 | Depends on how you want to approach it - New Topographics is a good start if you want a bit of urban in there. The Bechers, Shore, Robert Adams, Baltz, etc. Robert Adams was my choice to "get into".
I quite like Billingham though, and Eliot Porter is worth a look. To be honest, there's so many out there, the list could be longer than my arms.
Posted 3 days ago. (permalink) |
| Oh, and Cities on the Edge is a good one too..
Posted 3 days ago. (permalink) |
 | Thanks Rob, that's exactly what I am lookinh for. I agree that this is a very personal choice, what inspires an individual, however, as it is such a large field, it is useful to know what other students have considered.
I have the New Topographics volume and a couple of books about the Bechers, plus the Cities on the Edge book. Guess I lean towards city/industrial architecture as a landscape, but as I have not done Exercise 1 yet, there is a long road to travel.
I'll look at Billingham (familiar with his early "at home" work, not the landscape) and Porter.
I am also interested if anyone has any recommendations on the philosophy/history side. Have just started reading "Lanscape and Western Art" by Malcolm Andrews, trying to get my head around what actually is Landscape and what people think of as a Landscape. Just read the first few pages, looks interesting so far.
Posted 3 days ago. (permalink) |
| Porter comes in later anyway (intimate landscapes)
Posted 3 days ago. (permalink) |
 | Here are two photographers whose work I think might be interesting to you Shaun.
Mark Power's work was highlighted in this post by Jose on WeAreOCA. The videos are fascinating (I hope that Dewald can see them) and his website is really worth exploring further. He has a very innovative and creative approach to the exploration of places.
Another photographer who isn't really a landscape worker but who does wonderful work exploring internal places is David Moore. He has a knack of getting into otherwise hidden places. His pctures of, for example Paddington Green (in the project called 28 Days) or a security bunker somewhere under central London (Last Things) seem to me to capture a powerful sense of place with very minimal information. I think it's a fascinating body of work in itself, but also worth studying form a perspective of landscape work.
Originally posted 3 days ago. (permalink)
Eileen R (a group admin) edited this topic 3 days ago. |
 | On the philosophy of Landscape/tourist photography there is an excellent book, sadly out of print, by John Taylor Dream of England. You will need to search college and uni libraries or get your local library to use the Inter Library Loan system to get it or look for it second hand (Alibris and Amazon have a number of copies available at a reasonable price)
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
 | Eileen - thanks for the David Moore link - it might just have unlocked my (troubled) thinking on Assignment Three in PaP!
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| Thanks for the John Taylor suggestion, sounds interesting, so I ordered a copy from the states. I am very much interested in understanding something of the philosophy behind the genre, as well as looking at artists work. Especially with Landscape, the question looms of what is Landscape and who gets to decide.
On another point old photobooks seem to gather value quite quickly, I often look for stuff on Amazon and get quoted over a 100 quid for second hand books. On the bright side, maybe some of my ever growing collection will also appreciate over time - I need an excuse to avoid the long stares I get every time the postman arrives with a large book shaped parcel.
Originally posted 2 days ago. (permalink)
Shaun-in-Munich edited this topic 2 days ago. |
| Hi Eileen, thanks, both are very thought provoking.
I enrolled on the course a few weeks ago, but have yet to really get started as have been busy with my Lagoon shots finalizing DPP. The first question I have, before taking my camera out, is what can be considered landscape. I can buy into the idea that David Moore's work is landscape, the scale is small, but the composition and treatment suggest a desire to describe the topology of the spaces. I also find the Bechers Industrial typographies to be beautiful landscapes. However, neither would seem to fit into the "conventional" view, whatever that is.
This is part of the reason for my wanting to read around the question, before really digging into the photography.
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
 | I watched Edward Burtynskys Manufactured Landscapes recently on Sky Arts - very thought provoking on many levels and photographically much of it is not what would traditionally be considered as landscape photography in it crosses over with social documentary. It got me thinking though that I could probably consider the Landscape course if I came at from a non traditional viewpoint.
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| Glad to have been of help Stan! Hope your holiday is going well.
As for what is landscape, I confess that I'm very much the sort of person who would start making work first and use that as a way of exploring the boundaries. So I personally wouldn't rule much out from a definition of landscape in principle, as long as it related in some way to a place or evoked or referenced it in some way.
I look forward to hearing how you get on Shaun, and what conclusions you arrive at.
I've noticed how expensive old photo books can be too. As you say, a nice thought if you already own some classics in the making, but less so if you want to but the book.
People keep mentioning Sky Arts: they seem to have really interesting programmes. I wish there was soem way I coudl see them, without having to buy a whole Sky package. Oh well...
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| A crop of this photograph was featured in the Landscape POTY 03 book:
www.flickr.com/photos/norbeast/3574957429/
Not sure you can push landscape much further....
OK, I know you will be able to if you try, but come on, it's an "environmental portrait".
OK, we'll ditch the labels, there's a picture of a bit of beach with a person in it...
Basically, do what you want, just justify it first...
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| Looking at the two subject driven courses for level 5, I get the impression that there is potentially huge overlap between Landscape and Social Documentary.
I wonder if this definition could work: Landscape looks at the environment influenced by People, whereas SocDoc looks at People influenced by the environment.
I bought a couple of books by Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places and American Surfaces, I feel I could reference either in both courses with equal validity.
There is a risk in pigeon holing anyones work (even my own), but as this is designed as a learning process, I don't want to stray too far from the goal of the course, else what would be the point of structured learning.
The challenge I have in simply picking up my camera and going out is that I have so many different environments at hand, living in a major european city an hour north of the alps in a region famed for its rolling hills and farmland. There is industrial wasteland sitting next to modern developments, around the corner from 17/18th century palaces.
Maybe I have subject overload and as someone originally trained as a Physicist want to simplify and sytemetise things before starting my experiments.
The good thing is that I am very happy to be musing on these questions, part of the learning process in Photography for me is to try to undertstand the historical context and how what we do fits into contemporary thinking on the subject.
Rob, I have two of the Landscape POTY books, they are what created my original angst about this subject, too much mist and rolling hills. NICE pictures, would look great on a chocolate box, but not really me...
Ah well, we have a 3 day weekend coming up here in Germany, so will be time to get out the front door and dispense with the theorizing
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| "I don't want to stray too far from the goal of the course"
Just don't be too conservative...
I agree about LSPOTY - I bought them as reference material really, more what to avoid rather than what to aspire to. There are some pleasant photographs in there, don't get me wrong, they just don't necessarily 'speak' to me. And if anyone does want to aspire to that, then that's fine too...
Posted 2 days ago. (permalink) |
| Definitions and categories are for critics and academics, not for artists!!
Posted 35 hours ago. (permalink) |
| However, we are not artists yet, we are students...
I am quite prepared to push the envelope on what is considered landscape and will do, my recent Lagoon set for DPP is very much what I would consider landscape, but I didn't see any underwater shots in any of the books I have by landscape photographers, whether avant garde or highly conventional.
The counter argument to the go off and be free viewpoint is that following a course of study is designed to equip us with the skills and understanding needed to become artists. Convention is not a bad thing if it helps the learning process. However,at what stage do we depart from convention and go it alone.
My first degree was Physics (it probably shows), if I gone on a complete tangent when studying second year relatavistic physics I would have been unable to understand and appreciate the beauty of the General Theory presented in the 3rd year. I appreciate that science is far more structured than art, but following a course implies some structure.
I know we have been over this many times in different discussions, I guess it is one of those topics that will never go away.
The great thing about the OCA is that I do feel free to experiment and if I go completely off the topic, I get a gentle steer back again.
Posted 34 hours ago. (permalink) |
| Fact v feeling.
I often struggle with that one, being an engineer...
Posted 34 hours ago. (permalink) |
| ... and, just for the record, so do I. And I don't disagree with anything you say in there, Shaun; except to say that we are students of art, and part of the learning (I think, probably!) is to explore the feeling over the fact ... etc. But it isn't easy, is it? Sometimes its easier to go back to a prescribed path. I keep going back to JH Engstrom, who Rob, I and others heard at the NMM, and I think about the way in which every piece of his work seems to come from raw emotion of some sort. I end up thinkng that that I may not actually have any emotional reactions to anything!!!
Posted 33 hours ago. (permalink) |
 | It's not a course in the sense that it's a plotted path with becoming a photographer/artist the prize that awaits you at the end.
It's a series of opportunities to realise your self as a photographer/artist.
Posted 33 hours ago. (permalink) |
| 'I end up thinkng that that I may not actually have any emotional reactions to anything!!!'
You have to let the emotion find you, not go looking for it. In some ways the word 'emotion' can be misleading; it's got a bit of a Wuthering Heights edge to it, whereas it can just be a half glimpsed unprocessed recognition of something.
Posted 33 hours ago. (permalink) |
| I must say I'm having difficulties knowing where to go with my emotive narrative. Perhaps I need to revisit engstrom again
Posted 33 hours ago. (permalink) |
 | |
| Thanks, very interesting and very strange, I might take a look this weekend if the exhibition is still in town
Posted 28 hours ago. (permalink) |
| Remember your an artist trapped in the body of an engineer!
Posted 15 hours ago. (permalink) |
| I've been doing some reading on Japanese photography recently (I'll be writing an essay on it soon), and I've just found out that the Japanese word associated with landscape is fukei - literally meaning "flowing view", so it's considered transient, not static.
I just thought that might trigger something for someone.
Posted 15 hours ago. (permalink) |
 | Thanks, Rob! It has been playing in my mind that exact question of the Ls been transient. For me the view is never the same from one second to the other and there is so much going on on what you can see and even more on what you cannot see. I was watching the Darwin and Botany programs last night and they sparked a little idea for a personal project. I thought of composites of above/under ground and i've been looking on the web if there is any photographer who has done a similar project, mainly focusing on shot of ground or near ground level. You normally see it in documentary films.
Brian, thanks for the link. I found Frank Grisdale's work very inspiring; I see an influence of Sugimoto and Kenna on his Land and Sky set; and the "grassland" image has a touch on Van Gogh in it.
And speaking of Sugimoto, there will be an exhibition of his work from August 4 - Sept 18 at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.
Posted 14 hours ago. (permalink) |
 | Interesting reading people, thanks...
Frank Grisdale interesting, impressionistic?
Thanks Eileen, I could view a large amount of Mark Power's work, really cool, since I've been working in haze and high humidity, much like some of his photos.. the videos everywhere are no goes, but the slide show was really interesting.
David Moore's site times out, but so does Google recently...
Shaun... I had this block on LS, that it had to be pretty pictures, until I got New Topographics (a gift from my boss!), and just gave myself a theme to work on, everything kind of came from there. No doubt you'll work around it.... not to say my stuff is good, in fact not only one friend has recently asked me 'What is wrong? Why are you taking ugly pictures recently? But I'm enjoying it.... so...
Rob, in Chinese, landscape is 'fengjing', where 'feng' can have the meaning of air and wind, 'jing' carries the meaning of scenery, situation or the verb, to admire.... 风景
Posted 14 hours ago. (permalink) |
| Grisedale mentions Turner as an influence and Kenna acknowledges his influence too he also inspired the impressionists so I would say definitely say impressionistic would apply. The thread that I posted to the BBC iplayer is interesting too as it mentions the picturesque style of landscape painting and I wonder if you would say that Kenna could be said to work in that genre too? Also have a look at the work of John Davies who calls his own work documentary landscape. Peter made me aware of his work.
On Grisedale does anybody know how to get those effects digitally, is it orton slide technique or gaussian blur or something else altogether?
Originally posted 12 hours ago. (permalink)
thebaroncooney edited this topic 12 hours ago. |
| Yiann, there's a photographer who has done something with sewers and the street above, I saw it somewhere recently but can't remember who it was, or where I saw it. When I get chance I'll have a look see if I can find it.
Also in the essay by Ueda, who mentioned fukei, he talks of trying to photograph the heat, and how he wasn't particularly successful...
And did I mention Robert Adams' "ugly" somewhere! If not, it's a quote worth digging out.
Posted 7 hours ago. (permalink) |
| I'm on it, Rob! There is bunch of books I've order and to tell the truth I don't even remember about whom they are... it'll be a kind of surprise. I had another search but still cannot find what I'm looking for... it'll come.
The heat? right!!! like coming off tarmac... I imagine it will just come out with a shallow DOP....but reminds me of someone who had a machine of sorts that produce heat ( and dangerous ) and he photographed the shadows of the heat produced, it looked really good, very similar to photographing smoke from an incense stichk.
Kenna, I cannot really point a finger on what particular type of photography is since in my case I'll be influence by what I have read from interviews he has done. He calls himself a anytime, all-time photographer. In the way that he doesn't limit himself or his photography to be label a particular. He has also said that his work was influenced by Brandt - The Land exhibited at V&A in the 70's but of course one will be influenced by many people over time.
Posted 5 hours ago. (permalink) |
| Brian thanks for the pointer to the landscape program on the iPlayer, very interesting, and very broad in its defintion of landscape. Good historical context and food for thought.
Amazon are starting to deliver a few volumes, Billingham (Landscapes 2001-2003), thanks for the pointer Rob, Adams (both of them), Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Thomas Struth, and the Bechers. Broad range of subject, but all landscape in one form or another.
Next step is to get out the front door and figure out what I think through the lens of my camera.
Thanks all for the advice
Originally posted 4 hours ago. (permalink)
Shaun-in-Munich edited this topic 4 hours ago. |
| Brian - thanks for the link: I look forward to watching it soon.
As for how the looks are achieved, I think there is no simple answer. He seems to use a wide range of techniques, depending on the subject. There's a lot of colour work (check out John Paul Caponigro's blog for hints and tips if you're interested in on this subject). I spotted some use of texture layers in a variety of blending modes. He also seems to sometimes layer two versions of the same image on top of each other, slightly offset. I think he may also use PS filters like Find Edges or Emboss. I suspect there's a bit of Orton in there also. In most pictures he seems to be using a number of post-processing techniques together. It's been quite interesting to deconstruct the pictures from that perspective.
I thought you might like Power's work Dewald.
I am also taken with the idea of transience and a moving landscape (but then I've been taking a lot of water pictures recently, when I get the chance). Your project sounds very interesting Yiann. Hope to see it come to fruition.
And happy reading Shaun!
After that pleasant diversion, I really must get back to my essay. Sigh.
Posted 3 hours ago. (permalink) |
| Shaun glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. Eileen thanks for the link to the blog, I will check it out tomorrow. Good luck with the essay. |
