Assignment 1/Project15

Decided to visit the site (Ickworth Park in Suffolk) to take the 'Spring' shots. Unfortunately Spring was not very evident other than on a small scale (tress coming into bud; undergrowth within the trees that were bear thus allowing maximum light into the area. Not a great success but I did manage to find some possible images that I could use.

I like this shot (not currently part of my portfolio) because of the position of the sun throwing deep shadows across the foreground, the presence of the daffodils in the sunlight and the presence of Ickworth House glimpsed through the trees. All of the landscape within the park is 'man-made' and is controlled in the sense that there are no real wild areas so that linking the landscape to the Stately Home offers an explanation of what is seen in other photographs.

I include this shot because there is a hint of spring with the tree in the centre of the image coming into leaf. It is not a great image because the tree does not stand out clearly from the background. It will be interesting to return and see if it is clearer when it has more foliage.

An intimate shot of the landscape with just one leaf bud about to open. Very illustrative of spring.

I have included this shot because it shows how very little Spring is evident. It was shortly after this that I decided that I would return later when, hopefully, Spring will be more advanced.

Project 28 - Intimate Landscape

I recently went to Marsden Moor Yorkshire to a photographic day organised by the National Trust. The moor is over 5000 acres of moorland to which the public have access although on this occasion we were accompanied by a National Trust volunteer and a landscape photographer. I took a large number of general shots although distant areas were covered in a haze that had a mixed effect upon the photography - in some cases it added to the sense of space and distance whilst in others it obscured detail that would have added to the overall image.

For this project I looked for shots that gave a sense of the moor whilst being only a very small part of it.

This first image is typical of the lower slopes of the moor showing evidence of the effect of man upon the landscape. I selected the image because of the 'terracing' and the stone wall set against the trees that show evidence of the bleak nature of the moor.

The key element in this image is the stone bridge. The line of the path across the image draws the eye towards and gives some sense of scale. I did consider zooming in on the bridge to make it very much the dominant feature but I found that this took it out of context so I left in the area of moor surrounding it. Looking at it in the blog I wonder whether it would have not been better to crop the image to exclude the sky to give the following result.

I think on balance I prefer the first image although the second 'cropped' image has the merit that the bridge is placed roughly on the crossing of the vertical and horizontal 'thirds' line that gives balance to the image.

The moor has been worked for its stone for many centuries. The choice of this image was to show that nature works  to reclaim the land taken. 

and yet parts remain as man left them with the warning notices keeping people away from the things they have come to enjoy:

As I was writing this blog it struck me that the images lacked the presence of people and so scale was difficult to decide. I had not realised this when I was taking the images and often took steps to keep people out of the image (there were 26 others in the party). I do have a few where I included people such as:

that illustrate the point. For me there is a danger in thinking about the landscape as unpeopled whereas in the right context they can add a great deal of information about scale and the environment.

Robert Adams

Again on the advice of my tutor I have spent some time looking at the photographs of Robert Adams. I found that I was more in sympathy with his style. Although there is a simplicity about his style of landscape photography I was still left with the feeling that he had applied most of the 'rules' about photography that we, as amateurs, so slavishly follow. There is evidence that some thought has been given to the composition and the overall impact of the image. There is a message that is discernible particularly when several linked images are seen one after the other. There is also a sense of the photographer wanting to present the best image that he can achieve from the view in front of him.

His use of light, including artificial light such as that given by street lamps, is shown at its best in his twilight series that is held by the V&A Museum. (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/photographs-by-robert-adams/.) I particularly liked this set of images that evoked in me a wish to see further into the image (what is beyond what is shown!).

I preferred this style to the starker imagery of Aarmson as discussed in my last blog.

Hans Aarsman

Following a comment by my tutor in his response to my submission for Assignment 2 of Landscapes I followed up his suggestion that I look at the work of Hans Aarsman a known photographer in the genre called Neo-Topographics. At first I looked at the photographs shown on the Nederlandfotomuseum. I was immediately struck by their lack of artistic merit. They are snapshots of a man made environment usually incomplete or in decay. I was left wondering why he had bothered taking the shot. As a record of the environment I felt that there was a sense of detachment almost disinterest in what was seen through the viewfinder. They were very ordinary.

I then watched a recording of a lecture by Aarsman in which he explains the reasons for his approach. All my responses were more or less in line with the aim of the photographer.  Following the work of the New Topographic Photographers such as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and others Aarsman and his contemporaries deliberately chose to work outside the accepted 'artistic' and story telling approach of photography, they eschewed the beauty and recorded the ugly. Based on the images I have seen of Aarsman he was very successful.

Even now I am not sure that I like them but it has made me think that I, as a photographer, am very much conditioned by the majority who seek out the artistic, the emotional and the beautiful image. The chances of such images being accepted in a general exhibition are small perhaps because we do not like to be reminded that not all is beauty and that some of our environment is very ugly and often such ugliness is created by man.

At least I will look afresh at the 'landscape' and see beyond the accepted coffee table book image.