Landscape aesthetics and philosophy

One upside of sharing digs with humanities students was the window into a different outlook on the world from an engineering students, where ‘Laws’ and ‘First principles’ frame the subjects.  There would be idealistic and ‘lively’ discussions on the brain and human perception of the world, nature vs nurture, what is reality, the great artists creative works etc. The 'conversations' on right and left brain characteristics were less polarising as everyone seemed to some extent, to have both right and left brain characteristic traits. The perception of order and disorder was one area where everyone could find common ground, usually in a visual context, music was invariably too polarising and the sciences too complicated. The works of Rothko, Dali, Turner, Pollock, DaVinci, Picasso, Hepworth, Lascaux cave paintings, aboriginal art, architecture et al, were appropriated for argument heated discussions. Which essentially boiled down to subjectivity, everyone has their own visual preferences, some artist's are definitely 'marmite', others 'vanilla', none garnered universal approbation. Principle reasons for liking/disliking an artwork was the degree of visual complexity, balance and subject. This was in the time before Wiki or Google, so books and papers were used to reinforce/undermine an opinion or stance, it is surprising how far someone will go to, to passionately defend an artwork. There were also the insights into art history; the value of patronage in raising a profile and gaining wider recognition; artists whose work was feted postmortem and artists whose work was denigrated postmortem; the influence of the establishment, curriculum, teachers and acolytes; the critics, envy, jealousies and egos of artists; the differing art schools movements and not least being in the right place at the right time. On reflection the history of landscape photography is reminiscent of the history of art.

Horizontal layers of moor, trees, hills and sky

Years later I was left to reflect again on visual perception, when a presentation of isometric drawings and elevation plans of a proposed facility met with blank incomprehension from some end users. Back to the drawing board, or in this case an easel, artistic renderings were produced to illustrate the proposed facility, which allowed the end users to critique and buy into the project, which they did. I was left to reflect on how peoples perception of images differ. 

Glacial scouring and erratics

A few years ago I raised the issue of left and right brain characteristics commenting on an article in an online Landscape photography magazine, the context of my comment was that some photographers have a visual stylistic compositional template that is applied to their landscape compositions. The response was a deafening silence and I was left to ponder if my comments were too gauche for the sensibilities of the readership or if I had just inadvertently offended a large section of the community.  

Gneiss terrain 

This 'visual stylistic compositional template' I was referring to, minimises the elements in an image to reduce visual complexity and impose a compositional order on the scene. A prime examples is the layering of distinct horizontal elements in an image i.e  field, hedgerow, sky; salt flat, mountain range, sky; sand, sea, sky; river, moorland, hillside; moorland, distant hills and sky. Low relief landscapes lend themselves to these compositions and lenses can exploit this flattening and layering through their field of view and perspective. Oftentimes there is a single anchor point or element included in the composition be it a boulder, grass tussock, driftwood, tree, lighthouse, tower, building, sign, pier, ice berg, standing stone, jetty etc juxtaposing against horizontal layers and according to art critics 'invites the viewer to look more closely and ask questions of the photographers intent'.  Given the endless compositional potential, there are many landscape photographers who devote themselves exclusively to making images that fall within the aforementioned remit. The resulting images are visually clean, a high degree of order and easy on the eye, what's not to like?  

Interlocking spurs

Well framing the discussion from an alternative viewpoint that has a preference to more visually complex images; there are an endless number of images invariably marketed as fine art with very little interesting content; bland scenery and subject matter; compositionally cliched; soulless; the juxtaposition of a boulder, grass tussock, driftwood, tree, lighthouse, tower, building, sign, pier, ice berg, standing stone, jetty etc is so contrived and according to art critics 'invites the viewer to look more closely and examine the image to see what has been cloned out'. What's there not to dislike? 

Visually complex terrain, weather and lighting

I recollect when starting out on my journey in landscape photography reading articles listing the 'Greatest landscape photographers'  or bestowing the rather grand accolade of 'Master of landscape photography' and feeling perplexed as many of the said Greatest or Master landscape photographers images, whilst demonstrating great technique, understanding of light etc in my subjective opinion, the images held very little subject interest and were devoid of inspiration.  I was drawn to more visually complex terrain, to make images that convey the landscape complexity and visually impart my curiosity on geology and the environment. Which to a certain degree underpins my landscape photography aesthetic and philosophy.

Note - the images in this post were made on a trip to Senja, Norway. September 2014.