Seeing with generic eyes
My friend and fellow artist, Doc Ross, has this disturbing ability to throw intellectual hand grenades and stir responses. yesterday He sent an email to a small group of us who have a regular e-debate on photography, the Universe and everything. He is usually the instigator, and the results can be hilarious, as each of us comes out of his burrow.Yesterday this appeared in my Inbox. I share it with the rest of you. Feel free to come on board and offer your thoughts.
Here’s a question for you, taking into consideration that it has been noted that the perfect scene as described by people worldwide contains all of the following, a horizon, a lake, mountains, trees, animals, and people. However if this was taken as to be considered applicable to the perfect picture, then a big Mac and fries would have to be the perfect meal!
So what do you think makes a good landscape ? Is there actually such a thing ? And what can move you in a landscape?
For some strange reason I’ve just got this mental picture of you dressed in a Jester’s outfit, dancing maniacally in front of the King’s dining table, pointing your sharp little finger and inciting angst wherever you can. And your latest question, I sense that you’re stirring the pot (again) and attempting to provoke a response from all of us. I sense also that you already have an answer of your own, so the question of course is: why don’t you give us your answer first?
That said, I feel provoked (which of course is what you always wanted), so herewith my reply.
I know the book you mean. Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid’s Scientific Guide to Art, is the book to which you refer. I read it some years ago. Apart from expostulation that there is a generic form of landscape there seems to be appreciated by everybody, it also postulates a position that the ideal size for a work when you’re trying to sell it is to make it dishwasher sized, as they put it. That might have implications for those of us trying to sell our own work; on the other hand it might not. It’s well worth getting out reading.
I spent this weekend teaching landscape photography, so while I was walking through the Botanic Gardens yesterday, thinking about how to depict what is essentially a Victorian tree zoo, the appearance of your e-mail on my Blackberry seemed hardly coincidental. What is even more curious is that I had spent the previous day discussing with my class the fact that it seems to me most landscape photographers seem to work with a pair of generic eyes. So I am going to take that line and chase it further out.
Landscape photography is a genre dear to my heart. If you care to read my artist’s statement, you’ll know where I am coming from with my own work. Time and time again I look at or am asked to comment on landscape photography, or more correctly, the depiction of the landscape, and other people’s attempts to do so. For years I have wondered what constitutes fine landscape photography, or more correctly, what is considered original landscape photography. Last year, at the NZIPP print judging, I sat next to a local professional, who had just been made a master (!). Most of his success had come from the bread-and-butter of his business, namely wedding and portrait. Since I’d been asked to be one of the judges in the landscape category, I had been exposed to a lot of landscape photography from professionals around the country. This professional had also submitted work in the landscape category. When asked what he felt about his photography, he replied that he did weddings and portraits to feed his family. He really wants to be out photographing the landscape. Curious about what he had said, I went and looked at his work again, hoping to see his personality and his passion in the work he had submitted. I didn’t see either. What I did see, it seemed to me, was a generic form of landscape photography that could have been shot by anybody. Of course he didn’t see it that way, and had I asked him, would have felt it was true to who he was and his vision of the landscape; in other words, he felt he was being both original and creative. The question then becomes: why is it that I saw it otherwise? Why is it that I had no perception of him in the work?
The answer, it seems to me, is that on that day, at that time, he had borrowed the pair of generic landscape photographer eyes, and shot through them.
Some time ago I began to wonder how that pair of eyes had evolved, why there seems to be some form of common ethos that people cling to, or consider constitutes fine landscape photography. What is interesting here is that if you ask the author of the work, they will feel they are being both original and creative, and yet if you show them a piece of work that looks very similar in both content and approach, they will pan it as being both derivative and representational (they may not choose those particular words). So I began a search into the origins of those two much-misused words picturesque and sublime. It took me back to Edmund Burke, who in 1756 wrote A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. You can download the E text from the Internet. He wrote it of course as a guidebook for all the wealthy young men who were travelling Europe on the grand tour. Naturally they had to have a way to document what they saw, and in the absence of cameras, took sketch pads and canvases. Because most of them had had no formal art training, they needed some sort of guidance as to how they should be recording what they saw. Burke’s essay gave them some guidelines as to where they should place the subjects, and to how they should respond to what they saw before them. What is interesting is that when you read the actual essay, you sense the beginning of the timeline that has continued through to this day, and which is particularly strong within the cameraclub movement, and to a lesser extent within the professional arena. At this stage it seems to me that Burke is the man we can consider responsible for the development of this pair of generic eyes. It also seems to me that once you know that, once you are aware of the 300 year old line of history, you can choose then to either accept or reject it, to align with it or break free from it. Whichever choice you make, at least you are doing it in an informed way, rather than from ignorance (from the Latin ignoro= I do not know). You can of course also surf on the shifting sands of prejudice.
Time to put myself in the frame.
What then do I look for in a landscape? The question of course is: are you asking me what I look for in my own landscape photography or, or what I see when I look at the work of others? They are two distinct questions. Let me look at the latter. My artist statements define my approach to my own work.
Firstly, I’m aroused by work that has not been photographed through the pair of generic landscape photographer eyes, and which could have shot been shot anywhere by any photographer. Blue sky-green grass-white sheep shots, or something similar, accompanied by some ghastly title such as autumn reverie, shut me down immediately. I have seen the generic eyes, and I move on. Quickly, if possible. What will attract my attention is a sense of the photographer being present in the work, of his or her personality, point of view or possible life experience manifesting itself in the photograph.
1. It may be pristine, serene, or reverent. It may be tortured, angst ridden or frightening. It doesn’t actually matter. At least the photographer has taken a point of view, and made a statement.
2. The photographer may show me a an aspect of the subject I would never have considered. They may have chosen an unusual camera position, or used a technique I would never thought of and thus shown me the subject in quite literally a new light.
3. The photograph may well ask me questions about my feelings towards the subject, may well ask me to consider my own position towards it, or may well ask me questions about myself. It asks me to engage and respond to it. The photographer has discarded the generic eyes, had the courage to use his or her own eyes, and put himself or herself on the line. I respect that willingness to be open.
4. I’m even more intrigued when the picture has passion and emotion, because then I begin to get some sense of where the photographer is coming from, what moves him or her, and as a consequence I begin to gain some understanding of the photographer, and perhaps the beginnings of mutual identification.
An old friend of mine maintains that the camera looks both ways. Every single picture we have ever made, are making, or will ever make is a self-portrait. If we photographed through the pair of generic eyes, what is that then is saying about us? It seems to me that by doing so, we are making a clear statement that we are unwilling for whatever reason (fear?) to make the journey into the richest of artistic resources.
Ourselves.
Your serve.
Doc replied at 1144.
Spoken like a true teacher Tony 
and I mean that in a positive and not derogatory manner! And I have to agree with you on so many points.
The reason I asked is that I am finding virtually every (especially scenic) landscape photograph I see these days boors (bores) me to ****! I know my personal preference in expression has moved from the landscape to the cityscape, and I’m sure this influences my thoughts on this somewhat. However I still enjoy seeing good landscapes, whether classical analogue, or digital construct, it doesn’t matter. But I’m just not seeing any!
And it makes me wonder, has the abundance of technological assistants adversely effected the photographers ability to see beyond the workroom ( workstation for those digitally afflicted ) and understand that a landscape is more than mere representation, Regardless of how competently it is put together! By this I mean representational of both subject and ones ability to manufacture.
So, what makes a good landscape for me?
For starters if I immediately understand it I don’t find it interesting, and everything I’m seeing lately is understandable 101.
A good landscape to me is when I get lost looking at it, when I find myself searching for myself in the landscape! This means the picture excites some fear or love from within me that makes we want to be a part of it, or it forces me to face those fears. However in most contemporary landscape photography I see a kind of hyper two dimensional anthropological act of self indulgence! that does exactly the opposite to me, it repels me shuddering and slinking quietly away diminished as not to be noticed, desperately not wanting to be part of it.
The photograph’s thing has always been in its being full from its beginnings, unlike the painting with its empty canvas the photograph in a way starts with everything in it. The good photographer uses light, angles, composition, subject placement etc, and their personal sensitivity and aesthetic to select or arrange this stuff in a way that makes a statement to the viewer. Photography’s simplicity is its key, along with its realness or thingness as Edward Weston said. You cannot make a good picture without first taking a good picture! Drama can be manufactured, but emotion must be there from the first click! If one doesn’t feel like crying when they take a landscape picture people will surely laugh when they look it!
Doc
Mary Jo replied at 1300
Tony — thanks for including me in this discussion.
Because I don’t know the others, I’m stepping out on a limb and I hear it creaking beneath me. But I feel a suicidal need to participate as a frustrated artist dealing with the same question. But on Monday morning – isn’t that a bit rude?
I shared the ideas of this discussion with my husband and he summed up in his usual direct manner, “There are too many ******g eye pictures out there and they bore me.” (His term ‘eye picture’ refers to hyper realistic images).
I tend to take a more logical path to sort it out.
The attached Breugel painting is ‘the perfect scene as described by people worldwide contains all of the following, a horizon, a lake, mountains, trees, animals, and people”.
But, I doubt few who contributed to that description would agree that it points to the Breugel as an example of perfect landscape. Personally I love it! As a kid, traipsing through art museums, I was really impressed by Breughel.( I have negative feelings about Breughel-no doubt because there was a Breughel on the ceiling above the dentsit’s chair I used to sit in while a child!-ed) Why is another discussion entirely. But, I use him to illustrate the obvious - that the inclusion of specific elements in an image have little to do with it’s success.
Next come the rules of composition – which have been broken successfully and frequently enough to conclude that the arrangement of the elements is not the key to a successful image.
So, without another answer, I come back to my ‘mantra’ that if I’m not feeling ‘it’ when I make an image, a viewer won’t feel ‘it’ either. It’s all about the ‘heart’ or ‘soul’ that is imbedded in the image the moment it is captured. And I don’t mean the heart or soul of the subject matter. Rather, I’m attempting to describe the synchronicity between the subject matter, the image maker and what he feels when he sees what he sees.
I’ve not been feeling it with landscape as I used to do, and I simply attribute that to the fact that I have changed, my viewpoint has changed, and the subjects that work for me reflect that. Much of the time recently, my images tell me who I am. It is as if they come to find me. I’ve dumped pre-visualization in the trash.
Doc, I was intrigued by your points about a photograph being full from it’s beginnings. I’ve often thought about that and wondered if we are not more ‘editor’ than ‘creator’ of our images. But, it’s more than editing, it’s recognizing that the image is there to be captured – and when we do that – are we not then becoming artists more than editors because each photographer will photograph the same scene in an entirely different way? So I am beginning to question ‘what is this thing we do with a camera?’
Thanks all
Doc replied 1401
Hello Mary Jo,
My question was inspired by Listening to Dennis Dutton talk about the origins of art, a review of his book on the subject is in the current Listener, and is well worth a read, as is listening to the interview on radio NZ, available on their website. So perhaps the reason you have always loved that Breughel is actually a genetic thing brought about by those ingredients being present in the painting! Because it’s not about the most pleasant image its about the most appealing image!
Your husband is right about “eye ******g pictures” there’s too much candy and not enough raw meat. And I’m a vegetarian!
The rules of composition have never been broken, they have simply been added to over time
Editors have finite numbers to select from, while the photographer has infinite! But I do believe that photographers must be able to select first, then create in the darkroom or the digital darkroom later (but I’m pretty sure those people who sit in dark rooms at their computers aren’t looking at photoshop (EEEK!-ed.) So considering most contemporary landscapes are digitally produced this apparent weakness could be a result of the ill-founded belief that selection is no longer necessary given that so much can be achieved by CGI, the result being eye ******g pictures whose interest is about as lasting as those being looked at by the man in the dark room
are we not then becoming artists more than editors because each photographer will photograph the same scene in an entirely different way?
I think the problem is more and more that every photographer isn’t photographing the same scene in a different way, quite the opposite in fact!
Print FriendlyPublished on Monday, March 23rd, 2009, under Thinking about Photography and Art, throwing in a handgrenade or two..
Hi Tony,
First of all thanks for 2 great days I’m not sure Carol will agree because I just wont shut up but every bone in my body is just “fizzing” with ideas and energy, cant wait for this weekend.
I have been thinking quite a bit over the last couple of days and its all your fault !!!
Having just read your blog entries and interaction with Doc Ross if I am to get any sleep at all this week I felt the need to explore what I am thinking at the moment. You talk about images taken through “Generic Eyes” being prominent among landscape images but is it not possible that images that people take (woops MAKE) can both have been taken from an individuals point of view and have great meaning to the individual and also appear to anyone else looking at them just to be an ordinary landscape.
A couple of images I have taken (woops MADE) over the last while would, for me, be in this category possibly. Is it not true that to really appreciate an image we should have a description of what the photographer was thinking and where they are in there lives at the time of taking (woops MAKING) the image.
We talked about looking at the masters work for inspiration on Saturday but when the image was first produced were they then considered masters or has time and a greater understanding of the photographer and the way the world was at the time led to the elevation of images from “good efforts” to masterpieces”. Time always has an impact on the way we see the quality and importance of everything in life, would the Mona Lisa have been seen at the time of production the way it is seen now, I think not. Even the great motion pictures, over time, gather importance and respect as there historical significance increases.
A couple of images may illustrate this.
A nice little landscape you say (hopefully) but to me it was a “light bulb moment”. I am standing on a small gravel pile while on a club fieldtrip, in front of me was about 8 other photographers snapping away TAKING photographs like crazy. It must have taken me 10 minutes to push the shutter as I was so engrossed in the view. I felt so aware of the birth of a new day with the sun coming up and giving myself and all around me life and hope. I really could feel the power of nature and appreciate our reliance on it. It wasn’t until we got back that evening that I realised that I had only made a few images but most of the rest of the crowd had fired of a half a card full and hadn’t really stopped to look at and appreciate it. Does, with this information, the image now look any different to you than it first did.
I know you have already seen this but you have to put up with my ranting a little longer. The first time I went up this road I was having issues with living in Christchurch as my Mum was in Dunedin hospital not doing so well and I am an only child. She has since lost both legs below the knee and a box full of life but that is a whole nother story. I came to this point in the road and immediately felt drawn south to Dunedin along the line of the beach straight into the ominous clouds and the storms that heading south had in store for me. I must have spent quite a while contemplating life etc before getting out of the car to capture an image. I have been back since and am still waiting to get the perfect storm that truly reflects what it all means to me but one day I will !!!!
Do these descriptions change these images for you. Our ability to tell a story in an image is limited by our talent and experience and skill but what we consider our own best images will always have a story that, when told, I believe transforms them.
well I’m the last person to ask about landscape photography, as Tony and some readers of the this blog know dropping me in the middle of a large landscape at 0630 hours usually results in me standing looking confused while everyone else enthusiastically captures the majesty of the surroundings. Though admittedly applying caffeine does help.
…however this and another comment lately have driven me back to the landscape design papers I took on in an attempt to stop my brain stagnating when the kids were littler (and also because the BAgrSci meant I was already half way through the course
). I pulled them out this afternoon and re-read with great interest the effects of different landscape designs. There were readings in particular where they looked at the psychological effect of the landscape on humans, and I thought that even though it was all about garden design it was interesting with respect to Doc’s question as in most cases the researchers had tested these effects by showing the test subjects lots and lots of photos and some paintings of various landscapes.
They found that…
-the reaction of preference to complexity was in an inverted U shaped curve. If it was too simplistic, not enough stuff it wasn’t preferred (well it’s too boring!), while also there is a strong orientation to information that is structured or patterned. Then there is very low preference for scenes with a large number of dissimilar elements and little structure. Actually Mary Jo the Breughel looks a lot like my living room…
There was an element of focality in the reaction to complexity, ie when textures, landform contours and other patterns direct the observers attention to part of the scene or when a prominent feature of grouping of features create a point or sub area of dominance that attracts the viewers eye ; then the viewer could deal with greater complexity without being discouraged.
-there is a preference for depth in a landscape. Just as humans are put off by a big brick wall or thicket blocking their way in real life.
- a deflected or curved line of sight is highly preferred (as long as the scene remains non-threatening), building mystery, curiosity, anticipation, promise…
-”threat” needed to be negligible or absent
and -(here comes the bit about the lake!!!!!!) there were marked preferences for a vista with water present.
So now you’re all yawning and going well I don’t care that that was actually about gardening, it was all pretty basic stuff… though hmmmm it does fit quite well with Doc’s initial MacLandscape description. But several studies also noted that various groups of people did not react typically to the landscape vistas shown. Including Landscape architects (who tended to be far more pragmatic about the practicalities of use and too unemotional), and in another study highly creative people, who had amongst other things had a far higher tolerance for complexity than the general population. There was a strongly worded warning that landscape professionals had to remember who they were working for and try and think more like their customers….
SO…. artists and photographers like you, Tony, Doc, Mary Jo and Otago Lad (Tony II?)… Do you see landscape differently from the general public? Do you demand more of your work and others than joe normal would? Are you impacting on the commerciality of your work when you follow your art? (is commerciality a real word?). I’m intrigued to know more… And feel free to disagree with anything I wrote. I’ll be busy outside struggling with my tripod. At least there’s lots of water around here….
Back at me, eh Meg! Thank you so much for this. I ma fascinated….give me some readings…And I iwll answer this one.
Doc? MJ?
Help!
Hi Tony,
Great talk all around, just about to agree with all of it.
What is a good landscape? What is a good bottle of whisky? “The one that will make me crazy”? Are there rules of good/bad to use in judgment or we follow the ‘Greats’ and what a boring landscape/world is going to be. To me is simple, a good one is made with one own heart and is judge by one own heart. In the creation there is only room for the creator. The imagination belongs to the ones on the outside. “Every man an artist” – an idea brought around by Brian Keeble. I do agree with it, though only a few get to be known.
Otago Lad, I’ve told Tony some time ago that ‘all is his fault’. Hope he will change.
SG: great to see you weighing in! Don’t break your cover..they are watching…
Otago Lad is already regretting being infected..mwuhahahaha!
I do take issue with what you say about the Greats. If we follow blindly ( monkey see, monkey do) then yes it will be like Fritz Laing’s Metropolis. The trick is( as my Latin teacher put it), to read, learn, inwardly digest, then regenerate through our own visiona nd experience, so we make the work our own. At that point it will naturally reflect our own consciousness. Aka PERSONAL style…
Tony, you are very right. Thank you. Stojan Stefanov Ganev Kesar
Meg – you go girl! If I was to chuck one sentence in the ring you said it in the last paragraph of your last post.
Who are we creating these images for? A prominent, well know and successful artist in my neighbourhood is driven to tears by constant commissions for ‘boring’ Kaikoura landscapes. So who shapes the artist in us, do we create to enjoy the smell of the sea spray in our own images, do we smell the customers money, or do we crave for kudos in an indigestible saturation of imagery.
And changing the subject, I’m loving ‘sisters behind the skin’ and have spent more than a few minutes deconstructing it. I think I can see the artist’s
silhouette by sister 2. If that Toyota ute reflection was a Citroen Traction Avant I would buy a print!
Now I’m going to go and cower in my workshop while you guys biff stuff at each other.
Andrew
Is it not true that people snap landscapes through their eyes but good landscapes are made with the use of your mind’s eye only? You have taken the time to explore with your eyes and your mind what stands in front of you and are using the camera and then computer (where applicable) to recreate how you felt about the view.
This will not always reflect what was in front of you at the time.
If this is then conveyed to the viewer success at some level is reached, but this is also very reliant on the eyes and the mind of the viewer being open and in tune with the photographer. I find the challenge is to take the time to take it all in and each scene gives you a different amount of time to evolve the view into an image that the brain is ready to capture.
p.s. After another sleepless night I am taking a collection up to take a contract out on you Tony are there any other takers, I want you all to think carefully about how much easier your life would be if we had him “rubbed out”.
Otago Lad, that can be easily arrange especially with the rainy season at hand. A warning, life is likely to get very monotonous without this guy, just like the pretty landscapes you see at souvenirs shops. Also, it’s handy to have someone to blame for sleepless nights, or what ever. Anon
Otago Lad
We can’t rub him out – he makes us think, compare AND grow – now doesn’t he???
Great conversation everyone – keep it up
Im away from the internet for a couple of days and this amasing dialogue goes on!!
Andrew go it 100% in that Megs question should prevoke another great response.
To add a couple of questions to the pot…..
Since this is all about “Landscape” photographs, Tony, as our own recognised expert on the genre, can you please define a “landscape” photograph for me. If I go to Castle Hill to make pictures is it only a landscape if I make a grand vista image, if I do not include the horizon and concentrate only on rock forms is it still a landscape? What happens if I go further and the shapes become barely recognisable as rocks, does the image then stop being a landscape and become an abstract? Does it matter?
Some comments on your NZIPP friend with the generic eyes. I suspect that the problem is one common to all who work in one field for a long period of time. His real passion in photography is probably still the people side of things, that which drew him to begin with, and he has simply got bored with it. To chase the passion again he is delving in a field which he hasnt developed as far. I suspect that Im not the only person who has been a student at a Tony Bridge landscape class and has left with images which are OK but have a bit of a “Bridge” feel to them – thats another form of generic eyes and its all part of a learning process. Your friend needs to recognise that getting bored is part of any career, no matter how glamourous others may percieve it, and that his wedding and portrait images are an art form just as valid as landscape or anything else.
Ive often imagined John Constable sitting at a blank canvas thinking “Oh hell not another rural landscape, commissioned by Lord So and So, with a few local peasants and a dog – Id much rather paint a few portraits”.
Since Im talking about Constable – I went to the exhibition at Te Papa a couple of years back. The images which I found the most powerful, and which have stayed with me the longest, were a series of small paintings he made in Brighton while his wife was ill and dieing. They were sea and sky images that were dark and brooding – almost depressing – and very powerful. The images were a clear view of how the man was feeling at the time.
The commerciality (Kool word Meg) wasnt here but the real art was.
Ian
I was wondering where you were Ian! And you and Andrew are quite right, there are more questions to be answered here than answers (so you can’t rub him out quite yet Otago Lad). I can’t wait to see the results…
So… when does Landscape become detail or abstract?
Tony, I’ll send you the reference, better still, I’ll just bring over the book of readings when I’m over next?!! There was another very interesting one about gardens and emotions, which reported amongst other things a prison riot where the prisoners completely trashed and burned basically the whole place… while being careful not to damage the garden they’d developed! Must have had a water feature…
megs last blog post..as promised….
Ok I give in the contract is off (for now!!) but it sounds like you are only being saved by the inspiration you provide us all so Tony you better keep on your toes and keep it up.
Initially I reacted negatively about this comment of Doc Ross. It seemed a faintly silly comparison. But I’ve spent time with Tony in the last while and decided if he thought it sufficiently interesting to disseminate, maybe there is underlying meaning or meat (or hamburger)
We’ve been subjected to NZ’s entry in the Venice Biennale, goldfish taken for rides on planes, an Italian indecently exposing himself to the unlucky individuals who took up the offer to see his art and so on and so o …… breakfast at McDonalds starts to sound OK.
That the majority like pretty pictorial imaging doesn’t make such representation “not- art” or “not-worthy”. There are good reasons for images with tthe elements that Doc Ross sites being thought atttractive. I have just spent a week at my cousin’s bach at Pakiri near Leigh. The decor included the Green Lady by Tretchikoff that was considered the height of art for people of refined taste in 1950. There were seashell picture frames, twinkly lights and a lava lamp (not working). Sounds like McDonalds BUT the bach decor was lovingly put together over years by my cousin’s wife who is a professional designer and I’ve spent hours trying to find a set of 3 flying ducks for a thank you.
There doesn’t have to be deep underlying angst and thought provoking messages to make satisfying landscapes.
Mike Molloy