The Non-Romanticised Landscape

[Norma Desmond]

<p>What I took Arthur to be saying is that he can wear two hats at once. He can, especially as a gallery owner, take into consideration and understand and even appreciate what others find pleasing, interesting, or acceptable while at the same time not being less attentive to his own vision. Maybe the word "influence" is the key. He can consider, understand, and appreciate others without being (I would say unduly) influenced by them, at least in his artistic endeavors.</p>

<p>It's similar, I think, to a debate we often have about thinking getting in the way of spontaneity or writing in a philosophy forum getting in the way of getting out and shooting. Action is often a matter of integrating a bunch of different intentions and processes at once.</p>

<p>I tend to be deterministic at the same time as I'm a proponent of freedom. I think we operate under all kinds of influences all the time, some biological, some genetic, some cultural, etc. I think we are bound by many of them. Freedom grows out of that, and maybe even despite that. I don't deny that others are probably having an influence over me all the time. It's what I do with that and despite that that allows me a sense of individuality and freedom. Sometimes, even recognizing and embracing that unstoppable influence frees me to act and create.</p>

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p><em>the more one takes into consideration the acceptance of others, the less attentive you can be to your own vision.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is an interesting idea, but it's oversimplified. Granted, we can't work on developing our vision if we spens all of our time doing what others desire and/or demand. However, our vision can have a synergistic relationship with the tastes and desires of others.</p>

<p>Vision can start out in a very rough and unpolished form. It's natural for the development of one's personal vision to be influenced by others in at least two ways. The first is historical. We absorb the styles of others, even though we're not always aware of the process. Almost every great creative artists had/has influences. The second is reactive. We sense how others respond to our output, which in turn can result in variations to our approach. We may choose whose influence to consider, or we may end up accepting feedback from any and all sources (dangerous). The process can happen consciously, unconsciously, or in some combination, but it does happen in many cases. No man is an island.</p>

[AJHingel]

<blockquote>

<p><em>the more one takes into consideration the acceptance of others, the less attentive you can be to your own vision</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Who ever wrote it, it much be someone that believes in zero-sum games between human intellects. I thought actually that acceptance of others was enriching to ones own visions unless they are able to impose their own visions without taking into account others. Might I be wrong ?</p>

[john_a5]

<p><em>.."the more one takes into consideration the acceptance of others, the less attentive you can be to your own vision</em>"<br /><br />Well, I am honored to have been quoted so many times......<br /><br />Zero sum game? I am sure that happens, but since we share so many common experiences, knowledge and processes with others, as I said above, you trust that you will communicate when you create something from within.<br /><br />I don't actually think the statement is really all that simplistic. In particular, the word "more" is the operative word here and gives weight to the actual effect on personal vision. <br /><br />But maybe simplistically, what I was suggesting in the extreme might be that if you are out in the field making photographs and you simultaneously see two photographic possibilities and can only make one, what do you do? The first resonates deeply within you and embodies an idea you have been working on in a way no other has, but it is rather banal and certainly not "romantic". You love it regardless. The second, well, the first thing that pops in your mind--"wow, I bet I could get 7/7's with this on photo.net!" and yet it isn't felt particularly deeply by you. So you make the second photo and pass over the first--this is the simplistic version of what this statement is saying at the extreme of considering the acceptance of others and losing attentiveness to your personal vision.</p>

<p>I am not suggesting that the process isn't complex and full of a lot of gray areas, however, I know that when I have worked in the past and when I work now, I am not thinking about what others might like, I am only concerned with what has meaning to me--I trust others, maybe not the masses, will also see meaning. Now, I admitted above that there was a time, a short time thankfully, where thoughts of others reactions did distract me at times--it wasn't a pleasant experience.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>I should also restate that when I am editing or reviewing images, I do sometimes consider what will communicate, or might not, to others. That doesn't override all decisions, but it might have some effect. I just don't find those thoughts conducive to my vision at the time I am creating images--and to qualify that, note the "I".</p>

[john_a5]

<p>I don't know that I shared this here or not, but it might be of interest and I think somewhat related to the topic here:</p>

<p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Interesting video. As I said, we all have our own ways of working.</p>

<p>I tend to consider my own photographing a collaboration with my subjects. So I don't work from within, or at least I work from within and without. Photographing necessarily takes me outside myself, especially since I'm shooting things outside myself.</p>

<p>I'm a thinking kind of guy, so I usually just can't relate to statements like the one Wessel makes in his video. I don't find thinking affecting me negatively except when I <em>over</em>-think. But just regular thinking, planning, intending, adjusting doesn't get in my way.</p>

<p>I don't necessarily care whether a viewer will "like" my work so I don't think much about that. But I do think about how a viewer might be affected by what I offer, and that can help guide me throughout my process, from setup to post-processing to presentation. As I said, I often feel as if I'm introducing my subject and the viewer, so there is a three-way dance I enact among all of us. When I ask myself what I may be trying to say with a given shot, I consider to whom I might be saying it. I'm not talking to myself. As I said, a lot of this takes place with the ease and fluidity that focusing the camera and choosing an f-stop does, but it takes place nonetheless. Some of it takes place when I'm in bed thinking about a shoot the night before or in the shower in the morning.</p>

<p>Now, there are times when the consciousness of my thinking recedes, for sure, and I feel in-the-moment, as the popular saying goes. But being in the moment, for me, is a kind of connectedness, not a dis-connectedness of just the self within. It is myself reaching outward, towards and among both my subjects and potential viewers. It's not just about what I am seeing. It is about what there is to be seen. That latter formulation involves others.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>M, been thinking a little more about the manscape/landscape thing. For me, and there are probably many biases built into this response, the thing I connect to in manscapes, picutres of streets, houses, alleyways with dumpsters, telephone polls with flyers stapled to them, store windows with passersby, etc., is much more the content than the form, the story as well as the look. Most landscapes seem to be more about visuals/looks. When I encounter a story or narrative in a landscape, I stand up and take notice because, IMO, that's rare. Street stuff, however, generally makes me think as well as look, and stirs my imagination as well as my senses. I generally find nature pictures more static (emotionally) and urban landscapes more dynamic, even if it's more the suggestion of action (or even past action). Most landscapes seem timeless, they've been there and they will be there. Most urban scenes suggest that stuff has happened recently and/or will happen soon. That sense of anticipation and memory in an urban photo can be powerful. There are likely many exceptions to what I've said. Just some thoughts.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Fred, regarding the last post, I have the same idea about it.<br>

Since I also shoot both regularly, maybe useful to add some of my "experience" to it: when shooting landscapes, I typically look for peace, calm, quiet. Indeed static, undisturbed (and preferably, no humans). Approach is one of rest and a certain relaxedness, since the photo won't run away.<br>

Urban things, I seek different things mostly: mostly graphically strong shapes and forms, contrasts. More edgy and immediate (admittedly, this sounds vague). In my attempts at street photography, I notice that I'm much more restless and hyper-aware. Those images are fleeting, their stories last sometimes seconds and they do run away (maybe because I'm not a very accomplished streetphotographer, though). These images do not come from a sense of calmth and rest, but from a more nervous urge.</p>

<p>I believe these differences "in process" can be visible in photos, and as such landscapes will possibly communicate a tranquility that many like (and hence find beautiful). But it's also fair to say a lot of them are somewhat lifeless, and indeed less dynamic.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred, your last post is pretty much how I feel about it. It is only when nature, and usually some smaller plant or rock form within it, is unique in some way, or altered from its normal appearance, that I respond to it more and appreciate something dynamic or evocative. I too find manscapes more attractive (not usually in the sense of beauty, but as having something I can connect with and respond to). The presence of man or not in the image is not of overriding importance, as much of man's work is enough in itself to stir my imagination or emotions. The sense of change in manscapes is, as you say, what is often compelling.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Fred: I find that almost every landscape has the ability to inspire anticipation, or a sense of things that have happened (or will/may). I see past ice ages, looming storms, breeding grounds, mosquito havens, food for herbivores, a place to twist an ankle or slake my thirst - just as many possibilities as I see when looking at a graffiti-decorated bodega or a busy crosswalk.<br /><br />The more time I spend outdoors (in places where things have happened, or do), the more true for me this is. Likewise, I frequently see street scenes that suggest to me an intractable status quo that has no room for meaningful narrative possibility that I don't intend to initiate myself. <br /><br />You've written many times about what the viewer brings to the image, so I hope you'll forgive me for saying that my city slicker radar went off on hearing your observation about the rarity of story in landscapes (relative to manscapes).</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Landscapes, cityscapes, manscapes, abstracts ! 'm not sure that I don't search the same thing in all cases in the first place. Forms, colors, contrasts, sharpness, fade, compositions. I find it cities but also in the country side or objects, naked bodies and portraits. Some expressions of aesthetics that go far beyond storytelling or messages. They give pleasure and esthetic satisfaction like <a href="../photo/12880114&size=lg">this</a>.</p>

<p>I can however also agree on the attention on what manscapes, whether in nature or cities, tells us about ourselves, our history and our lives. Most of what I'm doing in photography finds here its roots in a type of non-demanded documentaries. Most of my photos are indices of history, cultures, modes of living, expressions of inequalities, suppression, privileges, boredom and joy as I see it around me that mark a place ("essence") and in different parts of the world. As I am a "citadin" ("city dweller" or whatever you chose to call someone that most of his life has been living in big cities) and not a "campagnard" (countryman) I tend yo see more such scenes and indices in cities like <a href="../photo/10290957&size=lg">here</a> or <a href="../photo/8719473&size=lg">here</a>, or in artifacts like <a href="../photo/12031255&size=lg">here</a>, but they are surely also present in many a landscape, at least in Europe and the far East, with countrysides marked by thousand of years of "manscaping" like <a href="../photo/7205548">here</a> or <a href="../photo/12031253&size=lg">here</a>. </p>

[john_a5]

<p>I have considered myself a landscape photographer for over 32 years now and I can honestly say that most landscape imagery pretty much bores me. My own work, after the obligatory western school initiation, turned more towards the equivalent and the use of the landscape in its service. I love the landscape and I love being in it, but it has been a long time since it was the benign sort of thing we see pictured so often in the genre. I enjoy those moments of beauty but never, well rarely, photograph them but have been more connected to the power of the land and how it echoes human condition. I relish the sense of vulnerability and mystery that one can feel while isolated in the middle of nowhere and the connection with the living world that can come from that. Working on the commission for the railroad made me look at landscape in a different way and was a bit of an eye opener in many ways to another dimension of landscape that was very powerful for me.</p>

<p>It really doesn't matter a lot what kind of photography I am looking at, but I want it to communicate with me on multiple levels and reveal something of value, whether known and amplified or unknown or heretofore hidden. I look for something more than surface in most cases and much photography is nothing more than surface.</p>

[studio460]

<blockquote>

<p>It really doesn't matter a lot what kind of photography I am looking at, but I want it to communicate with me on multiple levels and reveal something of value, whether known and amplified or unknown or heretofore hidden. I look for something more than surface in most cases and much photography is nothing more than surface.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>John, I think that's a brilliant observation. Currently, my recent photo attempts (not currently shown online) fall into the latter category. Your post will help me in attempting to conceive the former.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Surface is easy. Other layers are less easily perceived, in the visual and in the mind. Discovering them or creating them is the great challenge in photography and in art.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I absolutely understand (and agree at least to some extent) with the expressed sentiments about surface and depth. But I have often thought about just how important (and not at all easy) the surface itself is as well. If I can get in touch with what's on the surface, what someone really looks like, the pores of their skin, the folds around their eyes, the textures of their hair, the look of the expression itself rather than what that expression might "mean," I can really have something special. It's one of the reasons I'm so against the concept of "essence," which I really don't think exists. The outer is very important to me when photographing. People wear a lot right there on their sleeves. I always keep in mind what Avedon said. I think it makes a nice complement to what's being discussed in the last few posts.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there...been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best." </em>--Richard Avedon</p>

</blockquote>

[aplumpton]

<p>Surface has both physical and philosophical qualities. One can talk about depth (as, say, the film and darkroom print people do when comparing their work to digital and inkjet printing) or about the beauty of what is conveyed on the surface and its texture, or the importance of the surface of the subject (per Avedon), or one can consider surface philosophically as a limited region of communication and a potential barrier to to what else may be present in the image, visually and also in the mind. </p>

[john_a5]

<p>Fred, it seems we are talking about surface in different ways. In fact, as I read your description of how you might approach a subject's surface, I couldn't help but feel that that is exactly the sort of process that pushes the photograph itself past the surface (maybe superficial) meaning I was referring to and delivers the levels of communication we can read as viewers.</p>

<p>I don't know, maybe that is as clear as mud--I am going to bed....long day....</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Hmmm . . .</p>

<p>What if Avedon means exactly what he said? I understand that it is different. I understand his statement as an alternative. I think it may undermine what he's saying to look for ways in which he's saying what's been said in the last few posts about getting past the surface or about opposing philosophical depth to physical depth. I find it very worth considering that he meant there is no such difference. He may have been rejecting philosophical depth and deeper meaning in favor of looks. That may well not be our own way. But I'm not talking about your way or my way. I'm simply considering his way . . . as an alternative, not trying to fit what he says into my own predisposition.</p>

<p>His words likely present a real and challenging and even a hard-to-comprehend-and-accept alternative. I often find it difficult not to see others' ideas through my own prisms, wants, and needs. I think his ideas about surface are worth a shot, though. I think he is not saying what's been said in this thread, only in a different way. I think he's saying something very different altogether. I may ultimately reject or accept it, learn from it or not. But I do consider it, as is, at face value, which is I think what he's asking of me.</p>

[studio460]

<blockquote>

<p>But I have often thought about just how important (and not at all easy) the surface itself is as well. If I can get in touch with what's on the surface, what someone really looks like, the pores of their skin, the folds around their eyes, the textures of their hair, the look of the expression itself rather than what that expression might "mean . . . "</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Also, very nicely stated, Fred.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Fred, it seems we are talking about surface in different ways . . .</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Similar <em>and</em> different--both statements, inspiring and insightful nonetheless.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>You see, when I read Avedon's statement I see something that contradicts surface alone "<em>A good one is full of clues.</em><em>" </em>Well, clues allude to something other than what is there--like just the surface. Then he talks about if he gets absorbed by beauty or a feature that he loses what is really there. Again, this points to me that his "surface" is something other than physical surface as what is really there if it isn't what we are looking at?<em> </em></p>

<p>I guess I can't help but think he is talking about surface in some other way, but then, whatever works for each. Over time I have realized that there are a lot of different ways to say essentially the same or similar things. Not all resonate with each person in the same way and the beauty of all these different approaches is that eventually you find one that resonates within you and helps you move forward.<em><br /></em></p>

[m_stephens]

<p>My mundane manscape <a href="../photo/12942101">here</a>. If the bus were a bison....and the bridge was a bluff?</p>

<p>In life we see lots of buses, and not many bison. But using the forms as they are found, they are not much different to perhaps someone who has seen neither?</p>

[starvy]

<p>Lately, I have rather felt that the 'ordinary uncommon place' has been done to death. Stephen Shore is much to be blamed for.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Avedon's statement makes sense to me in two ways, though I think he went a lot further than the statement suggests. Everything that makes its way onto the light-sensitive sensor or film are photons echoed from the <em>surface </em>of the subject. With regard to portraits, I just read a few weeks ago that something like 90+% of all human communications are non-verbal. The surface matters, and though it may not be everything, it's inescapable in photography.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Just thinking more about the Avedon statement, I thought how essentially that when we are making an image that all we really have is surface (which isn't the meaning I was referring to in my statement about photography) and that when we pay attention to the surface(s) rather than getting lost in details, we find a way to present those surfaces in a more meaningful way ("a good one is full of clues"). We can't photograph anything but surface, that's simple physics, but the way we handle that is what pushes the image beyond surface to those other levels.</p>