Landscape 'gardening'

[chris_waller]

<p>Sometimes when I'm shooting landscape, I tidy up the foreground. This usually means clearing away beer cans, fast-food wrapping etc. but sometimes I do a little pruning to remove intrusive foliage and the like. I sometimes feel that I am in someway interfering with the subject matter. What are the limits to 'enhancing' a landscape?</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

You find your own sense of limits when you regret that you have done something.

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Much what Ellis said; it's a personal "preference", in very much the same way (I think) that the level of post-processing/darkroom work has a different limit for most of us on where the image crosses the border into becoming an "idealised" version of what was the actual scene.<br>

On the upside, you're cleaning up nature areas. There can't be a single thing wrong with that in my book. It's sad you actually need to remove beer cans and burgerwraps.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>Another vote for Ellis' one liner. It really is that clear, to me anyway. </p>

[williams_gallery]

<p>In being creative, manipulating the scene is fair game. After all, we manipulate the scene in ways such as what we choose to frame, from what angle, at what moment we shoot it - and in the darkroom/computer, we adjust tones, dodge and burn, crop etc. I would say to adjust the physical materials from which the image is made is just part of the process. </p>

<p>Don McCullin, the famous war photojournalist once gave an interview where he talked about how when shooting in Vietnam he adjusted the contents of a killed NVA soldier's possessions - he actually flipped the solder's wallet open to reveal the soldier's family pictures and added some shell casings into the scene to make the image. That actually would be considered unethical by journalistic standards today/ But since you're talking about shooting landscape, I see nothing wrong with it at all. We "make" images in every sense of the word. </p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>I sometimes feel that I am in someway interfering with the subject matter.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> It could also be seen as simply <em>engaging</em> with the subject matter.<br>

<br>

Even if I felt like I were interfering, I *might* continue. Those somewhat conflicted or even negative feelings might lead to an edgy, challenging, ambiguous, or even honest photo. What would that look like? I might consider how I could use the landscape to photograph this feeling of interference? That would be a level worth taking it to and might result in a picture somewhat more interesting than an otherwise typical landscape. <br>

<br>

That's just <em>my</em> thinking. It all depends on what <em>you</em> want.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p><em>"Doctor, every time I raise my left arm over my head, I get this stinging feeling in my shoulder. What should I do?"</em></p>

<p><em>"Well, stop raising your left arm like that."</em></p>

[charleswood]

<p>"What are the limits to 'enhancing' a landscape?"</p>

<p>It sounds like you're speaking to naturalism v. idealism where in the latter your enhancement is idealizing the landscape. Instead, leaving the human-made blemishes in the shot makes the landscape depiction more 'natural', but that makes your approach an idealizing one, if you want it to be. So if natural in your context means cleaned of unsightly human artifacts: the problem I've had is with telephone wires in the background, pathways, roads, houses. The thing is, nature is full of detritus from other species and we think that leaves are natural and our wrappers aren't. Our roads aren't natural, but animal-worn paths are; tangled branches serving as rodent dens aren't natural, but an absolutely orderly arrangement of sticks of wood aren't when humans live inside stick structures albeit more rectangular ones. I know what you mean though and I haven't sorted all that out although yeah, I would clip and clean up rubbish too.</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>I routinely photoshop out beer cans, trash, and sometimes the protruding branch in the foreground.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Art is not just recording what is there (according to your perception of what "is there") but in creating something original and (at least to you) significant. The freedom to do so is one of arts important parameters and the approach to arranging a scene has only its socially responsible limits (such as not uprooting plants or destroying indigenous objects of others that might detract from your personal vision). </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Hi Charles. I think you meant rodent dens "are" natural.</p>

<p>"Our roads aren't natural, but animal-worn paths are"</p>

<p>I guess humans are not really considered part of nature? Is that division natural? Are we constructed like machines or are we organically derived?</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Yes Arthur, I've noticed that inconsistency in thinking myself. We constantly hear that man should act as part as nature yet when he does something that some people disapprove of, they consider man acted out of nature. If a beaver builds a dam to provide for it's health and life, floods the land killing many animals in the process, well, that's natural. But if man builds a dam to provide for his needs, he's evil. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Yes, perhaps because man has more power to reason. Or I guess I should say <em>some</em> men have the power to reason. I wouldn't expect the same level of care or empathy from a beaver that I do from a man.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>That's what I meant to say Arthur, rodent dens are natural, we see ourselves as separate from nature somehow. I get stuck on naturalism/idealism all the time and have impulses to clean things up.</p>

[AlanKlein]

Fred, being empathetic and good stewards of the

environment does not mean being abusive of

animals or nature. However man like all other

animals has to eat so there is always death

associated with eating. Also there are many

positive effects from what man does. While certain

animals may die from flooding due to dams, there

are many more species that benefit from human

dams as much as they benefit from from beaver

dams. Water fowl and fish flourish due to the lakes

created by the dam for example. The point is man

effects the environment just like other animals and

plants and can do it in a moral and respectful way.

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>The point is . . .</p>

</blockquote>

<p>PHOTOGRAPHY! Time to get back to it.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Chris, consider filmmaking and set design and all that goes into the creative art of making a film. Often a street will be cleared, houses painted, cars brought in, people used as extras. One perspective would be to see these things as "interfering." Another would be to see it as part of the creative process, part of fulfilling a particular vision the photographer or filmmaker has. There are certainly some types of pics and some individual pics I would take where I would not intentionally change what I came across. The "integrity" of the scene or the moment might matter a great deal to me. There are many other times where part of my photographic endeavor is very much to create something and in those cases I might well go out of my way to interfere with what I originally found. As a matter of fact, interference with a natural flow of events can be what a lot of great photography, literature, poetry, painting, filmmaking, sculpture is all about. It can be as much about changing and making as it is about finding what is already there. For me, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. It's about the shot I'm taking and the photo that will result. I can approach a photo in all kinds of ways, depending on the subject, the context, the situation, my mood, and what I want to accomplish or show.</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Sometimes when I'm shooting landscape, I tidy up the foreground...<P>

 

It's a personal decision, and for me, depends on the circumstances. Making portraits of people on the

street I sometimes remove bits of stuff on the sidewalk when I think it could be a distraction as visual

clutter, sometimes I don't if its presence seems a natural part of the stage. And sometimes I'll

intentionally leave something obvious in place as an element of the photo.<P>

 

<center>

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<img src= "http://citysnaps.net/2013%20photos/Mackenzie.jpg"><BR>

<i>

MacKenzie • Tenderloin, San Francisco • ©Brad Evans 2014

</i>

<P>

.<P>

</center>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I usually bring crap with me to strew around a scene. And Pez dispensers. I like Pez dispensers.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17812341-md.jpg" alt="Mushroom selfie" width="680" height="680" border="0" /></p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Sometimes I debate myself over removing trash. Usually I leave it. Simon Jenkins tweaked a version of this photo for me minus the litter - Lightroom wasn't very good at this sort of cloning, and he's a Photoshop wizard. Good job, but I decided I liked the litter. Seemed to fit.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16217034-md.jpg" alt="Puzzles, Ver. X" width="680" height="451" border="0" /></p>

<p>I can't claim it has anything to do with integrity or ethics. It's just a sense of whether it fits the scene, looks right and feels right.</p>

<p>Usually an out of focus twiglet in the middle foreground of the dang photo that we overlooked doesn't look or feel right. It just seems like a mistake or oversight. I'll stomp those down with impunity. But I draw the line at kidlets and puppies. I don't stomp them down, in or out of focus.</p>

[Brad_]

Agree, Lex. It's an element to ponder with everything else and works well in your photo. I get a big kick

from your color shot above, too.

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Speaking of staging a scene or setting a stage, there aren't many of us who'd go to this extreme in the pursuit of urban landscape gardening. I met this fellow a few months ago while he was setting up a miniature impromptu art installation, part of a project he's been working on - leaving these little oddities and treasures for other folks to happen upon.</p>

<p>And he didn't even photograph it himself, although he had a camera. For him, it was the act itself that was the art, not the audience (I just happened to be the only person around on a lonely Sunday evening). He wasn't interested in documenting it - although he graciously accommodated my photos and questions - so it wasn't exactly performance art either. It was closer to an elaborate form of tagging or graffiti, using only temporary and easily disposable materials, but intended to evoke memories and pique the senses rather than to claim turf.</p>

<p>I've posted this photo a few times this year on various threads because the concept continues to fascinate me.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17762534-md.jpg" alt="DSCF1210_May 04, 2014_X-A1_LR4" width="680" height="453" border="0" /></p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

There are incidentals and essentials. Sometimes incidental elements distract form the essential elements, and it enhances the 'truth' (such an ugly word... but since it is the topic of this thread) of the photo when the incidentals are removed.

[c_watson1]

<p>Chain saws are too noisy and too heavy to use all the time.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

That's why they invented PhotoShop.