To brighten up what can be a dreary time of year, I treated myself to a photography workshop on the theme of 'Landscapes' organised by a local CIC Fotonow. I was intrigued because it was held at The Box museum in Plymouth and was linked to their exhibition Land, Sea and Sky. It featured the work of one of my favourite painters, JMW Turner and two artists that were as yet unknown to me: photographers Ingrid Pollard and painter Vija Celmins.
We started with considering 'what is a landscape?', looking through a selection of different photobooks for clues. One photobook about Dartmoor by local photographer John Curno, struck me in particular and his images stayed with me through the day. Using black and white he paired wide vistas with intimate shots, a forest with a piece of bark, a long dry-stone wall with a single lichen-covered stone. Beautiful. But which of them were 'landscapes'? I realised during the discussion that it could be land or sea, urban or rural, large vistas or up-close details, impressionist, realistic or abstract............
We then spent some time in the exhibition thinking about composition, framing and balance; how the different artists divided up the space and how they led the viewer's eye through the image. We also looked for possible smaller compositions within the piece of art. I found it so worthwhile to have this time to reflect and prepare for the afternoon's photoshoot.
After lunch we wandered down through the city to the harbour and then up to the Hoe. I had 'landscape' in my mind, but found it hard to conceptualise it in these urban and waterside environments. I realised I still had quite a fixed idea that 'landscape' should be wide, open vistas of countryside, moorland, mountains etc.
So, I went back to the principles of composition and looked for possibilities in the chaos of the city to create some urban landscapes:
and starting from the whole to zooming into more intimate spaces, constructing multiple meanings through my compositions.
As I strolled through the streets, I became more aware of my own presence within this urban landscape. I have a mix of lived experiences of this city, and I wanted to include myself in the image to reflect that.
As Psarris notes: "The intention to walk creates a series of situations; an unrolling of rhythmic experience which resembles a music partiture: moments of different intensities, rhythms and pauses. To walk is to produce a line of experience; an assemblage of gathered interactions between self and the world. While walking we connect past, present and future."
There are some familiar rules for composition, like leading lines, rule of thirds and so on, but breaking them can lead to more interesting creations.
"It is true that some artists or critics in certain periods have tried to formulate laws of their art; but it always turned out that poor artists did not achieve anything when trying to apply these laws, while great masters could break them and yet achieve a new kind of harmony no one had thought of before. . . . The truth is that it is impossible to lay down rules of this kind because one can never know in advance what effect the artist may wish to achieve."
—E.H. Gombrich
The view at the harbour was quite chaotic, and the light harsh; it was hard to know where to start:
My eye was caught by the colours of the reflections of the buildings and boats in the calm water and I said a quiet 'thank you' for the beautiful sunny day as I chased patterns and shapes to create some balanced abstracts:
before suddenly remembering 'landscapes' and turning my camera to the views as I walked to the Hoe! I found it hard to compose any 'clear' images in the clutter of architecture clinging to the cliffs and coastline.
Finally the iconic Smeaton Tower. No photoshoot of Plymouth would be complete without it! Memories of graduation ceremonies with hundreds of students throwing mortar boards in the air, feelings of pride for what we achieved together, but also sadness for opportunities now lost to me.
Overall a really worthwhile day, that showed me how the process of creating photographs can sometimes provoke deep, unexpected emotions and yet also be a mindful escape from those tricky memories.
In his book 'Why is Landscape Beautiful?' Lucius Burchkhardt suggests that 'the landscape' is an idea that exists only in our heads. Each of us has a multi-faceted interaction with our environment as we walk through it. He argues that we need to observe our environment with eyes wide open, and be constantly questioning our ideas. For example, why is a viaduct beautiful but a nuclear power station an intrusion? Walking itself therefore becomes an act of discovery, as we slow down and experience places more intimately. Add in photography, and those pauses in a walk where we direct our attention to something that has caught our eye, and it becomes a creative, cultural aesthetic act. Walking as art.
Here is a short clip of Vija Celmins talking about her work, a link to the work of Ingrid Pollard and one to the Land, Sea, Sky exhibition.
What is Landscape Photography? by Nasim Mansurov, with an interesting discussion about being a creator or a consumer.
Inspirational Female Landscape Photographers by Jillian Hoiberg, which provokes for me a concern about the level of post-processing that is used to create an image of the 'natural' environment.
Psarras, Bill. (2018). From stones to GPS: Critical reflections on aesthetic walking and the need to draw a line. Available online.
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