From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@attbi.com)
Date: 09/08/02-09:27:28 AM Z
You would be welcome to come along for the ride. It is all-ways an
adventure.
Jack
> Jack Fulton wrote:
>
>>> 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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