Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: ChrisS on April 01, 2011, 01:50:15 pm
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What do you understand by the word 'landscape' in relation to the practice of photography?
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What do you understand by the word 'landscape' in relation to the practice of photography?
A photograph with or without people, where the main/sole object of interest is the location tself.
Rob C
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What if the location is the inside of a building?
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Then it's a buildingscape, otherwise known as architectural photography.
Or not.
Michael
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OK then, let's step back outside of the building. Now, what are the parameters of landscape (with regard to photography)?
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I thought this was simple - it's a picture with land in it.
For parameters consider comparing with Seascape - a picture with sea in it.
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If you look inside your brain its a brainscape ... ;)
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If you look inside your brain its a brainscape ... ;)
Maybe we should keep this progression of inanity above the belt?
Rob C
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Maybe we should keep this progression of inanity above the belt?
Rob C
You mean that below the belt it would be considered a... moonscape? ;)
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Seems to me the most appropriate response to this thread is escape.
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Well, that told me, didn't it?
To conclude this interesting discussion so far, we could say that 'landscape' as a concept in relation to photography simply isn't worth discussing.
I wonder if that also means it isn't worth doing. I would imagine that a lot of people who read this forum produce landscape photography. In what ways do you think landscape photography is worth doing, or even important as a form of photography?
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You mean that below the belt it would be considered a... moonscape? ;)
Did they invent that classy act whilst planting Hasselblads on the Moon?
Rob C
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Well, that told me, didn't it?
To conclude this interesting discussion so far, we could say that 'landscape' as a concept in relation to photography simply isn't worth discussing.
I wonder if that also means it isn't worth doing. I would imagine that a lot of people who read this forum produce landscape photography. In what ways do you think landscape photography is worth doing, or even important as a form of photography?
The problem with it is that it is often a subject of last resort. Folks might have the camera whilst lacking an idea of what to do with it. So, the most obvious answer to the moral dilemma is to point it and click at whatever's there. It's still a picture and can be perfectly executed too. Which doesn't make it worth doing for anyone other than the photographer. Which is valid enough: his baby. Amd just as people ooo and coo at other peoples' offspring they render similar homage to photography.
Again, it boils down to validity. And again back to Donovan and his claim that the most difficult thing facing the amateur is a reason why to make a photograph. I don't at all think he was being flip; in retirement I face the same struggle every time I take the damned thing out of its box. Come to think of it, the days of the Kodachrome thrill provided many a solution at minimal cost to personal time and expended energy in pusuit of what?
Were more valid alternatives available...
Sex and the Camera.
You take it in your hands, you feel its shape and your imagination starts to probe the question of what the hell you are going to do.
It’s close to your face, snuggled against your cheekbone and your breath becomes that tiny bit faster, less controlled; concentration marks the lines on your forehead and a suspicion of sweat breaks out. Your lips are just a little parted and then, as the shapes begin to happen before you, you become half-aware of the tension in your mouth as you speak things that have no logic but are so very relevant to where you are going. Your head and your hands feel independent of the rest of you which belongs to the music on the system and the electricity of creation.
Her eyes are looking right back into yours through the machine; the smile that you are seeing is for you but not really for you because you are just the mirror, and you don’t care at all because what you’re doing is the passport you both share, the ticket to the never-never, the place where imagination is all that exists, where paths can cross and unspoken wishes shared or not and neither knows where the other one really is. What the sparks within the two minds? Does she care? Would there, could there be a brief future together? Has she ever thought about it – is she thinking that now? How often have you been right here before? Is it love, is it desire or even fear that it all will end as quietly as it began? Is this thing ever about love?
You sign one paper and she another. And then it’s done.
It’s colder now and the music seems irrelevant in your ears. You switch it off with a flick of anger that you really can’t explain; you become impatient and don’t want to spend any more time on where you’ve just been, but you have to, just so you can do it all over again another time to another tune.
The silence and loneliness are killing you. You wish you still smoked.
So you put the music back on but don’t even remember having switched it off.
Love your studio.
Rob C
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I enjoyed reading that, Rob, but I'm not sure I understand in relation to what I'd written. Are you saying it's the making of the photograph that answers the question as to whether or not landscape photography is worth doing? If it is, I think I agree in part. For me, landscape isn't just the image that I produce; it's the process of walking and climbing (or being in the sea, if that's part of 'landscape') that I go through in the production of the image. And I want the image to refer to that process. Landscape for me is an embodied practice, not just an image.
But I understand others speak of landscape in other ways. In art's history, there are landscapes that speak of politics, economics, religion, the sublime, beauty etc.
Do landscape photographers in this forum take into account such concepts?
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Landscape = Surrounding, Nature
I believe nature is an archetype - we have sort of inherited feeling connected with it.
Not necessary to find concepts - the concept is in us already.
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I enjoyed reading that, Rob, but I'm not sure I understand in relation to what I'd written. Are you saying it's the making of the photograph that answers the question as to whether or not landscape photography is worth doing? If it is, I think I agree in part. For me, landscape isn't just the image that I produce; it's the process of walking and climbing (or being in the sea, if that's part of 'landscape') that I go through in the production of the image. And I want the image to refer to that process. Landscape for me is an embodied practice, not just an image.
But I understand others speak of landscape in other ways. In art's history, there are landscapes that speak of politics, economics, religion, the sublime, beauty etc.
Do landscape photographers in this forum take into account such concepts?
Pretty much on the button, Chris. If you can get truly involved and it ¡s like a drug to you, then you're doing the right thing at the right time.
Rob C
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...landscape isn't just the image that I produce; it's the process of walking and climbing (or being in the sea, if that's part of 'landscape') that I go through in the production of the image. And I want the image to refer to that process...
I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that you want your photos to remind YOU of the experiences you had at that time, or that you want those experiences to be communicated to a third-party viewer? Because if it's the latter, I think you may be asking for a bit too much. As photographers, we all have experiential ties to certain photos be they by blood, sweat, effort, danger, weather, or amazing luck. Those ties can be quite powerful and can irrationally warp the views we have of our work, often making us fond of otherwise unremarkable images. The difficulty we have is in realizing that those experiences are ours alone. They are not easily shared through images alone.
Consider the work of Galen Rowell. Many of his images were taken in exotic, remote and dangerous locations, but in no way do they convey the effort or danger that he experienced. Those experiences, as I have said, are his alone. Hell, the guy died while on a shoot, and I am guessing that his life was at risk many times before. If you look at his work, you simply don't feel anything remotely resembling what he must have been feeling.
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Are you saying that you want your photos to remind YOU of the experiences you had at that time, or that you want those experiences to be communicated to a third-party viewer?
The way I think about it is that when we produce an image, we draw upon certain visual conventions that allow us to suggest aspects of the experience. This might include framing or composition (calling particular attention to certain aspects of a view, perhaps), depth of field (attention to a certain distance), tonal range (attention to form, perhaps), shutter speed (perhaps to suggest motion), and so on. (The list of possible signs with conventional significance is massive.) Those conventions are things we learn and therefore, others with similar cultural backgrounds might be expected to know the same, and interpret them in the same ways.
If this is right, it's reasonable to assume that a photographic image can communicate. Its conventions might not be as sophisticated as written or spoken language seem to be, but I think it can communicate complex messages. (And by communicate, I mean here that there's a correlation between what the maker and the viewer of the image understand from it.)
BUT, I think you are absolutely right in writing that such experiences aren't easily shared by images alone. Pushing the limit of what is communicable is one of the most important things that art can do/ has done over the last 150 years (at least). As soon as things get painful, even terrifying (I'm thinking of some of the spaces that land and seascape photographers get into), conventions of representation seem to become inadequate.
Maybe the answer is to combine images and words.
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hotos processed on a Mac must now be referred to as iScapes?
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hotos processed on a Mac must now be referred to as iScapes?
Well, the way things are going, probably yes.
;-(
Rob C
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Only if you hold the phone the wrong way round ...
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iScream ;D
i'll throw a couple formative pennies into the ring... perhaps clueless ones at that...
An artist has to interpret what he sees in a landscape or a model and put it on canvas - "art"
A landscape photographer doesn't have to do anything but capture and record a landscape at the right time and place. Only if he puts his interpretation of the image into the output does it become "art". Otherwise it is just a snapshot.
A fashion photographer has to inject his vision of the model into the capture to give a "look" to the image - "art"
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iScream ;D
i'll throw a couple formative pennies into the ring... perhaps clueless ones at that...
An artist has to interpret what he sees in a landscape or a model and put it on canvas - "art"
A landscape photographer doesn't have to do anything but capture and record a landscape at the right time and place. Only if he puts his interpretation of the image into the output does it become "art". Otherwise it is just a snapshot.
A fashion photographer has to inject his vision of the model into the capture to give a "look" to the image - "art"
That's a cool nutshell!
Rob C
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A landscape photographer doesn't have to do anything but capture and record a landscape at the right time and place. Only if he puts his interpretation of the image into the output does it become "art". Otherwise it is just a snapshot.
I like your summary, but there are a couple of things I think I disagree with.
1. Isn't just about all landscape photography interpretation? There's no given perspective or take on things, so even when we pick up a camera and make a snapshot, we've gone between what was there and the final outcome. 10 people given the same subject are likely to come up with different pictures of it; each picture is a different interpretation of that thing, however small the differences between the pictures.
2. Interpretation doesn't usually lead to what we call art, does it? We interpret stuff all the time, but we don't tend to call that making art. You're interpreting what I'm writing right now, as I understand it.
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I like your summary, but there are a couple of things I think I disagree with.
1. Isn't just about all landscape photography interpretation? There's no given perspective or take on things, so even when we pick up a camera and make a snapshot, we've gone between what was there and the final outcome. 10 people given the same subject are likely to come up with different pictures of it; each picture is a different interpretation of that thing, however small the differences between the pictures.
2. Interpretation doesn't usually lead to what we call art, does it? We interpret stuff all the time, but we don't tend to call that making art. You're interpreting what I'm writing right now, as I understand it.
Chris, the flaw in your argument is this: what you describe is not interpretation. It is, at best, editing.
Rob C
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Chris, the flaw in your argument is this: what you describe is not interpretation. It is, at best, editing.
Rob - are you saying that when you decide to point a camera at a particular view, decide on the angle of view, how the light should be, ISO/ grain, the moment at which to press the shutter, DoF, presence or otherwise of people, and all the other stuff that we take into account when constructing a photograph, that is no more than editing? Is there really no interpretation of the scene taking place? It seems to me that it's primarily interpretation of what is given in experience, leading to an image, and that editing is part of that process.
Maybe it comes down to how we define 'interpretation'. To my understanding, it means something like the process of mediating between one thing (in this case, the land) and another (the viewer of the final image).
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This is beginning to sound like what the definition of "is" is!
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Chris,
What i hear you describing is the technical side of making an image. Sure, there is interpretation. i think my original words were a little to vague. The painter and the fashion shooter are projecting their vision during the event. What i am suggesting is " art" is the vision that the photographer has to tell us about some part of life. If that doesn't come across when i view the image, there's no communication, no "art". i can make a technically "perfect image" , a pretty picture, but i'll be darned if i can make "art" yet.
Mona Lisa says it all.
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This is beginning to sound like what the definition of "is" is!
Yes, I think you're right - when photography functions as art, one of the things it can do is to tell us about our 'being' and about us as human beings. ('Is' is third person singular of 'to be', of course.) ;)
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Rob - are you saying that when you decide to point a camera at a particular view, decide on the angle of view, how the light should be, ISO/ grain, the moment at which to press the shutter, DoF, presence or otherwise of people, and all the other stuff that we take into account when constructing a photograph, that is no more than editing? Is there really no interpretation of the scene taking place? It seems to me that it's primarily interpretation of what is given in experience, leading to an image, and that editing is part of that process.
Maybe it comes down to how we define 'interpretation'. To my understanding, it means something like the process of mediating between one thing (in this case, the land) and another (the viewer of the final image).
Sorry, Chris, just found this updated thread again.
Yes, I think you stated my feeling correctly. The technical aspects you mention are a given, as for any sort of photography; hanging about waiting for the light isn't making it happen, I think the still life shooter in his studio is far more creative than the hottest guy in the desert or up the mountains, in the jungle or under the sea. The guy in the still life studio starts with the proverbial blank sheet of paper. Without his input, nada; nothing existed before he took action. The same holds with people photography: you both have to do something creative to make the picture happen.
The 'mediating' you describe sounds awfully similar to editing to me... selecting the bit of what's already there that the viewer gets to see. Manipulation of the image after exposure isn't really creative stuff - it's just technical tweaking which is a decision that's close to creativity but not, for me, the same thing at all. Would you call a great car tuner creative?
Rob C
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Would you call a great car tuner creative?
Yes. :D
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...hanging about waiting for the light isn't making it happen, I think the still life shooter in his studio is far more creative than the hottest guy in the desert or up the mountains, in the jungle or under the sea. The guy in the still life studio starts with the proverbial blank sheet of paper. Without his input, nada; nothing existed before he took action. The same holds with people photography: you both have to do something creative to make the picture happen.
Wow, Rob, that's rather insulting. Do you really think that landscape photography is simply sitting around waiting for the light to change? That the success of John Sexton or Michael Kenna or Charles Cramer is due to solely to their patience? Or that all I do is head of into the nether regions and....wait? Really?
I can argue those working in the studio actually have it easier than those of us working in the field. A studio offers repeatable results, which means that it's all to easy to create an image using trial and error, patiently shooting over and over until the desired result is obtained. And those who shoot beautiful models have it even easier as the model does the majority of the creative work. All the photographer has to do is patiently push a small, round button. Is that a fair assessment of studio work? Of course it isn't.
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Wow, Rob, that's rather insulting. Do you really think that landscape photography is simply sitting around waiting for the light to change? That the success of John Sexton or Michael Kenna or Charles Cramer is due to solely to their patience? Or that all I do is head of into the nether regions and....wait? Really? I can argue those working in the studio actually have it easier than those of us working in the field. A studio offers repeatable results, which means that it's all to easy to create an image using trial and error, patiently shooting over and over until the desired result is obtained. And those who shoot beautiful models have it even easier as the model does the majority of the creative work. All the photographer has to do is patiently push a small, round button. Is that a fair assessment of studio work? Of course it isn't.
Not meant to be insulting at all - just the unadorned reality of it. So what does Kenna do apart from look for dull subjects and use a loooooong exposure?
The studio shooter: yes, repeating until it's right is very much part of the creative process; did you imagine da Vinci got it right on the first daub? Why do you think all those guys prepare preliminary sketches?
As for models - yes indeed they do a huge part of it - but only because they are coaxed into something better than just sitting, standing or lying there. Look, we all like to believe our input is the greratest part of everything, but mostly it's not - we just happen to bring along the tools that allow something else to get captured on film or sensor.
You mentioned your own photography: as you well know I'm rather partial to it. That doesn't mean that I inject it with a mysticism that even you probably never suspected it of having. Russ's stuff also tickles my fancy, but how do you differentiate between a good sense of timing and creativity, or would you say they are the same thing?
Unfortunately, the more I think about photography, the less I become inclined to believe that any of it transitions into art. What I think is really happening is that I/we see the clear differences between very good practitioners and the not so good, and then we search for a word with which to describe the better and we settle for art.
But insulting? No, certainly not. I would rather remain silent than offer you or anybody else here offence. It's not my scene; but then neither is kissing ass.
Rob C
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Yes. :D
Re.car tuners: if I could find a bodyshop that paints a panel without spraying added primer onto good surfaces that were supposed to have been properly masked off, then I'd call them anything they wanted to be called, artists included!
The hours I've spent trying to polish exactly those tiny blobs of grey off the blue must well outstrip the time the spray 'artist' spent applying new blue on old Rusty! Then, as nothing progressive was happening despite my labour, I resorted to using a 50mm enlarging lens as a loup and, taking a scalpel, I attempted to remove a single droplet that way. I soon realised that primer doesn't simply sit on the surface: it appears to eat into and replace the original paint - removing that tiny drop left bare metal.
What a racket!
Rob C
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....but how do you differentiate between a good sense of timing and creativity, or would you say they are the same thing?
Almost everything about artistic photography depends on "timing", whether it be shooting models, street scenes, portraits or landscapes. If our timing is off, we risk missing the desired facial expressions, body positions, juxtapositions or light. The frame is worthless. "Timing" is NOT the antithesis of "creativity", it's simply another consideration towards the same goal. So yeah, timing plays a part in landscape photography, but it would be wrong to assume that it's the primary consideration. I would even go as far as to say that timing plays an unimportant role, taking a backseat to personal vision and creativity and message.
The studio shooter: yes, repeating until it's right is very much part of the creative process; did you imagine da Vinci got it right on the first daub?
Sounds an awful lot like what you earlier described as "editing"
Look, I don't personally take offense at what you said. You have your opinion, and I respect that. However, shooting landscape makes me happy, calms me, and fulfills something deep in my soul. That surely could not happen if all I did was wait for the right light.
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Rob, I think you are unduly focused on how a photograph is made, a process, rather than end-result. For me, it is the end-result that determines the creativity or artistic impact, not the process. Ultimately, it is the viewer who perceives it as art or creative, and he/she does not necessarily know or care how much effort went into it.
Ultimately, it is the emotional impact the end-result creates, and a landscape can have it just as much as any other genre (at least for some people, though not you and Russ). You call Kenna's landscapes "dull", I, however, call them sublime, zen-like and they deeply affect me on an emotional level.
Russ would accept landscapes only as a background for humans... I would dare to suggest that landscapes are anyway ultimately about humans, even when they are not directly present. Viewers are, however, always present, and they project their emotions into the image in front of them. What I see in Kenna's work is desolation, solitude, "splendid isolation", quiet desperation, subdued elegance, etc., and it all speaks more about me, of course, making those "dull" landscapes ultimately very human.
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Rob, I think you are unduly focused on how a photograph is made, a process, rather than end-result. For me, it is the end-result that determines the creativity or artistic impact, not the process. Ultimately, it is the viewer who perceives it as art or creative, and he/she does not necessarily know or care how much effort went into it.
Ultimately, it is the emotional impact the end-result creates, and a landscape can have it just as much as any other genre (at least for some people, though not you and Russ). You call Kenna's landscapes "dull", I, however, call them sublime, zen-like and they deeply affect me on an emotional level.
Russ would accept landscapes only as a background for humans... I would dare to suggest that landscapes are anyway ultimately about humans, even when they are not directly present. Viewers are, however, always present, and they project their emotions into the image in front of them. What I see in Kenna's work is desolation, solitude, "splendid isolation", quiet desperation, subdued elegance, etc., and it all speaks more about me, of course, making those "dull" landscapes ultimately very human.
Slobodan,
Beautifully put. You've hit the nail solidly on the head. +10!
Eric
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Rob, I think you are unduly focused on how a photograph is made, a process, rather than end-result. For me, it is the end-result that determines the creativity or artistic impact, not the process. Ultimately, it is the viewer who perceives it as art or creative, and he/she does not necessarily know or care how much effort went into it.
Ultimately, it is the emotional impact the end-result creates, and a landscape can have it just as much as any other genre (at least for some people, though not you and Russ). You call Kenna's landscapes "dull", I, however, call them sublime, zen-like and they deeply affect me on an emotional level.
Russ would accept landscapes only as a background for humans... I would dare to suggest that landscapes are anyway ultimately about humans, even when they are not directly present. Viewers are, however, always present, and they project their emotions into the image in front of them. What I see in Kenna's work is desolation, solitude, "splendid isolation", quiet desperation, subdued elegance, etc., and it all speaks more about me, of course, making those "dull" landscapes ultimately very human.
Very beautifully put, Slobodan. "You to your fancy and me to my Nancy," as the old lady said when she kissed her cow. Exactly. It's all subjective. But I wouldn't say I'd accept landscape only as a background for humans. I'd say rather that in many cases I'd accept the humans -- or their artifacts -- as background for the beauty of the landscape. And you're right, humans always are present in a landscape -- at least as viewers. If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there, does it make a sound? If a landscape's exists and no one's there to view it, is it beautiful? Without humans neither landscape nor any other image has meaning. I see the desolation, solitude, "splendid isolation," quiet desperation... in Kenna's work too. But I see those things most of all in his pictures of Auschwitz and Birkenau, where all those emotions are there, along with horror. Taken as a whole there's a lot more of humanity than plain landscape in Kenna's work.
Here's a "landscape" from a quick walk this afternoon -- shot with a 300mm lens to emphasize space. It's my kind of landscape, and the young couple are part of the bright green of spring shoots.
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"What I see in Kenna's work is desolation, solitude, "splendid isolation", quiet desperation, subdued elegance, etc., and it all speaks more about me, of course, making those "dull" landscapes ultimately very human."
Slobodan, you said it yourself: that's about you and not really the image which may simply trigger your own mental inclinations. I understand all to clearly about 'quiet desperation' - I'm of mixed nationalities and know that it's an emotional state not solely connected to nor triggered by immediate conditions; it's more a natural predisposition. Lot's of northern middle European peoples share it.
I can get those blues by walking along the coast with not an image in sight, without seeing the next step in front of my nose, without visual trigger: it's something that lives inside me and, I suspect by dint of the fact that you recognize it and its relations so well, within you too.
"Rob, I think you are unduly focused on how a photograph is made, a process, rather than end-result."
Of course that's where the creativity exists or does not; anything else is the viewer's reaction which depends on his ability to understand, not the photographer's to show. I would hesitate to put creativity or its measurement within the control of the viewer - if so, any old thing can become art and the best painter, poet or snapper but a pawn in the viewer/listener's mind, and who is to evaluate the quality of that viewer? This sentiment probably reflects my views stated elsewhere in LuLa that people shouldn't ask others for critique since only they know what's right for them...
Rob C
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""Timing" is NOT the antithesis of "creativity", it's simply another consideration towards the same goal."
Absolutely, Chuck, that's all it is; creativity, for me, implies putting something together that otherwise doesn't exist. No landcape shooter can do that unless he believes that an excavator or twig cutter is a creative tool.
"Sounds an awful lot like what you earlier described as "editing"
And so it most certainly is, but it's editing of something that only the photographer has created, put together by himself, and that's where the creativity lies, not in making decisions which all graphics entail.
I repeat: I see nothing wrong with and also wish I had a better ability for shooting landscape than I do; it would make my model-bereft life a hell of a lot more satisfactory, but I'm afraid I simply can't force myself to believe I think it worth the effort. I just don't see the creative juices flowing though I certainly do see and experience the exercising of the practical/technical ones on the rare occasions when I go there.
Look, as I wrote earlier, I have/had no intention of causing offence or hurt; I'm simply telling you the way I see it, and it could well be my loss that things strike me that way.
Rob C
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" If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there, does it make a sound? If a landscape's exists and no one's there to view it, is it beautiful? Without humans neither landscape nor any other image has meaning."
Oh Russ, I can't for a moment buy into that conclusion! Beauty exists independently of man; if anything, it's the trigger to making man recognize such an emotion for the very first time in his life, or even in his development as a species. God, the orignal creative artist, would still have used his brush.
Were there no people the fabled sunsets would remain beautiful, the white sands of the desert islands as seductive... wait! You may have a point after all: white sands and no girls... hmm.
Rob C
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Rob and Russ
As I did gently point out some while ago, this is the Luminous Landscape Forum, so perhaps you have to expect a certain amount of dissent when airing your well-argued views that there is actually no point in doing landscape photography at all. Not that a certain amount of robust challenge goes amiss, of course - it is good for us all to have our cosy beliefs questioned once in a while.
I love my landscapes, and enjoy making pictures of them. But mine are not Yosemite, or anywhere craggy, spectacular and famous, so I don't really expect them to gain a wide acceptance or currency. However, I think that they are good for my soul, and that is reason enough to carry on.
John
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This is the website of a well known British landscape photographer who - imo - knows a thing,or two?
http://www.davidnoton.com/despatches.php
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Oh Russ, I can't for a moment buy into that conclusion! Beauty exists independently of man; if anything, it's the trigger to making man recognize such an emotion for the very first time in his life, or even in his development as a species. God, the orignal creative artist, would still have used his brush.
Rob, I didn't say, and certainly don't believe that what we see as "beauty" doesn't exist independently of man, but "what we see" is the operative phrase. I think that in order for it to have meaning, beauty has to be seen -- by man.
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...views that there is actually no point in doing landscape photography at all
John, I'm glad you love your landscapes. It's that kind of thing that makes me keep shooting too. Lord knows it's certainly not sales!
But when have I ever said there's no point in doing landscape photography? I certainly hope that's not true since I often do landscape photographs, but almost always with man or the hand of man somewhere in the picture. Like this:
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Rob and Russ
As I did gently point out some while ago, this is the Luminous Landscape Forum, so perhaps you have to expect a certain amount of dissent when airing your well-argued views that there is actually no point in doing landscape photography at all. Not that a certain amount of robust challenge goes amiss, of course - it is good for us all to have our cosy beliefs questioned once in a while.I love my landscapes, and enjoy making pictures of them. But mine are not Yosemite, or anywhere craggy, spectacular and famous, so I don't really expect them to gain a wide acceptance or currency. However, I think that they are good for my soul, and that is reason enough to carry on.
John
John, that was never said. All that's being questioned is the nature of, and relationship of creativity within landscape. Some believe it is creative and others, such as I, are sceptical at best.
Skill was not questioned either; but skill is a separate entity to creativity.
Rob C
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John, I'm glad you love your landscapes. It's that kind of thing that makes me keep shooting too. Lord knows it's certainly not sales!
But when have I ever said there's no point in doing landscape photography? I certainly hope that's not true since I often do landscape photographs, but almost always with man or the hand of man somewhere in the picture. Like this:
I see you've got your post-apocalyptic bolt-hole ready! Mel Gibson wil be dropping round to discuss engine tuning any moment now; best give Eric a buzz!
;-)
Rob C
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Rob, It'd probably be a pretty good place to hide out after the high altitude emp burst takes out all our communications and returns the world to the early 19th century. Actually, it's a root cellar at a ranch that was homesteaded in the 19th century.
But with regard to landscape, if anybody wants to see why there's no way photography can compete with painting when it comes to landscape, they need to look up Albert Bierstadt's painting: Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. The image kept jumping into my mind as I read the comments on this thread, but I couldn't remember the name of the painting or the name of the artist. Finally, after a bit of a search, I found it. You can get a rough idea of what's involved at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bierstadt/bierstadt_among.jpg.html. You can get a larger view of the painting by clicking on the "Image Viewer" hyperlink on that page, but to see the real article you need to go to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC.
You could spend the rest of your life sitting with your camera waiting, like Ansel Adams, for this kind of scene to appear, but you'd die unsatisfied. Yes, the painting's exaggerated, the mountains in the background are stretched, and the lighting's physically impossible, but so what?!! The first view of this painting is almost enough to knock you down. I've never seen a photographic landscape that can produce anywhere near the emotional impact of this painting, and there are plenty of other paintings with the same kind of impact.
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Rob, It'd probably be a pretty good place to hide out after the high altitude emp burst takes out all our communications and returns the world to the early 19th century. Actually, it's a root cellar at a ranch that was homesteaded in the 19th century.
But with regard to landscape, if anybody wants to see why there's no way photography can compete with painting when it comes to landscape, they need to look up Albert Bierstadt's painting: Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. The image kept jumping into my mind as I read the comments on this thread, but I couldn't remember the name of the painting or the name of the artist. Finally, after a bit of a search, I found it. You can get a rough idea of what's involved at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bierstadt/bierstadt_among.jpg.html. You can get a larger view of the painting by clicking on the "Image Viewer" hyperlink on that page, but to see the real article you need to go to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC.
You could spend the rest of your life sitting with your camera waiting, like Ansel Adams, for this kind of scene to appear, but you'd die unsatisfied. Yes, the painting's exaggerated, the mountains in the background are stretched, and the lighting's physically impossible, but so what?!! The first view of this painting is almost enough to knock you down. I've never seen a photographic landscape that can produce anywhere near the emotional impact of this painting, and there are plenty of other paintings with the same kind of impact.
And dammit, nobody need ask whether that's art.
Rob C
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Right, Rob. Here's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. A couple hours ago I was driving into downtown Manitou Springs, about a mile away from my house, and I saw a thunderstorm forming over Pikes Peak. Visually the peak towered over the lower valley. The sight reminded me of Bierstadt's painting so I whipped out my trusty D3 and made a shot. If I'd been able to use 300 mm on the 28-300 mm zoom I'd have been able to make the peak look closer to the way it appeared to the eye -- much higher, but then the foreground would have been foreshortened far too much. Besides, I was against a cliff myself, so I couldn't back up to zoom more. It's not much of a landscape but it illustrates the point. Had I been a painter I could have captured the real feeling of the sight. Good landscape painters play around with linear perspective to create what the eye believes it sees. With a camera, no way. With a camera you can do some neat things with atmospheric perspective, but you're always constrained to exact linear perspective.
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Well, I'm afraid Bierstadt's painting reminds me too much of over-processed HDR photographs. To me a good landscape needs to have some plausibility, and that's what all of Weston's and many of Ansel's have, even though they are B&W abstractions from colored scenes. Bierstadt doesn't.
Your mileage evidently does vary, Russ.
Eric
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So is Art what is seen in the mind's eye - more commonly captured in painting than in photography ?
i think this gets back to the painting and fashion photography as art rather than landscape photography question.
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Guys, looks like we are making some progress with Russ and Rob... we got them to admit landscape CAN be art.. their next line of defense is to to say "fine, yes, but only landscape painting, not landscape photograph"... so we still have a lot of work to do ;) :D ;D
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Guys, looks like we are making some progress with Russ and Rob... we got them to admit landscape CAN be art.. their next line of defense is to to say "fine, yes, but only landscape painting, not landscape photograph"... so we still have a lot of work to do ;) :D ;D
Thank you, Slobodan! :)
Eric
P.S. Of course the real problem with both Russ's newest landscape offering as well as Bierstadt's is that neither of them includes one of Rob's models, so there's no "human interest." ;)
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Well, I'm afraid Bierstadt's painting reminds me too much of over-processed HDR photographs. To me a good landscape needs to have some plausibility, and that's what all of Weston's and many of Ansel's have, even though they are B&W abstractions from colored scenes. Bierstadt doesn't.
Eric, Let me remind you that Ansel's prints are very, very over-processed. I'd suggest that that's what gives them what you call "plausibility." Postprocessing can do a lot, but it can't make up for the problem I mentioned about linear perspective, nor can it do much about what HCB called the immutable rules of color: that adjacent anologous colors weaken each other while complementary colors strengthen each other. Unfortunately, B&W landscapes, even with Ansel's or Edward's extensive over-processing, are pretty weak in the plausibility department. The only time the landscape is even close to B&W is during a heavy fog or at night, and even then colors tend to sift through. Yes, Bierstadt's painting goes beyond plausibility, but it gets the point across much better than a photograph can.
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Yes, Bierstadt's painting goes beyond plausibility, but it gets the point across much better than a photograph can.
To you, perhaps. Not to me.
Eric
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Guys, looks like we are making some progress with Russ and Rob... we got them to admit landscape CAN be art.. their next line of defense is to to say "fine, yes, but only landscape painting, not landscape photograph"... so we still have a lot of work to do ;) :D ;D
[/b]
Pointles exercise, Slobodan; we've already shown/demonstrated where the victory lies: painting. That's the prime reason for not showing both media side by side with like subject matter.
http://youtu.be/vEzjtQDJ6XI
I post this to remind us all of the essential truth about the interconnectivity of beauty and simplicity. FWIW, it works better for me with the visual turned off. By the way, thanks to whoever it was showed me how to link from youtube: I failed the first time but now I think I know how...
Having another go at the musos this afternnon, I think, with the intention of doing closeups of hands on keys and brass. Mas que nada.
Rob C
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To you, perhaps. Not to me.
Eric
But Eric, that's only because of your investment; think how much more stubborn you'd feel had you gone the way of MF! Be grateful for your early wisdom and fiscal caution!
;-)
Rob C
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[/b]
Pointles exercise, Slobodan; we've already shown/demonstrated where the victory lies: painting. That's the prime reason for not showing both media side by side with like subject matter.
http://youtu.be/vEzjtQDJ6XI
I post this to remind us all of the essential truth about the interconnectivity of beauty and simplicity. FWIW, it works better for me with the visual turned off. By the way, thanks to whoever it was showed me how to link from youtube: I failed the first time but now I think I know how...
Having another go at the musos this afternnon, I think, with the intention of doing closeups of hands on keys and brass. Mas que nada.
Rob C
Rob can you show us some examples of your efforts with regards to painting? It is all right to talk the talk but when it comes to walking......? ;) ;D
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[/b]
http://youtu.be/vEzjtQDJ6XI
I post this to remind us all of the essential truth about the interconnectivity of beauty and simplicity. FWIW, it works better for me with the visual turned off.
Rob - it worked better for me with the sound and visual turned off. ;)
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Rob - it worked better for me with the sound and visual turned off. ;)
Amen, brother! Watching the video makes waterboarding look like a cold lemonade on a hot summer day :D
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Can't help but agree.
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Rob can you show us some examples of your efforts with regards to painting? It is all right to talk the talk but when it comes to walking......? ;) ;D
Do you mean you want to see my landscape paintings? I don't paint them; what has that got to do with anything? For another kind of painting, such as my own attempts at making colour sploshes, visit the website.
If you want to see good landscape painting, try a host of past masters... my own tastes are for some of the Impressionist/post-Impressionists, but even the English painters of the recent past have terrific stuff.
?
Rob C
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Well, I did suggest not watching, but if the sound is too much - oh well, there's always rap...
I love sentiment that is honest. You may prefer yellow roses, blue moons or even flying to the moon. Pick your poison; it's all the same in the end: you die.
Rob C
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On the other hand, maybe something lighter?
I remember this one on the car radio when I used to drop my daughter and her little pals off at school on my way to the studio. See no evil, you hear no evil.
http://youtu.be/qO18k215gpk
Tempus fugits, dunnit?
; - (
Rob C
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You leave your little Fuggits out of this!
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Russ,
...with regard to landscape, if anybody wants to see why there's no way photography can compete with painting when it comes to landscape, they need to look up Albert Bierstadt's painting: Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California....
Here (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=53049.msg443573#msg443573)'s a pretty good example of what I'm talking about... If I'd been able to use 300 mm on the 28-300 mm zoom I'd have been able to make the peak look closer to the way it appeared to the eye -- much higher, but then the foreground would have been foreshortened far too much. Besides, I was against a cliff myself, so I couldn't back up to zoom more... Had I been a painter I could have captured the real feeling of the sight. Good landscape painters play around with linear perspective to create what the eye believes it sees. With a camera, no way. With a camera you can do some neat things with atmospheric perspective, but you're always constrained to exact linear perspective.
Portrait (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110105.msg905922#msg905922)
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Rob, It'd probably be a pretty good place to hide out after the high altitude emp burst takes out all our communications and returns the world to the early 19th century. Actually, it's a root cellar at a ranch that was homesteaded in the 19th century.
But with regard to landscape, if anybody wants to see why there's no way photography can compete with painting when it comes to landscape, they need to look up Albert Bierstadt's painting: Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. The image kept jumping into my mind as I read the comments on this thread, but I couldn't remember the name of the painting or the name of the artist. Finally, after a bit of a search, I found it. You can get a rough idea of what's involved at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bierstadt/bierstadt_among.jpg.html. You can get a larger view of the painting by clicking on the "Image Viewer" hyperlink on that page, but to see the real article you need to go to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC.
You could spend the rest of your life sitting with your camera waiting, like Ansel Adams, for this kind of scene to appear, but you'd die unsatisfied. Yes, the painting's exaggerated, the mountains in the background are stretched, and the lighting's physically impossible, but so what?!! The first view of this painting is almost enough to knock you down. I've never seen a photographic landscape that can produce anywhere near the emotional impact of this painting, and there are plenty of other paintings with the same kind of impact.
I also love landscapes, both the actual landscape and our representations of them. I like paintings and this Bierstadt one is just a bit over the top for me. It reminds me of Bob Ross a little in the way everything is idealized. But I guess that is a matter of taste because some embellishment to feature what I think are the important elements of a scene is ok so maybe it's just the degree to which Bierstadt (and Ross) take it.
While I'm rambling I want to include some thoughts on beauty that this thread touched on earlier. I once had a psychedelic experience (shhh don't tell my mom) where I was out hiking in the mountains and climbing around boulders and the theme for the day was beauty. "WTF is beauty?!" Is beauty in our minds and part of perception or is beauty inherent to the objects we admire? Anyway that had my head spinning for hours. Or something did anyway. Good times. :) But I think the question is a valid one to consider and I tend to believe more that beauty is in the beholder's eye, but yet I still have this emotional feeling that it is connected to the objects as well. Hard to resolve in a tidy way for me.
When I was an active watercolorist I really admired the work of John Singer Sargent (https://www.google.com/search?q=john+singer+sargent&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS555US555&espv=2&biw=1614&bih=882&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnxJ6knq_MAhWjmoMKHcChDV0Q_AUIBigB#safe=off&tbm=isch&q=john+singer+sargent+watercolor) and his treatments of grand scenes as well as intimate ones. He definitely stylized his images but in a different way from Bierstadt. Somehow it strikes me as more real, yet still an idealization.
(http://watercolor.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/John-Singer-Sargent-Simplon-Pass-Avalanche-Track.jpg)
(http://www.wallcoo.net/paint/sargent_john_singer_02/images/Sargent_John_Singer_Simplon_Pass_Chalets.jpg)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ma6k0GA1yKA/UHYvhcNLzVI/AAAAAAAAAyQ/lXE7vVsk-Zk/s1600/Mountain+Fire+c.+1905.jpg)
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Russ,
Portrait (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110105.msg905922#msg905922)
Very nice, Rob. Now let's see the placid pond in the foreground among bluffs that don't reach all the way to the sky and the deer drinking at the pond. I like your two shots very much, but they share the same flaw my shot of Pikes Peak has: linear perspective which, with a camera, always is straight. There are places in the Rockies where I can get in close and shoot the height without long-lens distortion as you did here, but when I do that, there's little or no foreground -- no place for the pond or the deer, and there's no way to overcome that problem. I can move back and use a long lens to emphasize the height of the mountains, but then my pond looks like a puddle. In painting, I can cheat and have both things: the placid, inviting pond and the overwhelmingly high mountains.
Bottom line: It depends on whether you intend reportage or art. If it's reportage your objective is to show it as it is. If it's art, your objective is to move the viewer rather than report the strict facts. I look at Bierstadt's painting, having lived in the Rockies for more than fifty years, and it FEELS right. I've never seen a photograph that can produce that same feeling. Mountains are made up of illusions. It's quite possible to take Trotsky out of pictures of the Bolshevik gatherings and produce an illusion of that sort. It's very, very hard with a camera to produce an illusion that feels like truth.
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I also love landscapes, both the actual landscape and our representations of them. I like paintings and this Bierstadt one is just a bit over the top for me. It reminds me of Bob Ross a little in the way everything is idealized. But I guess that is a matter of taste because some embellishment to feature what I think are the important elements of a scene is ok so maybe it's just the degree to which Bierstadt (and Ross) take it.
While I'm rambling I want to include some thoughts on beauty that this thread touched on earlier. I once had a psychedelic experience (shhh don't tell my mom) where I was out hiking in the mountains and climbing around boulders and the theme for the day was beauty. "WTF is beauty?!" Is beauty in our minds and part of perception or is beauty inherent to the objects we admire? Anyway that had my head spinning for hours. Or something did anyway. Good times. :) But I think the question is a valid one to consider and I tend to believe more that beauty is in the beholder's eye, but yet I still have this emotional feeling that it is connected to the objects as well. Hard to resolve in a tidy way for me.
When I was an active watercolorist I really admired the work of John Singer Sargent (https://www.google.com/search?q=john+singer+sargent&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS555US555&espv=2&biw=1614&bih=882&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnxJ6knq_MAhWjmoMKHcChDV0Q_AUIBigB#safe=off&tbm=isch&q=john+singer+sargent+watercolor) and his treatments of grand scenes as well as intimate ones. He definitely stylized his images but in a different way from Bierstadt. Somehow it strikes me as more real, yet still an idealization.
Hi Matt,
To make a long and complicated story short and simple: I agree with you about beauty. For instance, when people first came to this continent (not "native Americans," which they aren't) they were afraid of the landscape -- the mountains, etc. They didn't find beauty in it. Beauty in a landscape is a learned experience. No, I don't think beauty is inherent in the object we see (unless we're looking at pretty girls where the response is built-in). Beauty is learned.
Yeah, I also agree with you about Bierstadt idealizing the mountains. Yes he did, but he wasn't there to do reportage. He was there to make art. Based on our current sensibilities his work was a bit over the top, but it wasn't over the top when he did it. And though the deer in that picture are more than a bit kitschy, with some effort I can ignore them.
I like Sargent too, especially the second one with the hand of man in it.
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That reminds me of some indigenous (relatively so, as you point out) Mexicans called the Cora who wind up here with the ranching industry. They are terrified of rainbows and believe they are a harbinger of evil things. The more traditional ones generally keep their windows and blinds closed all the time to keep out "bad wind", rainbows, and other threats.
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Russ,
I like your two shots very much...
They were not made by me.
There are places in the Rockies where I can get in close and shoot the height without long-lens distortion... but when I do that, there's little or no foreground -- no place for the pond or the deer, and there's no way to overcome that problem.
The photo has a foreground. Humans feature in it.
Mountains are made up of illusions.
Mountains are made up of rock.
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Humans, but not deer. It's reportage, and pretty good reportage, but that's all it is. We don't have a contrast between a placid pond and the high and wild mountains, and there's no way you can get that contrast with a camera.
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In painting, I can cheat and have both things: the placid, inviting pond and the overwhelmingly high mountains.
Artists call it design...
Peter
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Good point, Peter. Of course that's exactly what it is. And you can't "design" with a camera.
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Good point, Peter. Of course that's exactly what it is. And you can't "design" with a camera.
At least not to the same extent. Composition and lens choice give design options, just not as many as with a painting.
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I'd suggest going to Arles, in the south of France. There are various points around and in the town that were painted by van Gogh. Compare the paintings to what he was standing in front of while painting...
Conveniently, it's also the site of the biggest French photography festival each year, so you can go off and look at some impressive photography after lunch :)
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I'd suggest going to Arles, in the south of France. There are various points around and in the town that were painted by van Gogh. Compare the paintings to what he was standing in front of while painting...
There is a whole book on the subject, this time with Paul Sezanne: Cezanne: Landscape into Art (http://www.amazon.com/Cezanne-Landscape-into-Pavel-Machotka/dp/0300067011/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1461860382&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=paul+sezanne+photograph)
From the introduction: "Pavel Machotka has photographed the sites of Cezanne's landscape paintings - whenever possble from the same spot and at the same time of day that Cezanne painted the scenes. Juxtaposing these colour photographs with reproductions of the paintings, he offers a range of evidence to investigate how the painter transformed nature into works of art."
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That book looks very interesting. I may ask the birthday fairy to add that to the list!
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Thanks for the the link.
There is a whole book on the subject, this time with Paul Sezanne: Cezanne: Landscape into Art
And I thought that he just painted fruit.
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Matt,
Is beauty in our minds and part of perception or is beauty inherent to the objects we admire?... I tend to believe more that beauty is in the beholder's eye, but yet I still have this emotional feeling that it is connected to the objects as well.
Apparently mseawell and Jeremy (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110204.msg907006#msg907006) consider place to be a function of beauty.
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I agree with you Rob. The thing that always strikes me about what we see as beauty is what I've read about pioneers on the North American Continent. If I can believe what I read, in those days people didn't see landscapes as beautiful. They saw them as threatening. Going through the woods was scary, and the mountains were terrifying. It wasn't until much later, when things had settled down, that people began to visualize landscape as beautiful. I think that to a large degree to appreciate natural beauty is a learned thing -- except with girls. That's a survival of the race thing.
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Russ,
I think that to a large degree to appreciate natural beauty is a learned thing -- except with girls. That's a survival of the race thing.
Please can you clarify what was meant:
1. Natural beauty exists of its own accord but it takes time for people to learn this, or;
2. For as-yet unstated reason(s), with time, people attribute beauty to the natural world, or;
3. Other?
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Matt,
Apparently mseawell and Jeremy (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110204.msg907006#msg907006) consider place to be a function of beauty.
Well it certainly feels that way sometimes. But our feelings can mislead us.
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Matt,
I tend to believe more that beauty is in the beholder's eye...
Why?
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Matt,
Why?
It is so subjective. When two people disagree about whether or not something is beautiful, can one be more right than the other?
Is beauty in the thing or is it us projecting our perception onto it?
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Matt,
When two people disagree about whether or not something is beautiful, can one be more right than the other?
Perhaps one person is perspicacious (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perspicacious).
Is beauty in the thing or is it us projecting our perception onto it?
By what mechanism is beauty perceived?
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So, landscape, architural photography, or political comment?
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Adams-West-Joshua-Chang/dp/3869309008/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1461940051&sr=8-1&keywords=the+new+west&linkCode=sl1&tag=theonlinephot-20&linkId=3dcacd6e01c9ae9e0d004de7d7a6c28e
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So, landscape, architural photography, or political comment?
http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Adams-West-Joshua-Chang/dp/3869309008/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1461940051&sr=8-1&keywords=the+new+west&linkCode=sl1&tag=theonlinephot-20&linkId=3dcacd6e01c9ae9e0d004de7d7a6c28e
From the very few pictures on show in the link to the book, I'd say not a lot of very much in any of the fields.
Based on such a tiny sample, I wouldn't buy. You can find stuff just as good - and better processed - within Russ's website; if anything, I think the blurb defeats itself by making comparisons with the other two photographers. For example: I'm happy to show my own work, but would not do so in any situation that forced comparisons with my own idols. Reality has to moderate ego.
Rob C
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Everything I do is directly from nature, but I re-orchestrate. An absolute must for the landscape to become Art.
Peter
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if anything, I think the blurb defeats itself by making comparisons with the other two photographers.
Yep, agree... the link actually came from Mike Johnston's blog, where he waxes lyrical but doesn't offer any more images:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/04/a-great-classic.html
Maybe it was the start of the trend towards "relics of civilization's attempts to conquer the desert", which is seen eg here
http://www.edfreeman.com/
but also in eg BobDavid's work posted recently on Lula.
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From the very few pictures on show in the link to the book, I'd say not a lot of very much in any of the fields.
Based on such a tiny sample, I wouldn't buy. You can find stuff just as good - and better processed - within Russ's website; if anything, I think the blurb defeats itself by making comparisons with the other two photographers. For example: I'm happy to show my own work, but would not do so in any situation that forced comparisons with my own idols. Reality has to moderate ego.
Rob C
Wow. Thanks Rob. That's a boost to the ego coming from someone who does wonderful work.
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Peter,
Everything I do is directly from nature, but I re-orchestrate.
Was there something wrong with the original score?
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From the very few pictures on show in the link to the book, I'd say not a lot of very much in any of the fields.
Michael Ashkin - http://www.michaelashkin.com/longbranch.php - is a younger photographer working in a similar vein to Adams. His thoughts on the uncanny might be pertinent to this discussion - http://www.americansuburbx.com/2016/04/capitalism-as-a-bearer-of-the-uncanny-an-interview-with-michael-ashkin.html
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Peter,
Was there something wrong with the original score?
Always, the clouds are never in the right place...the earth was created and man created art.
Peter
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Peter,
Always, the clouds are never in the right place...
Patience.
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Peter,
Patience.
And then the light is poor. Painters place light and shapes as needed. That's the making of art.
Peter
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Peter,
The clouds are never in the right place, and then the light is poor. Painters place light and shapes as needed.
Have you considered simply painting landscape from the comfort of your home?
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Always, the clouds are never in the right place...the earth was created and man created art.
Peter
I think it was Bertolt Brecht, speaking of another art form, that said, "God writes lousy theater."
Tom
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Yeah, but he makes the best light.
Rob C
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Peter,
The clouds are never in the right place, and then the light is poor. Painters place light and shapes as needed.
Have you considered simply painting landscape from the comfort of your home?
Only my entire 40 year career and still going.
Peter
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The painter and the fashion shooter are projecting their vision during the event. What i am suggesting is " art" is the vision that the photographer has to tell us about some part of life. If that doesn't come across when i view the image, there's no communication, no "art".
Then painting and fashion photography are about: the painter and fashion photographer respectively; what they have to tell us about some part of life.
Perhaps a landscape photograph is about: the landscape.
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Exactly! And there's the rub. A landscape painting can be something that grabs you. Most landscape photographs induce a "ZZZZ" response. Even St. Ansel's landscapes tend to be boring. The only ones that grab you are the ones with the hand of man in them. Moonrise over Hernandez comes to mind, and that was more darkroom art than photography.
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Exactly! And there's the rub. A landscape painting can be something that grabs you. Most landscape photographs induce a "ZZZZ" response. Even St. Ansel's landscapes tend to be boring. The only ones that grab you are the ones with the hand of man in them. Moonrise over Hernandez comes to mind, and that was more darkroom art than photography.
Even worse, from my personal experience the genre only comes to life when it plays backdrop to a human model. But I don't claim to be a landscape photographer.
The painter always wins, and that's because he just can't avoid injecting himself into the strokes. The best that a photographer can do is hope to have his image look 'different' to the many others made via similar lenses. So he perhaps adopts unusual focal lengths...
The problem is, I think, basic: landscape is always available and you don't have to pay it; that can make it irresistible to some, giving them a subject they can latch onto in order to use the toys they've bought, and it's not confrontational.
Rob C
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Anti-landscape photography orgy >:(
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I agree that the majority of landscape photos are boring but the really good ones are images I can spend time looking at again and again. I hope every now and then I might capture one that gives someone else that same enjoyment. And if I don't it's something to strive for.
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The painter always wins, and that's because he just can't avoid injecting himself into the strokes.
Then landscape painting is a misnomer, and if a landscape photograph is about the landscape then a painter always loses.
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But it's never about the stupid landscape, Rob. By itself a landscape is about as interesting as a room full of people asleep and snoring (a barracks). To make it interesting you have to make it reach out and grab you. Yes, a painter does that because, as Rob C says he injects himself into the strokes. It's pretty damned hard to inject yourself into a button-push.
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It's pretty damned hard to inject yourself into a button-push.
Maybe not the button push but you might be able to with your composition and timing (although not usually to the same degree as a a painter would).
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...It's pretty damned hard to inject yourself into a button-push.
Which is what can be said for HCB too.
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Russ,
...it's never about the stupid landscape...
Is the clue not in the name: landscape photography?
If you wish a landscape photograph to be about the photographer then stand in front of the camera at the time of capture. If you mount a wide angle lens or stand back a sufficient distance the photograph will even include the hand of man. However, viewers of the photograph may consider it to bear an uncanny resemblance to a self-portrait.
...stupid landscape...
Anthropomorphic, which is ironic.
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See what I mean?
Rob C
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Maybe not the button push but you might be able to with your composition and timing (although not usually to the same degree as a a painter would).
I agree, Matt, but the timing thing applies especially to street photography. That's where Slobodan jumps the track.
With landscape you go out in wretched weather and set up your tripod; hoist your 11 x 14 view camera onto it and try to get it pinned down without dropping it on the rocks and smashing the ground glass. You attach your cable release, get your head under the hood and zoom the bellows back and forth until you think you've nailed the focus, pull a film holder out of the case you've carried over the rocks on your back, shove it into the camera, and wait for the "decisive moment," otherwise known as when the sun pops out. When that moment arrives you pull the slide on the film holder and "push the button," otherwise known as the knob on the cable release. Then you push the slide back into the film holder, hoping to hell you got the shot because the sun just disappeared again, pack up your gear and walk two miles back to the car.
On the street (HCB) you have a small, 35mm or equivalent camera in your hand. You go about your business, nosing into various establishments and turning corners, until you see what looks like an interesting situation developing. You grip the camera and wait, holding your breath and hoping what you thought would come together will come together. If it does, you quickly lift the camera, watch for the "decisive moment," which is the moment when YOU decide it's time to shoot, and shoot.
In the first instance, whatever there is of you in the picture was there when you framed the thing and busted your butt getting all that equipment into place. The button push is nothing. In the second instance what you put into the picture was your choice of the instant you chose to push the button on a very transient scene. It's a different kind of thing. In the first case those rocks looked the same fifty years ago when St. Ansel shot then as they looked this morning when you shot them, and they'll still look the same fifty years from now when the next would be St. Ansel comes along to shoot them. In the second case the people in the picture you shot -- along with you -- probably will be dead.
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Russ,
By itself a landscape is about as interesting as a room full of people asleep and snoring (a barracks). To make it interesting you have to make it reach out and grab you.
How do you do that?
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Only a hand can "reach out and grab you," thus the need to have a hand of man in landscape. According to Russ, anyway. ;)
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Slobodan's got the picture. People are a lot more interesting to people than, as Wordsworth had it: rocks and stones and trees. And photography has an edge over painting in that area. People tend to think a photograph is more real than a painting, though it ain't necessarily so.
But if you want to record beauty in landscape get a canvas and a brush. Then you can cheat (or as Peter has it, design) to your heart's content.
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I see we drift into further adventures in obtusity...
The hand of man is actually quite useful, in its way, especially if you happen to find yourself drowning. But certainly not as delightful as that of woman or mermaid, in those wet situations.
This one is about to be chopped off.
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/6508672_orig.jpg)
Rob
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Russ,
How do you do that?
Brett Whitely said he looked for landscapes shaped like a woman's body. Subliminally it works, if not subliminal, it's amusing :-)
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I see we drift into further adventures in obtusity...
The hand of man is actually quite useful, in its way, especially if you happen to find yourself drowning. But certainly not as delightful as that of woman or mermaid, in those wet situations.
This one is about to be chopped off.
Rob
The problem is, Rob, that that's not a particularly attractive hand. Like the picture, though. Good shooting.
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Rob,
That is unquestionably the best "Hand of Man" picture I've come across. Bravo!
Eric
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I have a feeling it's the hand of woman.
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Unfortunately, I can't help identify gender: I never did see any more of the person.
Guess Fate just dealt me an odd hand. Quite, a concept, that. A new circulatory system wouldn't go amiss, though; I'm still wearing gloves where tourists are into bare legs and T-shirts. But they're crazy.
Rob
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Graham,
Brett Whitely said he looked for landscapes shaped like a woman's body. Subliminally it works...
How can you tell?
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How can you tell?
If you have to ask! Says alot.
Peter
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Peter,
If you have to ask! Says alot.
What does it say?
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If landscape photography is about the landscape, which should be patently obvious to all but the most obstinate of individuals, perhaps this explains why those who consider themselves poor at landscape photography are poor at landscape photography: they constrain the photograph to be about them instead of about the landscape.
Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment. Credit: Ansel Adams
Perhaps the supreme test refers not to the level of difficulty required to make a photograph of the landscape, but to something far less trivial; something far more profound: that the challenge is entirely personal in nature -- to impose nothing of self and to let the landscape speak for itself.
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If landscape photography is about the landscape, which should be patently obvious to all but the most obstinate of individuals,
"Nothing is more equitably shared than common sense, since no one, no matter how much he may feel deprived of other wants, believes he lacks of it"
(Voltaire? Not sure...)
Landscapes in photos are only interesting to me for what they make me feel and think. The same landscape may have very different resonances for different people as a function of their past, their interests and desires. Many remind me of NSW country trains in the 70's, which had a B&W landscape panorama in each compartment (Dmax=1).
But of course I'm bad at them ;)
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"Nothing is more equitably shared than common sense, since no one, no matter how much he may feel deprived of other wants, believes he lacks of it"
(Voltaire? Not sure...)
Landscapes in photos are only interesting to me for what they make me feel and think. The same landscape may have very different resonances for different people as a function of their past, their interests and desires. Many remind me of NSW country trains in the 70's, which had a B&W landscape panorama in each compartment (Dmax=1).
But of course I'm bad at them ;)
That's my line too!
But the thing is, I feel no pain on that score at all, because I have yet to come across anyone doing (landscape) stuff that grips me for very long. I've seen some crackers from our own in-house Michael, but the ones I thought great were more 'atmospherics' than landscape: exercises in tone, not geology: I have this memory of silver plate sea and black lave.
There's very little of that about - mostly it's 'hey, look what a great climber I am!' or, 'I camp in the desert for weeks and don't shave!' Well good for you, and so what?
Jaundiced? Don't think so. Just not grabbed by it.
Basically, I suspect that the problem comes down to what photography, as process/art, is actually good at doing, and I'm not referring to photographers.
It seems to me that things such as the natural world are better served by pencil and brush, with things more artificial coming off better via the modern medium of the photograph. People, cities, automobiles and all our constructs mean something more in photographs than they do as paintings. That '59 de Ville I always craved looks far better in snaps than it could on canvas (I won't even think about that bastard medium of canvas photography!) and there's good reason for it: it's of us, of our times.
Maybe Hopper's Nighthawks comes close to crossing the tracks with success...
Rob
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Charlie Cramer made some interesting comments in his last news letter. He talked about the art of editing and how in landscape photography we really need to forget about the work that it took to get the image. Just because one hiked 20 miles doesn't make it a better image, but to the photographer there can be that bias. Not everyone understands the draw to landscape photography. I thinks that one component that must be taken into account when looking at landscapes is the idea of conservation. Western landscape photography evolved with the the conservation movement of the 60's and 70's. Another aspect of landscape photography that hasn't been mentioned is the idea of place. Yes, landscape photographs don't speak to everyone because place evokes some sort of emotional response. I think the photography of Charlie Cramer, illustrates the nuances of places, but it helps to have already experienced these places to properly appreciate what is going on.
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What about abstract photography? If landscape photography is about the landscape (which it isn't, at least not necessarily), than abstract photography is about...what? Surely not the object being photographed. We certainly see something else there, anything but the object itself. By the same token, one can find much more in a landscape photograph than the landscape itself.
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What about abstract photography? If landscape photography is about the landscape (which it isn't, at least not necessarily), than abstract photography is about...what?
It is about shapes, in a nutshell.
A lot can be added to that, of course, but it all boils down to pure geometry eventually.
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What about abstract photography? If landscape photography is about the landscape (which it isn't, at least not necessarily), than abstract photography is about...what? Surely not the object being photographed. We certainly see something else there, anything but the object itself. By the same token, one can find much more in a landscape photograph than the landscape itself.
Well said, Slobodan.
Some photographers who specialize in narrow fields other than "Landscape" seem to think that Landscape Photography is a form of reportage, just trying to show what the scene looks like.
Landscape and Abstract photography both can be very expressive. But that doesn't mean they always are.
Eric
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Some photographers who specialize in narrow fields other than "Landscape" seem to think that Landscape Photography is a form of reportage, just trying to show what the scene looks like.
That's not "reportage", that's "snapshot".
Some of the very best abstract images I've seen would instantly remind you of, say, a face of a person, with some deep emotions. But it doesn't make it anything "about human faces", it is still about beauty of shapes that can form amazing juxtapositions.
Pretty much the same applies to landscapes.
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It is about shapes, in a nutshell.
Yes, you beat me to it. Shapes that our brains find interesting, in some way or another.
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Shapes? Landscape? Possibly, and in some circumstances definitely.
However, I'd have imagined it to be more about textures and colour blocks as distinct from shape in the sense of accurate renditions of absolute physical form.
If you take the archetypical Tuscan landscape of poplars, rolling hills and single building with the almost inevitable little road winding up to it, what does it mean? What is the flavour? Why do some satisfy where others induce yawns of déjà vu? And I don't think it's all about technical mastery, either.
Rob
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~same tripod holes, 365 days and nights, yet every now and then a "seer" with slightly bent vision and determination, is open when springs forth the almost unbearable inner relatedness of place, the history before our spirit of its emanations~ surely there are no words for such unfoldings, and then, yet another threshold to cross when other eyes are not ready for that transformation from behind their own eyes~
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~same tripod holes, 365 days and nights, yet every now and then a "seer" with slightly bent vision and determination, is open when springs forth the almost unbearable inner relatedness of place, the history before our spirit of its emanations~ surely there are no words for such unfoldings, and then, yet another threshold to cross when other eyes are not ready for that transformation from behind their own eyes~
Amen!
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If you take the archetypical Tuscan landscape of poplars, rolling hills and single building with the almost inevitable little road winding up to it, what does it mean? What is the flavour? Why do some satisfy where others induce yawns of déjà vu? And I don't think it's all about technical mastery, either.
This might be the minimalist version, with some interesting textures, as you suggest. The photographer says something about seeing a face, which I didn't... but I like it as an abstract.
No idea if it's in Tuscany.
https://500px.com/photo/153036709/can-you-see-by-alcol75?ctx_page=1&from=gallery&galleryPath=22724669&user_id=10643117
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This might be the minimalist version, with some interesting textures, as you suggest. The photographer says something about seeing a face, which I didn't... but I like it as an abstract.
No idea if it's in Tuscany.
https://500px.com/photo/153036709/can-you-see-by-alcol75?ctx_page=1&from=gallery&galleryPath=22724669&user_id=10643117
Hi Graham,
Re. the link: it can't be Tuscany, only poplars are allowed to have their portraits made.
Re. the link again: could even have been fathered by Jeanloup Sieff!
;-)
Rob C
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Rob, indeed some Sieff DNA in there. And Jeanloup did seem to share lots of cups of tea with his models, so who knows?
https://500px.com/photo/152144743/urban-reflection-by-alcol75?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=9309661
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I'm kinda late to this party but art, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
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However, I'd have imagined it to be more about textures and colour blocks as distinct from shape in the sense of accurate renditions of absolute physical form.
If you take the archetypical Tuscan landscape of poplars, rolling hills and single building with the almost inevitable little road winding up to it
BTW, "pure" textures almost never form a successful abstract. And even though I cautiously say "almost", I am in fact not aware of any... There has to be a color spot, a shape thrown in, or something else standing out.
Very much like that single building among poplars that you mention.
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BTW, "pure" textures almost never form a successful abstract. And even though I cautiously say "almost", I am in fact not aware of any... There has to be a color spot, a shape thrown in, or something else standing out.
Very much like that single building among poplars that you mention.
"However, I'd have imagined it to be more about textures and colour blocks as distinct from shape in the sense of accurate renditions of absolute physical form."
That's what I was saying...
Rob C
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Rob, indeed some Sieff DNA in there. And Jeanloup did seem to share lots of cups of tea with his models, so who knows?
https://500px.com/photo/152144743/urban-reflection-by-alcol75?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=9309661
Indeed; and I think that I eventually concluded that 'cups of tea' meant something far more interesting, intense and sweaty!
Them wuz the days, them wuz.
Rob
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1. BTW, "pure" textures almost never form a successful abstract. And even though I cautiously say "almost", I am in fact not aware of any... There has to be a color spot, a shape thrown in, or something else standing out.
Very much like that single building among poplars that you mention.
(Quoted from Zorki5)
2. "However, I'd have imagined it to be more about textures and colour blocks as distinct from shape in the sense of accurate renditions of absolute physical form."
That's what I was saying...
Rob C
(Quoted from myself)
There's something here, from about 23:49 to 27:15, from our own Peter, that touches on this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsNaNM0ZeU
In fact, if you continue a few minutes more to the end, you'll find a lot that he says that is just as applicable to photography.
Rob C
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In fact, if you continue a few minutes more to the end, you'll find a lot that he says that is just as applicable to photography.
I agree; thank for sharing.
It's interesting that Peter says works of painters are for other people (not for other artists), and then almost immediately goes on to say that he essentially creates paintings for himself and almost does not care what other might think of them.
I do not see that as a contradiction, BTW; each of us might have different answers to the same question -- depending on context. When you think about it... It makes understanding other people, whom you only know by few posts on forums, pretty much mission impossible. And it's not only that it can be hard for them, not knowing the full context, to agree; sometimes, stranger things happen -- those people can agree on "something", while having completely different ideas/concepts of that "something" in mind.
Also... the quote ending the segment immediately before 23:49 also says a lot: "Artists do not want answers, they want questions" ;)