiting for an answer on that one...
Now, on a serious note, is it really possible that a bunch of grownup, educated people need to engage in a semantic hairsplitting about a sentence that is perfectly, absolutely, unambiguously clear?
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I do enjoy the beautiful pristine landscape images that somehow manage to pretend that we are living in a untouched garden of paradise. I spent many years attempting these myself. I was quite young when I saw Faye Godwins work and was quite surprised by it. The walls and domestic animals were things I would have excluded.
Now with our environment under such stress and with my own feelings about that I seem to be more interested in discussing those stresses in my photographs than In seeking out the pristine remanants of our world.
I’m not saying that is the only valid response to the issues but it is mine. I do also think that landscape photography seems to be stuck in a romantic turning away from the realities we currently face. The masters of the f64 movement were so spectacularly successful that their dominating aesthetic continues to this day. Sometimes I think all we are seeing is f64 but in colour and with stars.
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I do enjoy the beautiful pristine landscape images that somehow manage to pretend that we are living in a untouched garden of paradise. I spent many years attempting these myself. I was quite young when I saw Faye Godwins work and was quite surprised by it. The walls and domestic animals were things I would have excluded.
Now with our environment under such stress and with my own feelings about that I seem to be more interested in discussing those stresses in my photographs than In seeking out the pristine remanants of our world.
I’m not saying that is the only valid response to the issues but it is mine. I do also think that landscape photography seems to be stuck in a romantic turning away from the realities we currently face. The masters of the f64 movement were so spectacularly successful that their dominating aesthetic continues to this day. Sometimes I think all we are seeing is f64 but in colour and with stars.
Funny thing about Godwin: when I first came across her I didn't take to her at all. Now, decades later, I find she has something that is mordantly honest. Also, that honesty is projected more strongly through her use of black/white which helps to strip away the rainbows of romanticism and show us what reality looks like when you stop and look at it instead of hurrying past as usual. The very same conclusion was reached a long time ago with war photography: use colour and you create movie trailers, and for the same reason: romance found in the glamour of a little patch of colour on an otherwise bland newspaper or magazine page. It's the well-known effect of the colour red in any picture; it's why Leica planned that dot: they wanted no bush to hide their glow.
Reduced to black and white, there's no place to hide: you either caught something or you came up empty.
The landscape is what it is, and will remain for as long as we don't destroy it. Before we manage that, we shall have destroyed ourselves, and that will allow nature the time to recover, even if with perhaps new forms of vegetation before the world becomes desert and it's too late. Ironically, by our own pyrrhic hand will we will have been proved dispensable, even if nobody will be around to realise that.
As I wrote the above, it struck me that there is perhaps a huge, underlying link between landscape and street, in that both of them really reflect the actions of man more than they tell about anything else; whilst we still exist, we have made ourselves the gods that govern the survival of everything. And probably, the destroyers of that too. Testosterone has one helluva lot for which to answer, something that struck home very forcefully as I looked at the televised graduation portrait of the pretty English girl murdered in new Zealand these past few days. What a waste; what a sin.
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....
Which leads to the point that landscape as art usually is done with a brush and paint. Yes, it's static when you grab it with a camera, but it often has led to a spiritual experience when done with a brush.
Actually, quite impressive touches to otherwise plain photographs can be added also with a digital brush and radial or graduated filters.
Or by warping, squashing, stretching, blurring, and cloning - as demonstrated on this site by Alain Briot or David Osborn. The results of such creative projects and image enhancements can be stunning.
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I do enjoy the beautiful pristine landscape images that somehow manage to pretend that we are living in a untouched garden of paradise. I spent many years attempting these myself. I was quite young when I saw Faye Godwins work and was quite surprised by it. The walls and domestic animals were things I would have excluded.
Now with our environment under such stress and with my own feelings about that I seem to be more interested in discussing those stresses in my photographs than In seeking out the pristine remanants of our world.
I’m not saying that is the only valid response to the issues but it is mine. I do also think that landscape photography seems to be stuck in a romantic turning away from the realities we currently face. The masters of the f64 movement were so spectacularly successful that their dominating aesthetic continues to this day. Sometimes I think all we are seeing is f64 but in colour and with stars.
+1
There is nothing wrong with romantisme, as long it is understood as romantisme and realism is not considered as inferior or unacceptable.
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Actually, quite impressive touches to otherwise plain photographs can be added also with a digital brush and radial or graduated filters.
Or by warping, squashing, stretching, blurring, and cloning - as demonstrated on this site by Alain Briot or David Osborn. The results of such creative projects and image enhancements can be stunning.
Like a kick in the balls. Subtle.
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Like a kick in the balls. Subtle.
It's no so different from creative writing. As Farley Mowat said about his story telling - “I never let facts get in the way of a good story”.
So if you need a little bit more light on that distant hill or add a moose crossing a road, just do it to make a better story. I won't hold it against you.
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So if you need a little bit more light on that distant hill or add a moose crossing a road, just do it to make a better story. I won't hold it against you.
+1
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Street captures humanness. Landscape captures Godliness.
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Not threatened. Just annoyed.
(https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/img/s/v-3/p1857246035-6.jpg) (https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/p504554869/e6eb35353)
Awesome.
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A purist, duh.
Go up a stage, Slobodan. Who says that's what a purist says?
Be careful, Jeremy. One could argue that the hand of man is everywhere in the landscape, especially noticeable where there are open fields with cattle grazing, or fields full of beautiful sunflowers.
For myself, I can't see how one can argue anything else in many circumstances. Look at Hans's Tuscany photos, for example, or many of those of the Lake District. Antarctica, no; Iceland, sometimes; much of commonly-photographed Arizona, no; the Palouse, certainly.
Are some of those less "landscape" than others? Of course not. And please let's not repeat the absurd omphology of the "is it street?" brigade.
Jeremy
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And please let's not repeat the absurd omphology of the "is it street?" brigade.
You mean oompa-lumpa-ology.
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If we are making generalizations then it should be stated that many landscape photographers have a deep connection with the concept of wilderness and protection. It could be argued that that Ansel's success was do in part to his involvement with the Sierra Club. Of course this is just a trick question to trap all of us. Instead, I would say landscape photographers do what they do because that is what they do. No, not everyone likes landscapes. However, if you look in local homes of people who live near places such as Yosemite, you inevitably will find some landscape photographs. And today more than ever, it has a role in reminding us of what is important - the preservation of natural places. Landscapes are not always static for the person taking the photograph. I have often joked that Yoga is a prerequisite to properly positioning your camera. And yes landscapes are static and boring if we don't relate to them just like anything else.
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If we are making generalizations then it should be stated that many landscape photographers have a deep connection with the concept of wilderness and protection. It could be argued that that Ansel's success was do in part to his involvement with the Sierra Club. Of course this is just a trick question to trap all of us. Instead, I would say landscape photographers do what they do because that is what they do. No, not everyone likes landscapes. However, if you look in local homes of people who live near places such as Yosemite, you inevitably will find some landscape photographs. And today more than ever, it has a role in reminding us of what is important - the preservation of natural places. Landscapes are not always static for the person taking the photograph. I have often joked that Yoga is a prerequisite to properly positioning your camera. And yes landscapes are static and boring if we don't relate to them just like anything else.
Because something was St Ansel's driving force - though it had really been music at first - does not mean that anyone else has a right to jump onto his bandwagon: it's his by right because he managed to make a difference and get things done by government to save wilderness. There's a case to be made for suggesting that the rest of the people who fill the tripod holes are doing the very opposite: they are just creating more pressure on nature.
Local people hang on their walls what local people can buy. That's probably all there's to it.
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Why can't we enjoy photography, landscape or otherwise, for what it is. Do we have to politicize everything?
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Why can't we enjoy photography, landscape or otherwise, for what it is. Do we have to politicize everything?
But people do enjoy it; the chat is the extra that allows people to exchange ideas. Showing snaps is, well, only partly satisfying if you care about photography enough: you feel a need to talk about it, and express what you think about it in general.
The two are complementary, not exclusive actions.
Rob
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The wisdom of a Serb nails it again.
Don't take the bate! :-)
He is a master of it ! ;)
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And you thought the landscape is static ;)
https://luminous-landscape.com/changing-landscape/
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With the press of the shutter button a moment never to be the same again is captured. It's up to the artist as to what the camera is pointed at.
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With the press of the shutter button a moment never to be the same again is captured. It's up to the artist as to what the camera is pointed at.
Quite so; but where does that leave landscape and its condition?
Rob
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Quite so; but where does that leave landscape and its condition?
Rob
Weather and light with a composition...Happy New Year.
Peter
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Weather and light with a composition...Happy New Year.
Peter
Happy 2019 to you too, Peter.
Rob
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And happy new year to you both. . . and to all the LuLa posters. ;D