So what is this landscape photography thing anyway?
The virus attacks
In the post-”Seeing with Generic Eyes”, a number of you enquired about where landscape finished and close-ups began. At least, that’s my interpretation of what you said. An interesting question indeed, and one which quite frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about. That is, I’ve never had to define landscape photography before. Like so many of you, I tend to assume I know what landscape photography is, but when I think back I realise I’ve never really defined it for myself. So my thanks to all of you for putting me in the frame, and I hope my response is going to engender some sort of debate.
Here is my twenty cents, for what it is worth. In this post I’m going to talk about my own response to the subject, rather than trying to make some sort of global statement that encompasses everything and provides some sort of definition of what it is.
Perhaps the easiest way is to begin by saying what it is not. It is not portraiture, which is about the depiction of the character of the person being photographed. Note here that I include portraits of animals, although the attempt to impart personification to an animal strikes me as being a little weird. Dogs are dogs and cats are cats, and while we will may recognise characteristics that seem to us to be human, the fact remains that they are both different species, with their own approach and raison d’etre.
It is not documentary photography or photojournalism. While a location may be of significance in the image (it usually is), the fact remains that these are pictures about life or some event that usually involves human intervention.
It is not still life or war photography or photographs of your 10-year-old making a mess at a McDonald’s birthday party. It is not photographs of the stars or somebody’s house that they are putting on the market, or a wedding or indeed aeroplane wing-cracks.
I thought I could escape by sneaking off to Wikipedia and using their definition. But I think the person that wrote that entry is as confused as some of us (whoops, you). Wikipedia defines landscape photography as:
Landscape photography is a genre intended to show different spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic.
While many landscape photographers show little or no human activity in their photos, striving to attain ‘pure’ unsullied landscapes[1] that are normally devoid of human influence, using instead subjects such as strongly defined landforms, weather, and ambient light. Despite this, there is no pure or absolute definition of what makes a landscape in photography, as such it has become a very broad term, encompassing urban, industrial , macro and Nature photography. A beach full of parasols and sunbathers can be a landscape photo, but so can the view through an electron microscope, which shows a different type of landscape. Waterfalls, and mountains are especially popular in classic landscape photography, often calling for Large Format cameras[2][3] can be turned into a rolling vista by a skilled photographer. and neutral density or polarizing filters. Though many photographs are inspired by traditional landscape painting, the term in photography is very broad, most places and things can be photographed as a landscape, a kitchen, a lamp, a wall, or even the human body.
Are you any the wiser? No, neither am I.
I tried answers .com, and got this.
n.
- An expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view: a desert landscape.
- A picture depicting an expanse of scenery.
- The branch of art dealing with the representation of natural scenery.
- The aspect of the land characteristic of a particular region: a bleak New England winter landscape.
- Grounds that have been landscaped: liked the house especially for its landscape.
- An extensive mental view; an interior prospect: “They occupy the whole landscape of my thought” (James Thurber).
Hmmmm. Then I found something of interest. A footnote had this to say:
WORD HISTORY Landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters’ term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists were pioneering the landscape genre. The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply “region, tract of land” but had acquired the artistic sense, which it brought over into English, of “a picture depicting scenery on land.” Interestingly, 34 years pass after the first recorded use of landscape in English before the word is used of a view or vista of natural scenery. This delay suggests that people were first introduced to landscapes in paintings and then saw landscapes in real life.
That’s more like it. Thank goodness for the Dutch (I hear my great-grandfather and Austin Powers in the background).
If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then that explains why the depiction of the landscape lay largely unconsidered before the 17th century. Look back through the art history books and you’ll see what I mean. Lots of portraits, lots of portraits of people in the landscape, but the landscape per se?
Zip.
Again I come back to the comments I made in a previous post about the young gentlemen on the grand tour around Europe. They needed to record the landscape through which they passed. Thanks to Edmund Burke, they had some guidelines to follow.
Fast forward to the 19th century. Photography in its earliest form came into being largely as a result of the need to document the places people were visiting. Being a new medium, it looked backwards into painting for a source of direction. The earliest photographers, apart from those making a killing from doing family portraits, were making records of the landscape, of the places they found and visited. Roger Fenton is a case in point. His pictures of Egypt, England and the Crimea are now valuable historical records. They give us a clear pictorial record of those places at that time. Thus they are landscape photographs. By and large they tend towards a medium to wide-angle view of the scenery. Timothy O’Sullivan, the Burton brothers and Carleton Watkins have all left us a legacy of enormous value today. As readers of the photograph, we are able to stand in the same place and time that they did.
Nowadays that purely documentary aesthetic seems to have gone. Because we know the planet intimately, very few of us would probably bother to create documents of a place and time (although millions of tourists do that very thing each year). No, we want to do more. We want to express our feelings towards that particular place.
We may be overawed by the scale and grandeur of what we look at, so we tend to make photographs which contain a lot of information and reflect our attempts to try and contain it all in a single coherent image. In my opinion, that is a landscape photograph.
We may be fascinated by the limestone formations through which we are walking, and the effect of the weather upon them. As a result we concentrate our attention upon them, and might make a photograph which shows them in their place, and the relationship between them and the surrounding geography or geology. In my opinion, that is a landscape photograph.
As we walk past one of these rocks, we may notice an unusual lichen, spreading like some sort of virus across the rock. So we bend down with our macro lens (which is really a micro lens), and make a photograph of it. Is this a picture depicting scenery on land? Is it the photograph depicting a region or tract of land? Does it even justify the word scenery? I would venture to suggest not.
Sitting on top of a hill, we may be struck by the small house in the valley beneath us, and how it is dwarfed by the mountains surrounding it. So we make a photograph and place the house in the frame in such a way that it appears minimal and dwarfed by the power of Nature. While our statement may be about the relationship between the man-made and natural, to my mind it is a landscape. Sitting on the top of that same hill we may observe a filthy industrial town spreading like a cancer across the scenery in front of us. Using our ability to select and frame (because that is the art of photography), we make a photograph which draws the reader’s attention to this. To drive the point home, we convert it to black-and-white and use a Bill Brandt soot and whitewash technique. The reader gets the message. Yes it is a landscape, but now it is crossing over into the realm of documentary photography. So we’ll invent a nice subcategory, hereafter known as documentary landscape. Images like this, in my opinion, qualify as landscape photographs.
If I use the landscape to express a feeling or an idea or something that is inside me, such that the emotion or thought process behind that picture-making is clearly evident, then to my mind that is a landscape photograph. One reader might well ask where I made the photograph, while another is more interested in what I was feeling at the time, or is interested in what the photograph has to tell him or her about my personality. Well and good. All of these, either singly or in combination, qualify in my book as landscape photographs.
The nature of what qualifies as a good landscape photograph is quite another matter.
I know (indeed I’m hoping) that a number of you will be fizzing with indignation or righteous disagreement. Fantastic. Express yourselves, debate at length and offer your opinions. They are all valid.
Now, I’m off to find another wasp’s nest into which I can poke my stick.
Print FriendlyPublished on Friday, March 27th, 2009, under Thinking about Photography and Art
oooo…. where did everybody go??? Maybe you answered the question to everyone’s satisfaction. Why is it that some of us are not able to genuinely reflect what we are feeling in the image that is made? (ie the portrait photographer making a landscape) Is it that we miss something in the capture, or is it the knowledge in the processing that is required, or, as it feels to me, not having the understanding to translate the feelings into the image, therefore not being able to process the image to achieve the connection for the viewer?
Advice? comments?
Jenny.. enjoy being who you are rather than trying to be something else. If you are a portrait person be a portrait person & don’t worry about being a landscaper.
Right Garry – like Popeye..”I yam what I yam and I yam what I yam that I yam.”
I figure once you realize you’re a yam and you get comfortable with that you’ve got nothing to loose and everything to win.
Jenny:
Reslly good question. To my mind, the reason may be that there is a confusion about what we are trying to say. Reading Tolle’s New Earth would answer much of what you have asked.and I know you have.
Im sorry Tony but I dont feel any fizzing indignation at all – I agree with all you say and I see it the same way (I do completely disagree with Gary but more on that later!!!),
So to me a “Landscape” is any image which evokes some sort of feeling about the depicted location. The lichen you speak of could be in a landscape image if it tells the story of a small plant struggling for life in a harsh, cold and barren rockey environment.
But what makes “good” landscape? These posts sent me back to a book I have by British Landscape photographer David Ward. He talks about unsuccessful images which “lack soul” and says:
“I contend that images might lack soul if they denote more than they connote, that is if they more strongly state the obviousness of the representation (tree, lake, cloud etc) than they evoke what the objects may stand for (time, solitude, depth, escape etc).”
To me to be able to evoke a feeling in an image is a learned process. I see the process as three stages
1. Feel something. Either stand on a hill in wonder or develop your own thoughts and find a place which brings those thoughts to life.
2. Look a scene which makes you feel in awe, or excited, or depressed or whatever and identify what it is in the scene that creates that feeling. That is the “Art of Seeing” and is what photography is really all about.
3. Now that you have seen it grab that vision with your camera and turn it into an image.
Nobody said that those steps are easy and Im sure that noone has ever mastered them, but that is the whole point. You just have to want to do it enough to be driven along the path by passion.
Thats where I disagree with Gary……. If you want to be a “Landscaper” Jenny then just tell yourself that you ARE going to be one and go and find a path.
The process is exactly the same if you are a “portrait person”. To make a successful portrait you must first know what it is that you feel about the subject, then you must identify what it is about them that makes you feel that way and lastly you must capture that trait.
Exactly how you follow that path is a big question. But the fact that you are reading this blog is a great start…….
Ian.. but what if I (or Jenny or anybody else) don’t want to stand on a hill etc. Maybe I feel in awe or get excited by having a conversation with another human & try & show their personality by photographing them.
I didn’t know that it’s compulsory to stand on a hill. hmm interesting concept.
Hi Garry,
You dont have to go stand on a hill if you dont want to – BUT if you are inspired by dramatic landscape images dont say “I cant do that because Im really a macro person…….”. Instead say YES and start looking for the first step on your path.
The same applies to “people” photography. For example if I was to come upon an amasing set of images of local shopkeepers the last thing I should say is “they are fantastic but Im way too shy to talk to the people and make images like those”. Instead I should take a long look at the images to decide what it is that really draws me in, then I should find other similar images which do the same thing, then I should try to make my own images with friends or family in their own environment, then………..
In other words identify the passion and then find a path to achieve it.
Perhaps I misunderstood – If you are saying that its OK to not want to be a landscaper and to be a portrait person instead, then I totally agree. But to say “I really want to be a Landscaper (or portraiter) but I cant because I just dont have that talant” is what I think is wrong.
Ian
Oh and by the way – Of course I know that you knew all that and that you were just trying to prevoke a response!!!!!!!
mj, i like your comment. there is a saying “one is what one think of oneself” and that’s what really matters.
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there. — Marcus Aurelius …
There is no point in swimming upstream.
If you’re interested in spiders then make pictures of spiders. At some point you may learn all the lessons that you need to learn from spiders. Then another subject will become your vehicle for learning and exploring.
If you’re finding one subject or style difficult it could be that you don’t have deep enough interest in it to drive you to conquer it. And, I think that’s OK.
anon –
I meant to say thanks in that last post..
mj, I could not agree more, it’s only the inner strength we have (ourselves) in this world, the rest is not ours. As for going against upstream, I would do it for the hell of it. Life is in madness, existence in floating down. I thank you for the inspirational comments and Tony for pasting them on his blog.
Thanks everyone for the insightful comments, it’s been great to see the different perspectives and to watch the discussion developing. I have come back several times, digested, then come to some conclusions although not relating directly to the post, but more to these comments.
Part of me relates to garry’s first comment, but then how limiting is that??? Luckily I find ian’s, and more particularly, anon’s last comment, which is a little more to my way of thinking.
Someone, having labelled themselves “portrait photographer”, wants to make a landscape, others look at the results and feel that he should have stuck to portraiture. Does that mean he is moved any less by the landscape than a “landscaper”? Or is it partly the fact that while he has made 10,000 or more portrait images and understands now how best to capture his responses to any person, this is only his 10th or 100th attempt at the landscape. Don’t we all continue to learn (from the world) and refine our craft with every image that we make, and make hundreds and thousands before we start to feel that we are beginning to get a handle on this particular genre?
I would like to keep myself open to what is trying to be said to me, and learn to interpret it even if that means making some bad attempts for a while until I begin to understand. I’m sure swimming upstream gets easier as you get fitter from the attempt?? Sure makes the blood flow!
We all have something in us that makes our communication more effective in one style than another – maybe moving into uncharted territory just gives us the freedom to interpret that in “our” way once we understand. I’d hate to miss the opportunity to try because someone says I’m better at soemthing else.
“Swimming upstream” — I need to clarify, and it won’t be easy. I ran out of espresso today and had to suffer instant coffee. Only half of my synapses are firing.
Great challenge brings great reward. But there are bjillions of battles to be won on the photographic field. It only makes sense to when choosing a ‘battle’(genre, technnique, subject) to take advantage of the extra oomph provided by a deep feeling and excitement about that particular ‘battle’.
The skills developed while photographing spiders will later enhance our effort to make pictures of landscapes. But, the spider pictures may always shine above the landscapes if they were born of a true love of spiders.
Challenge is good.
Challenge in tandem with great passion is magnificent.
Why swim upstream when you could fly in ecstacy?
Jenny, you said “I’d hate to miss the opportunity to try because someone says I’m better at soemthing else.”
Forget what THEY say and search for whatever tickles your heart. No one can define that for you and it will be the best driver and teacher you will ever find.
mj, despite the lack of expresso what you say makes perfect sense – thank you
Over the time of this discussion I’ve ended up making more work that I’m excited about than ever before… and none of it landscape… hehe(sorry Tony).
Jenny:
I am not the least offended by your comments> Yes I do landscape, but if you have been dipping into the featured image section, my latest and ….., you can see i do other things….
Jenny, Interested that you’ve done more work that you’re excited about during this discourse. I crave synergy with like-minded people — and it always results in surprises for me. I like to think that there is a geometric increase in ‘whatever you call that thing that makes things blossom’ when I associate with good people.
Tony, that’s why you’re such an inspiration and source of frustration too… how come you can get it all together in so many ways?! which puts me right back to the start of this thread!!!
Ian what?
You don’t have to stand on top of a hill at 0630 hours in -2 degrees celcius?
Bugger. I totally misinterpreted that part of the wedderburn course then…