The Non-Romanticised Landscape

<p>I'm exploring landscapes to understand what makes them photographically interesting or not. In the two samples below, the top is a kind of typically "romantic" landscape, while the bottom is a similar form, but free of our notion of romanticism of the content. Another way of expressing this is to say "content free", such that only the form carries the interest. (Admittedly, these two are not stunning, but just used to make the example.)<br>

<br />We are quite biased towards natural things like a tree and a rock, but is a telephone pole really so different in form? Is a nasty nest of say, phone wire all that different than a spider web?<br>

<br /><br />In simple photographic truths, does our bias toward nature's beauty or charms prevent us from seeing completely similar and useful forms in the ordinary places? Is there beauty of form and composition lying all around us, but ignored for it's common roots? Is our appreciation of natural landscapes a knee-jerk conditioned response?</p><div></div>

<p>I think you know your own answer. And you've prioritized "liking" "beauty" over other possibilities. You do write well IMO and I enjoy your thought process.</p>

<p>I wasn't sure your meaning/words exactly, but I see the top image as more form and the lower as more content. I also think that we have to consider relevance as I believe that is a large part of the shift in landscape photography from the past to what is currently being done. That there is a sense that the pristine landscape has little to do with our life--and maybe a sense that there is so much of it, it has become mundane.</p>

<p>I also think there is a large range between the two sorts of images you have presented here. But towards the latter, there was a statement that I read that I thought had great wisdom to it. It was something like that the ordinary is only ordinary until we actually stop and look at it. In other words, we don't look closely at things around us in a general sense and thus miss things. I have photographed in the landscape for over 30 years and it has been a long time since I really had an interest at looking at most landscape imagery--traditional sorts and yet a profound interest in the equivalent sort of work. For a long time, I didn't really understand the new topographics work, but it always stuck in my mind much more than that pristine landscape or sunset or.....</p>

<p>I think there are lots of people photographing ordinary things quite successfully. Here on this forum there are many examples. One of my favorite photographers photographing the "ordinary" is this fellow: http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=1572283</p>

<p>Likewise, "sunsets on ocean" and other such nature landscapes are perennial favorites among many people, and I believe the reason for this is because we are hard wired to respond to certain visual arrangements and features. I've done a lot of landscapes over the years and I tend to avoid these cliches and look more for geometric stimulation, but then again many people do that too, so its getting pretty cliched as well. What's the worry? Different things are interesting to different people. The real question is what stimulates you and can you produce the images that you think are interesting.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John A,<br>

Of course the words can be confusing. By <em>content</em>, I mean to say, "a thing of interest." If you photograph Mt. Shasta, a gorgeous peony, a the GG bridge, people understand this content as generally interesting and carrying some significance. If you photograph some telephone poles, mailboxes, ladders, it's commonly regarded as empty of meaningful content, or maybe better yet - devoid of subject matter!</p>

<p>By <em>form</em>, I mean the most general use of composition to place forms in a pleasing, interesting, or provacative way, without any regard whatsoever to the meaning of the content. So I might then ask, can form alone carry the photograph when the content is mundane? That's what I am getting at here.</p>

<p>John Kelly,<br>

Actually, I don't really know my own answer. I embarked on this experimentation recently. I have yet to get the group of photos I would be pleased with, but progress is coming, and I am still out there shooting.</p>

<p>For me <em>sunset on ocean</em> is a photographic tool, just like <em>empty dirty parkinglot </em>is one. Their creative value or lack thereof lies not in their intrinsic nature but in the way they are used or not as a concept, and I wouldn't - and don't - hold back from using either one's aesthetic in a photograph. I don't really bother with other's notions about them, although I know that such notions can get in the way of appreciating the content of the photograph fully and "non-diluted". Sometimes, such ( general ) notions can even be used and played with. Like a rhythm or melody.</p>

<p>There's a reason we react differently (not better, not worse, but differently - with different parts of our brains) to the two types of images you've presented. We're the product of millions of years of evolution, and we're wired to quickly evaluate a look at the natural world and its elements - it's a fundamental part of what makes us tick as mammals, and especially as mobile primates that worked our way out of the trees and across the plains.<br /><br />Promising, peaceful, or challenging vistas speak to a very primative part of our psyches. Scenes showing the works (or leavings) of modern culture engage a completely different part of us, and mean we have to parse culture, purpose, back story, and more. It's a completely different experience.</p>

<p>M, I rarely find that I can separate form and content. I'm very motivated by and interested in content. While I think any photograph -- even with the most narrative of subjects -- can have abstract aspects (formal, compositional, geometric, imaginative ones), those seem to me always intertwined with content. When the form is so strong and moving as to seemingly override the content it's attached to, I usually start to think of the form as the content . . . and treat it that way. So, you ask, "<em>can form alone carry the photograph when the content is mundane?</em>" My answer would be that there's a couple of things (probably more) that could happen. The mundane content would take on some unique sort of interest, even if that interest was in a new kind of attention to the mundaneness or a transformation of the mundane into the fascinating or at least the contemplative. Or the content would recede so much that the form would actually become the content of the photo. The photo can be its own subject.</p>

<p>Steve J Murray,<br>

I appreciate that link to Jack McRitchie's photos. I particularly think that #13/36 - "Heroic is a Matter of Scale" - is a good example regarding my inquiry here. The matter of fact'ness of it is very appealing to me. It is neither ironic, nor humorous - both of which would be dangerously easy to follow in this path of experimentation. I am looking to avoid what I now consider the environmental cliches (and scolding) that are the more typical use of this idea of photographing the mundane directly around us.</p>

<p>To your last comment, no I have no personal problem finding endless things that interest me for photographs. My reason for asking here is just to explore what others have done and thought on an aesthetic that is completely new to me. I have always been the guy trying to reposition around the phone pole, ugly wire, utility box, or dumpster to get the clean shot unencumbered by defect and imperfection. A few weeks ago I was browsing a photography book and came upon the photo with the street light pole running right up the foreground center of the photograph, and I let out a laugh. Not because the photo was funny - it was matter of fact - but because I had so scrupulously worked around such situations for so long.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>Some</em>where between Ansel Adams and Lee Friedlander lies the middle path from which one can astray.</p>

<p>look up Robert Adams, Mark Klett, and Stephen Shore. </p>

<p>Fred G.,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The photo can be its own subject.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, I think that is better phrasing than when I asked, "Can form alone carry the photograph when the content is mundane?" So yes, the photo is it's own subject.</p>

<p>Classically speaking, the common definitions of form in an image is what it contains, the elements and how they are arranged while content refers to the meaning of an image--but maybe we shouldn't go there.........</p>

<p>The issue of the pristine, pleasant landscape is partially as mentioned above, sort of a hard wired response and probably a certain level of escape as well--escape maybe more today than when such scenes were new and uncommon.</p>

<p>If we look at your example of photographing Mt Shasta, I don't know that there is necessarily any meaning in the image if it is one of those postcard type views, but it can be pretty to many. But when you take a Baltz, Robert Adams or Stephen Shore image, it takes a bit of work--at least at first--to figure out why they made that shot.. or I suppose that for some it might take forever to figure it out--but there is more there to ponder in most cases.</p>

<p>As I said, for me, I am much less interested in that postcard image of Mt Shasta (have been there more times than I can count--but no photos per se while I do love driving towards it and seeing it grow as I approach) than I am in say a Stephen Shore image. But I don't necessarily think Shore's images are devoid of a subject or the classical Content. In fact, just the opposite, I think they are much more charged than the postcard image. Do I think everything made in this sort of banal mode is great, of course not. I think there has to be, regardless of subject or genre, something more there than just what meets the eye. Sometimes that is conveyed directly by the photograph and sometimes it is part of knowing a body of work.</p>

<p>For other "classic" examples of the photographic "mundane" :<br /> http://www.google.be/images?hl=nl&q=lewis%20baltz&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1800&bih=1106<br /> But when the mundane is used enough it becomes interesting again, at which it must find a new mundane to become interesting, but not in a common way.</p>

<p>In essence, everything has been done before. You'll just have to hope to stumble into the rabbit-hole when walking through the landscape looking for pictures.<br>

( I thought I had one once but it was a mole )</p>

<p>Many of us live in cities where the horizon cannot even be witnessed, surrounded by man made environment which we respond to in different ways. Our interest in nature is often a guilty one, we have to get away from our manmade surroundings occasionally, not so much to view the romantic landscape of nature but to convince ourselves that we are or were of nature, and equally often I think simply in order to find a non threatening atmosphere, one we don't have to deal with as in our man made surroundings, to regain some peace.</p>

<p>Accordingly the romantic landscape becomes an abstraction. We can find beauty in our man made surroundings as well, and given the preference of many for some mechanical (new car design) or electronic wonder, rather than to witness water evaporating from a rock, or ice formed on tree branches, or seeing the first plants to pierce the soil in spring, we obviously place more priority on fashion, manufactured things, gleaming skyscrapers, and the like.</p>

<p>The romantic landscape is in the process of mutation. It is the - dare I say it, romantic - urban landscape and all that is associated with it that has become very important. Nature is just another symbol of something else, remote, for many who rarely set foot in it.</p>

<p>Two new questions arise for my from the responses so far. First, I think two or three mentioned a kind of "hard-wired" response to the natural photograph I referred to as romantic landscape. Hard-wired, or conditioned?, is my question about that. I have trouble thinking it is hard-wired because photographs as artifacts don't particularly strike me as being actually natural in the sense that we might respond with our lizard brain. It feels more likely we are trained from childhood and nurtured into what is beautiful and what is ugly.</p>

<p>The second question is just a little semantic. I'm having trouble thinking of content as "meaning". I would assume that the content of anything is a kind of manifest, or list of what's inside. Meaning is so complicated, mysterious, arbitrary and subjective, I just don't know how to connect that to "tree, nail, string, ball, umbrella" - a list of content in the photograph.</p>

<p>But since the word <em>meaning</em> has come up, I will add that I wasn't looking to have any particular meaning to my new exercise other than it's own interest <em>as a photograph</em>. As I mentioned before I don't want to be trapped into imputing irony or politics, or social commentary ("Oh, just look at the pollution and decay, will you!"). </p>

<p>I looked at a lot of the Stephen Shore pictures mentioned (I am so ignorant of the historically significant photographers it is shameful) and that's a similar, but slightly different take on it. Some wonderful stuff there though and I enjoyed it.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The romantic landscape is in the process of mutation</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>Mutation</em>, yes. Reminds me, and whether romantic or non-romantic, <em>the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes</em>, to put it in the words of Marcel ( Proust ).</p><div></div>

<p>Is a city street considered a "landscape" these days?</p>

<p>Is black and white printing and/or conversion romanticism? I think some might view it as nostalgic.</p>

<p>Most modern people in developed countries associate nature with relaxed leisure time, so that can prompt pleasurable feelings. We associate an unremarkable storefront with running errands on a Saturday when we'd rather be fishing or playing with the kids or watching a sporting event on TV. Or worse - employment.</p>

<p>I see the dirty parking lot every day and have little desire to look at it through the camera or on the wall at home. If I were living/working in a scenic natural surrounding, who knows, I may be taking pictures of parking lots. Though I doubt it.</p>

<p>I linked to <a href="http://www.momentsbeforetheflood.com/">these</a> before in the street/doc forum some time back. I like what the photographer has done in them, more as a series then individually perhaps, but to me they seem to allude to something that's both romantic and non-romantic.</p>

<p>Dan South,<br>

I use B&W film directly, so there is no romantic conversion for me. I don't think using B&W film is nostalgic. It's simply a medium. Not to dive off into that "B&W v. Color" question too much, I think of B&W very much like making a pencil drawing as opposed to making an oil painting. It's always a danger to stretch analogies to the breaking point, but I think that captures about the same difference in photography. I personally wouldn't consider a pencil to be a nostalgic tool.</p>

<p>Phylo Dayrin,<br>

Another interesting set of photographs from your link. I enjoyed those too, even though they feel to me more like a sub-category of travel photographs.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Think about clouds.</p>

<p>If we observe or speciman photographer (Mr. m, perhaps) in the field he's equiped, he's moving, he's looking, he's actively "making" his pictures. But then there are those *#%*## clouds. He can't "make" them. He has to just wait. And wait and wait and wait ... until he's reduced to a blubbering pile of jelly.</p>

<p>So, one day he's had enough. *Bleep* the *bleeping* clouds, he declares, daringly! And turns to those subjects that are not in need of ice cream castles in the air (shrouds of angel's hair, etc. etc.).</p>

<p>This may be a perfectly reasonable example of Matt Laur's evolutionary adaptation tuned up to a more handy rate of speed. We are now the new homo-camerus and we turn to that which cameras ... like.</p>

<p>For those of us with some spiritual ties to nature, your question is less about mundane verses extraordinary, or not recognizing that man has often formed objects that can remind us of nature patterns ... landscapes, TO ME, are all about God formed verses man formed objects. I seek to eliminate all man made objects from my <strong>landscapes</strong>. I am not saying that I do not find some man made objects interesting (or even beautiful). But, in my perception of beauty (or interest), I like to keep man made objects in their "box" (e.g. architecture, decay, etc...).</p>

<p>I have to admit that Phylo's "night image" above, which combiners elements of both is interesting to me. I guess, if I am honest, I simply am not impressed by most of man's construction (from a beauty standpoint). I find cities, visible electric lines, roads, etc... more as clutter.</p>

<p>Interesting subject, "m" that I would not tend to answer, but I would however suggest a start of an intellectual pathway towards some kind of answer to your question.<br>

One comment of warning, however. When you use the term "romantic landscapes" I don't know what "our notion of romanticism" covers . Mine is historically rooted.<br>

I would start by, in my view, the most representative of all romantic landscape painters: the German painter <strong>Caspar David Friedrich</strong> (begin 19th century) like <a href="http://www.canvasreplicas.com/images/Monk%20by%20the%20Sea%20Caspar%20David%20Friedrich.jpg">this</a> (Monk at the sea) or <a href="http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/caspar-david-friedrich-oak-in-the-snow.jpg">this</a> (Oak in the snow- bad color reproduction!) or the painter more linked to symbolism: <strong>Arnold Böcklin</strong> (end 19th century) like <a href="http://imprint.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Arnold_Boecklin_-_Island_of_the_Dead_Third_Version.jpg">this</a> (The Island of Death,) <a href="http://www.wga.hu/art/b/blechen/012storm.jpg">this</a> (Campagna landscape) or <a href="http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/fmlac10576_31a.jpg">this</a> (Villa at the Sea). And sorry ! but I would read <strong>John Keats</strong>, while looking at them (<a href="http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/toautumn.html">here</a> "To Automn")!</p>

<p>Then I would read what you can find of, or on, "The observations of the river Why" by the English teacher/vicar William Gilpin (end of 18th century) where he discusses at lenght the "<em>Pittoresque beauty</em>" - or whatever you can find on that or similar subjects. </p>

<p>Then I would come back to your question on telegraph poles...</p>

<p>Going back to m's last questions, I used the word "hard-wired" only to identify an earlier comment and how I agree with the basic sentiment. Conditioned might be a better term, but I think the lack of interest or understanding of the more banal type of work is probably because we don't, at least in the US, have a very good educational system when it comes to the arts. If you don't study art, you don't get the tools and even then, you aren't exposed to them until the university level and many biases are already set. "Pretty" and "identifiable" sort of make up good art to most.</p>

<p>Form and content have established meanings within art and those meanings aren't that different in other areas as well. Form is the building, its color, the texture, the diagonal concrete street it sits on against the blue sky etc etc. The content is what this all says to us, this "meaning" which is informed by the form of the image but also other factors outside the frame. We see similar uses of the words for speeches. The form is how it was delivered and where while the content comes from what the words mean as they informed by the time and place it was given and the conditions(political, economic, social) surrounding its delivery.</p>

<p>Cityscape has always been a sub category of Landscape, we just tend to think of landscape as the pristine world because I think we are conditioned to do that. But the city is built on the land and becomes the landscape of its local.</p>

<p>Parking lots? I sort of did something like that, but shot "Main Streets" across the US, it was actually more interesting than maybe I thought it would be: http://acurso.com/Main-Street-1.html</p>