The Implied Human Presence in Landscape Photos

[sgwrx]

funny thing. the other day as i was walking to my car and looked at a jet trail in the sky i thought perhaps someday someone would see a photograph with a jet trail and say 'isn't that quaint, they used to use combustion engines as a mode of air travel'.  so now i'm thinking natural is as natural does   why try to make something look as though it were eons ago when in fact it's not, we weren't there then.

[BernardLanguillier]

Interesting discussion indeed.

Galen Rowel wrote interesting things abous this topic, showing how timing alone can completely change the impression conveyed by a photograph of a given place.

The example he used was a popular trail in Yosemite that could either look like a commercial for mother nature when nobody is around at dusk, or the cover of an article about the over-population of NPs in the US if taken mid-day during a weekend in July with hunderds of hikers lining up towards the top.

This is true generally speaking, the framing impacts just as much of the locale. It is indeed a matter of intend.

I think that the romantic idea of wilderness is popular just about anywhere, and that there are many landscape photographers looking at selling their images who tap into this potential. Whether you include a nice mountain hut in the image, or whether you shoot from the mountain hut is a very interesting question.

Personnally, I aim for moving images of nature. I would probably not strive to include the hut in the image, but would also not be particularly disturbed by its presence.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alex53]

I find it hard to comprehend why a person recording a scene using a piece of technology feels the need to eliminate all evidence or even involvement of humankind. You are there, you are human, and you are using technology. I'd stop at making the human presence not obvious (for images where its suitable).