Landscape Photography – why?
Landscape photography is a strange game. You spend ages sitting watching a rock waiting for it to do something interesting, then suddenly it lights up and you’ve got a photograph. Or you drive out of town towards the hills in perfect conditions just for it to turn flat grey and boring as soon as you open the car door on arrival. Sometimes times it feels like there isn’t a good photograph to be had in a hundred miles. Other times it feels almost too easy.
It can be almost as much of a psychological game as it is a visual craft.
It is easy to burn through hundreds of pounds of fuel trying to get to an elusive shot that you spotted out walking one day when the conditions weren’t right, or tramp dozens of miles through ankle deep bog in the hope that you find a composition worth coming back to sometime in the future when the light is better. Of course, all this time you are carrying your camera, tripod, lenses and a bag full of filters… why join the gym when you can lug 6kg of electronics and glass up a hill to mix and mingle with the midgies?
Let’s be honest, when you think about it like that landscape photography makes very little sense. You’ve gotta love it really.
It’s a solitary pursuit, and sometimes pursuit feels like just the right word; like you’re chasing something that’s perpetually just over the horizon…. The difficulties just make it all the sweeter when your car doesn’t break down, the conditions are right (when you are actually there), the composition comes together and you nail the shot.
When you get home you make yourself a brew and process the shot to a finished photograph. And then maybe the file just sits there on a hard drive, loved by you but unappreciated by the rest of the world who will never get the chance to see it. Maybe it pops up on your screensaver from time to time when you’re not there to see it anyway: you’re probably in the next room with your maps looking for your next photograph. It seems like a terrible waste after all that effort.
Sure, these days we can share these things online; Facebook, Flickr, Whatever. Perhaps you’ll print a few favourites to hang around the house. Perhaps you’ll even take the plunge and put on an exhibition somewhere. Perhaps this is the true test: does your photograph stand up to being printed and framed and put on display for the public? Certainly, there is a singular satisfaction in watching someone losing themselves in a landscape photograph you have taken. Does the photograph you are so proud of capture the soul of the place and convey it to someone that hasn’t been there personally, or is it just another glorified snapshot that only you can truly love?
Does it really matter?
When I shoot landscapes I shoot them for myself. Yes, ok, so I sell the prints and yes I do enjoy seeing other people taking something from a good shot. But that is not why I leave the house at 4am to tramp through blinding hail and 40mph winds at -6 to get in position before sunrise. I shoot landscapes because I love being out there.
Mostly, I shoot landscapes because when I get it right I can look at that print on the wall and, just for a few moments, I can be out there again.
Happy New Year folks – all the best for 2012!
2 comments
Great post and so true. I shoot a lot of corporate stuff in order to make money but when I’m shooting for myself, it’s landscapes I love.
I used to travel on a motorbike and pitch a tent near my intended subject; I remember one trip where my sleeping bag fell off the back of the bike on a foggy ride through Scotland and I had to sleep in my leathers because I was so cold – all to get some shots of the Sun rising over Elgin!
I’m not quite as die-hard now but I do still love a god adventure =D)
You can see some of my UK landscape photography here:
http://subtlesensor.com/portfolio/landscapes
Dan Romani
Subtle Sensor Photography
Sounds familiar! I do remember getting to Rannoch Moore and realising my sleeping bag was sitting by the door of the house – a cold night indeed!
Keeps life interesting….