Long post on landscape photography...?

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From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@attbi.com)
Date: 09/03/02-08:31:39 AM Z


> This makes me wonder: what does everyone on the list think of landscape
> photography?

  I can't write too much here as I must prepare for teaching tomorrow . . in
my Landscape Photography class called, 'Nevada Plus'. For what it is worth,
Ansel started our department in 1945. The conversation regarding him by our
group has echoed many of my own thoughts. However, in the long run, he
capitalized on where his money came from and what was the simplest. He was a
terrific man as far as I knew him and I sincerely believe he held a great
regard for the wilderness though much of him imagery is taken from a 1/2-way
nearby vehicle.
  As a young married guy in the early 1960's I'd travel with Diane all over
the Western states. There were not many easy-to-drive roads and few paved
ones. You can take a paved road to a motel now @ Chinle, AZ and then, twas
all dirt. Arches, Natural Bridges, Dead Horse Point, Newspaper Rock,
Hovenweep, Bandolier, most of the Hopi and Navajo nations, oh heck . . .
dirt roads. You could walk out on Orabai, the oldest continually inhabited
town in the US and then it was closed to tourists . . to white folks
primarily, because they couldn't be trusted. It is now only recently
re-opened and a set of my students in March had one heckuva time there on a
chilly evening. It's all paved now . . with easy access.
  Today, I take students out for 8 days to Noplace, Nevada'. We sit for a
day @ Donner Summit where Wm. Keith and Alfred Bierstadt painted. We camp @
Pyramid Lake where O'sullivan photographed. We travel on to the Black Rock
Desert where the Burning Man thing happens and cross it, staying @ hot
springs and eating Basque meals in Winnemucca. We travel down valleys and
watch stars and sit in a hot spring under darned near freezing nights and
watch the moon and listen to coyotes. We stay long enough so's the stink of
the city disappears from the nostrils.
  It is the only thing I truly know that I can 'give' to my students. It is
an experience in the bosom of Mother Nature where most who pass through are
scared of the loneliness or afraid if they got off the road they'd get lost
or die w/a flat tire. Yup SUV's have penetrated it w/out passion. And these
rapacious ways of the SUV are not aided by their TV adverts.
  Landscape photography is not dead at all. Mark Klett, Bob Dawson, Linda
Connor, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Richard Misrach, Thom Joshua Cooper,
Robt. Glenn Ketchum, Galen Rowell, Lois Connor, Lynn Davis, Wanda
Hammerbeck, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Sudek all have done interesting
contemporary work photographing landscape(s). This is different work from
that seen in the galleries of Carmel-By -The -Sea and Art Wolfe et al. Much
of that work, though gosh-awful-beautiful is sort of more like Thomas
Kincaid's paintings sold in Shopping Malls.
  I believe photography of what might be done is simply not done. Many wish
to go to the familiar special places such as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and
other National Parks. Most of those who want to photograph all that rely
upon the 'master' cameras of large format and maybe even a limited Zone
System approach w/a small retinue of filters. Yet, most who work in those
environs rarely stray from the Kodak/Ansel picture sites. Most do not truly
experience Nature. Most do not camp or live in it for the experience.
Landscape photography might be compared to routine experiences such as
cooking or sex. In those desired habits, some like the routine and opt for
the maccaroni and cheese, Top Ramen, Russian dressing on a salad of iceberg
lettuce, store bought pies. Let's not get into sexual habits due to the
amount of space. But, once you understand cooking, you'll want to make it
better, spice it up in ways not familiar, go out of your way to purchase
that special something and ultimately make your plate look beautiful. To to
a little Fulton word play on beautiful, it is about being true to one's
self: Be A You Till Full. Do not 4x5 cliche it. Go your own way and see it.
  The student who says it is boring follows the crowd and they'll yell their
displeasure loud. Often the student working with the landscape does not
receive a critique responsive and understanding.
  Last thing . . we are so urbanized, asphalted, TV'ed, commercialized,
pro-city, the 'other' world is the place which seems to be harmful. Not only
is the rural world seemingly in conflict and dangerous to visit but there
are diseases. The modern city world is where it is at at this point in time.


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