From: Jon (fotonerd@yahoo.com)
Date: 12/21/02-04:50:04 PM Z
> I think it's a combination of what's available to see and a person's
> personal "view" of what's interesting to him/her that determine what a
> landscape photograph is
Just because I think the moon is made out of cheese doesn't mean it is.
So if my personal view is that a specific image is a landscape, that
doesn't make is so.
> and I'm afraid I have little interest in academic arguments
> about what is or isn't a "true" landscape photograph.
You should, if you make the statement that your images are such, you need
to be able to qualify that statement. It is like somebody saying "I'm a
republican" or "I'm a Democrat" and never really knowing what the party
stands for.
> There are as many different kinds of landscape photographs as there are
> combinations of views and photographers in the world. IMO. To limit
> "landscape" to mean only a sweeping vista of kind seen in the American
> mountain or desert west would be a very narrow view of what landscape
> is, and would unnecessarily exclude landscape photographs from other
> parts of the world.
This seems to be somewhat critical and it appears to be the arguement of
somebody that is trying to make something other then what it is.
Landscape photographs can be made anywhere. However, if you have ever
lived in the intermountain west and also experienced places like the
midwest, you will realize it is more dificult to make landscape
photographs in the midwest (just as one example). Would others not agree?
Does this say that the west is just so much better then the rest of the
world? No. Things are what they are. I didn't see Ansel Adams running
off to Iowa to make his images. I also think that John Sexton lives where
he does for a reason. Same with where Galen Rowell lived.
This is not an arguement of one thing being better then another. It is
simply about things that are different from each other.
The term "landscape photography" appears to have somewhat of a cult
following. Why are there so many people so quick to qualify their own
work as landscape?
It is as if there is a little bit of "landscape envy" and that people feel
they have to have images that are landscapes to be of value and fit in.
Ansel Adams did landscapes. He is known as a landscape photographer. That
doesn't make all his images landscapes. He took portraits, still lifes,
architecture, etc....
I have said enough.
Jon
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