Landscapes

I freely admit that I don't do much landscape work, since I don't travel too often to other states/countries. And southern Florida landscapes tend to bore me. We have an ample number of beaches, and large areas of swampland, but I'd have to go to northern Florida to find topological variety and less palm trees. But northern Florida is somewhat scary to me, for personal reasons.

I do understand that colors shouldn't be so bland that they dull one's senses; they should catch a viewer's eye. Having said this, looking over images posted for critique and posted to the Wednesday Landscapes forum, it seems to me that there is a tendency toward oversaturating colors. So, my question is whether this simply is a matter of personal taste.

Check out Clyde Butcher a Florida pro. He says that Florida's clouds are it's mountains. He has a home and gallery in the Everglades and in Venice. His work is large format huge prints. I saw them in his Venice Gallery where you can also see his darkroom. Because of age, he's switched to digital recently.

https://clydebutcher.com/pc/photographs/florida-collection/clouds/

I shoot set at Vivid -.3 or Monochrome and I like what i see on my monitor. I have preprogrammed user settings on my D 750 and Ricoh GXRs. Of course, here in the dry high plains we don't have a riot of colors. I don't often increase saturation, though on occasion I will reduce it. Most of the time, my PP is just minor tweaks.

There does seem to be some who trend toward fairly extreme processing of late. In my opinion, in some cases it reduces the attractiveness of their photos, but they don't have to please me! ;)

On saturation: Probably a combination of personal taste, uncalibrated monitor, and, in my case, playing around with an unfamiliar color mode in which it's breathtakingly easy to oversaturate without noticing it. Of the three, the uncalibrated monitor is most pernicious. I discovered that problem last year when I got my desktop computer--everything I'd edited on my laptop was over-the-top in saturation, relative to the Imac. Then the question was figuring out which one was accurate, so I got a Colormunki to calibrate them both. The answer turned out to be neither, though the 2008 Imac was a lot closer. I cringe to think about the opinions people must have formed about my taste in colors before calibration. Then again, perhaps my recent posts are proving those original opinions to have been righter than I would like...maybe I'll go recalibrate now. Do let me know if I'm one of the guilty parties.

On finding landscapes in unpromising terrain: if the light is interesting, I suspect that almost anything can become an interesting landscape, and the light is interesting at least twice a day and any time it rains. Water holds the same potential. I've also been playing with a series of miniature landscapes--it's startling to realize how many dramatic landscape features exist in miniature at a beach. Or parking lot, for that matter. I don't think landscapes are as much about the landforms as about how one looks at one's surroundings, and about how one perceives the interaction of the light and the environment, whether natural or constructed. I respond to a lot of cityscapes the same way that I do to a lot of canyonscapes--I tend to find both very compelling, in a landscapy sort of way.

So, my question is whether this simply is a matter of personal taste.

Certainly is in my case.

Thank you for pointing out this particular forum - although I have an interest in Landscape Photography, I have not posted any images here, preferring to stick to the safer waters of 'No Words', where I can either get a 'like' or just ignored. I am nervous about posting to a forum where other people can comment.

Having said that, I have just gone back over the past three months' offerings, and enjoyed the vast majority immensely, seeing views of places I shall never visit, but with a connection to the photographer rather than just images published in books or magazines. My own view is that while some of the images may seem to be not what I would expect, since I was not there when they were taken I do not feel I can judge them. A very few of the images had an enjoyable surreal quality to them.

Maybe I have a tendency to over-process my own images, I don't know, but as they are mainly done to please me, I do not feel that is a problem. Finally, I am reminded of the words of James McNeill Whistler, when accosted by a lady at an Art Exhibition, who remonstrated 'Mr. Whistler ! I have never in my life seen a sunset that vivid !' 'Possibly not, madam', said he, 'But don't you wish that you could ?'

Check out Clyde Butcher a Florida pro. He says that Florida's clouds are it's mountains. He has a home and gallery in the Everglades and in Venice. His work is large format huge prints. I saw them in his Venice Gallery where you can also see his darkroom. Because of age, he's switched to digital recently.

https://clydebutcher.com/pc/photographs/florida-collection/clouds/

Thanks, Alan. I'm quite familiar with Butcher. About 2 years ago, a friend and I went with one of his staff at the Big Cypress gallery and a few other photogs into the swamp.