How does culture influence landscape photography appreciation?

[dreed]

In the past month or so, something that has been ticking over in my mind is the question of how does our cultural background or upbringing influence our taste in the arts and thus landscape photography?

For example, there are some photographers that hate the idea of having any amount of blue sky in their photographs but others that can use it exceptionally well. Similarly, there are those that dislike photographs with it.

But that's just a simple take away.

Are other examples things like the respect we're taught about things of national significance? For example, would a person from India find a well framed and naturally coloured photograph of the Taj Mahal better or more beautiful than an equivalent photograph of Wat Angkor?

[luxborealis]

Here's something I learned along the way...

When living in England a few years ago I joined a local camera club and quite enjoyed the experience. The folks there were much more into the art and presentation of photography with much less emphasis on the equipment (which is the opposite of what I've experienced here in Canada with photo clubs).

Whilst there, I had an interesting series of conversations about landscape photos. When showing my landscape photos I was often criticized for the complete lack of people in the photos. "They" want to see people for various reasons: a focal point, scale, what have you. I scratched my head over that one for a while until I realized that being Canadian and one who tries gets away from it all in a canoe or on a backpacking trail, the last thing I want in my photos are people. To me, people ruin the whole feeling of wilderness.

I realized that when we tried to "get away from it all" in Britain, there were still people around. Even on the most remote trails, we would run into others. So, to the Brits (at least some of them, it seems), a landscape without people is rather foreign. So, understandable, landscape photos without people just don't seem to feel right either.

So, it would seem, differences in culture do have a significant influence on photography appreciation.

[louoates]

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to remove the camera guy and his family from this shot. The comment about scale seems to fit this shot.

Maybe I should have determined their nationality.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... So, to the Brits (at least some of them, it seems), a landscape without people is rather foreign...

I think the operative word here would be "some".

I've been reading for years the British Outdoor Photography magazine, and many other British photography magazines, which often have landscapes prominently featured in almost every issue. I also attended a workshop with one of the best British landscape photographers, Joe Cornish, in Cornwall. In other words, I think I am somewhat familiar with British landscape photography. However, I have yet to see a British landscape photograph featuring a human figure.

I guess those requests by "some" Brits are falling on deaf ears of their photographers

[MattNQ]

Interesting concept and discussion, but I think even within cultures, individuals are too diverse in their thinking to allow such generalisations
Personally, I hate having people in my landscapes (much to my wife's annoyance - especially when I ask the family to get out of a holiday photo so I can see the scenery  ) ....unless the people are pursuing an activity that is in context and adds to the composition...eg  lone fisherman in a seascape -

But along the lines of the taj mahal example, you may find cultural familiarity breeds a form of contempt . As an Australian, I see yet another photo of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and no matter how nice it is, just groan and say "not another one....show me something different"


 

[JeffKohn]

I've been reading for years the British Outdoor Photography magazine, and many other British photography magazines, which often have landscapes prominently featured in almost every issue. I also attended a workshop with one of the best British landscape photographers, Joe Cornish, in Cornwall. In other words, I think I am somewhat familiar with British landscape photography. However, I have yet to see a British landscape photograph featuring a human figure.

I don't necessarily disagree; however I think it's probably more common to see "the hand of man" in British landscape photography than in the traditional American West Coast-style of landscape photography. Not saying it's always the case, and I don't know how much it has to do with cultural values as opposed to there just being less natural wilderness to shoot with no signs of civilization.

And since the thread title mentions "appreciation", I think it's an interesting question whether the more wilderness-centric style without any signs of man (and where the wilderness takes center stage as subject rather than just backdrop) has been more appreciated as art in some cultures than in others.

[bill t.]

Have gotten very interested in landscape imagery from the last few centuries.  What I think I see is that the hand of man has gradually disappeared from such imagery in parallel with population growth.  As population and its consequences increased, the ideal of a fully primitive refuge became more attractive.  That's where we are today.  I have a couple of landscape pieces with structures in them in the grand tradition, and I could probably sell twice as many if I rubber-stamped the hand of man the heck out of there, but I refuse.  So congratulate me, or at least take up a collection.

But honestly I really don't see much difference on pBase of flickr between the various nationalities.  Perhaps Russians have the most distinctly national look in these times, but only by a little.  And of course those Brits still don't appreciate what they have in that damned soft, perfect afternoon light.

You wanna see what a landscape should look like?

Check out this 5.5 x 10 foot baby.  Be sure to click to zoom.  The jpeg doesn't do it justice in detail, but it does a pretty good job on tonality.  The amount of scientific detail is incredible if just slightly imaginative.  You can for instance learn all about the parrots or religious customs of the area in minute, magnifying glass detail.  It was promoted like a blockbuster movie back in the late 1850's.  It would cost you $0.25 and long wait in line just to see it.  Note that in the times before mass media paintings were an important source of information about far away places, which made the works of man and their integration into the world a subject worthy of inclusion.  Times have changed.  If I were a zillionaire I would buy this piece at any cost.  Maybe I should charge people to see my prints.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Sorry, Bill. It's too big to fit on the wall over my sofa. Can I have my quarter back?   

[John R Smith]

I would rather like to have people in my landscapes, provided that they were relevant to the composition and gave it a sense of scale. Unfortunately, believe it or not in crowded Britain, I can walk all day in the countryside and see hardly a soul. That's largely because farmers and labourers don't really work the land anymore, contractors with their huge machines come in instead and finish in a day what it used to take us a week to do. So the sort of photography that James Ravillious did so brilliantly in North Devon forty years ago is no longer possible.

This is one of the very few landscape pictures I have done where people are an integral part of the design. Taken with the Zeiss 150mm Sonnar on Ilford Delta 400.

John

[bill t.]

Yes, before photography.  There were plenty of published images available, but not in glowing Technicolor or on the grand scale!  Or extremely well hyped.  Of course it was photography that pushed painting in an abstract direction in the interest of differentiating itself from that upstart photography medium.  Let the photographers grovel in mere literal representation, we painters will look beyond slavish representation, which of course will set us apart and make us manifestly Better than them.

Those snooty painters owe us a lot, and have been damned ungrateful about it.  If it weren't for photography they'd be doing nothing but real estate promotional work today.  Did photography catalyze Impressionism?  I like to think so.  All of which begs the point that the evolution of art has mostly been driven by emerging groups of artists driven desperately to differentiate themselves from the established styles which they view as having become bourgeois.  The history of Art is the history of Desperate Differentiation (tm).  Walk into any cutting edge gallery and all you will see is desperation differentiation.

But curiously it has become OK since about the 1960's for landscape painters to admit that they mostly paint from photographs now.  I am often amused to see that blown-out skies are rather common in recent landscape paintings.  I guess painters haven't heard about HDR yet.

Of course, I simplify too much.  The world and its history  is more complicated than even I can understand.

And Eric, look at your receipt.  ALL SALES ARE FINAL!  I've learned a few things over the years.

[bill t.]

John, that is an excellent piece.  One thing that figures can do for landscapes is give them a sense of scale.  If the figures were rubber stamped out of that image, the apparent scale would seem much smaller than it really is.  They also promote scale to being an important part of image, and pull the image away from being an abstraction of shapes.

Another thing that figures can do is provide a personal surrogate that invites the viewer to experience the scene from within, versus from outside.

[Isaac]

Did photography catalyze Impressionism?

"The Artist and the Camera: Degas to Picasso" might be of interest to you, and it might be fun to search out when figures in paintings were first truncated by the frame.

... the evolution of art has mostly been driven by emerging groups of artists driven desperately to differentiate themselves from the established styles which they view as having become bourgeois.

I think we can generalise that without being too foolish -- social and technological developments have been driven by emerging groups driven desperately to differentiate themselves, make a name for themselves.