2017 Predictions

In December 2016 I made 3 predictions: A film's influence on landscape photography, an uncontroversial WPP awards and handheld photography. Here's how they turned out.

1. Although I enjoyed the Revenant story and scenery, the natural lighting employed wasn't quite what I had anticipated. From memory, the natural lighting seemed to be mostly courtesy of leaden skies. A compromise perhaps, for where scenes needed to be reshot or continuity of lighting was important. On the other hand, the film won plenty of accolades for directing and cinematography, so perhaps diffuse lighting was integral to the mise-en-scène? Despite the accolades, I do not believe the Revenant has had or will have any effect on landscape photographers abandoning composited skies etc. Time will tell if other film directors also choose natural lighting for their films too.

2. The WPP awards passed without notable controversy, radical proof that enforcing competition rules before announcing the winners, does actually work.

3. My prediction on handheld photography, I have no idea and no inclination to investigate further. I simply lost the will to monitor the landscape photography scene : It is far too insipid, hypocritical, narcissistic and wearing on the spirit.

Overall, really poor. Nonetheless, I'll try again and make another 3 wildly uninformed predictions.

1. Harsh Light, the new black

Business savvy landscape photography workshop providers, know there is an untapped market of wannabe landscape photographers to exploit, who are simply too feckless to make the effort needed for dawn and dusk excursions. Marketing abhors a vacuum, so the golden hours will be the new landscape photography workshop mantra : Mid day summer photography! Lighting added afterwards courtesy of digital software. The golden hours will be nothing to do with the quality of light, the feckless do not care about light quality in the field, only an end result that satisfies their delusion. The golden hours will refer to the filthy lucre made from exploiting individuals at their convenience. The photography media would champion this cause with relish, to fill out anaemic content and widen their dwindling audience. As a bonus, it will generate controversy too, as this time of day has traditionally been the preserve of middle aged males, typically Black and White landscape photographers, a demographic, vociferous in defending their artistic creative comfort zone. A google search of photography forums should easily confirm whether this has come to pass.

2. Post-truth landscape photography

The Brexit referendum and Trump election, have elevated making wildly inaccurate untruths as acceptable practice. I therefore predict a significant rise of untruthful statements* in the wider landscape photography community and a significant increase in the number of images, that will be underpinned by heroic challenges overcome, outpouring of pseudo emotive gibberish and spiritual epiphanies. Expect a backlash from some celebrity landscape photographers who will be threatened by this unwanted competition.

*A minor caveat though : post-truth has been prevalent in fine art landscape photography since its inception and widely deployed by some gear reviewers, with affiliate links for sales commission.

3. Landscape photography media

2017 will mark yet another year, when there is an absence of any commercial media not pandering to the lowest common denominator of landscape photographers  

3. Auteur theory

Finally a frankly ludicrous prediction and one I have so little faith in  a prediction for a positive development in landscape photography, where auteur theory is elucidated. This would encourage the not-so-confident landscape photographer to move away from the soulless bucket lists of iconic views and venture forth into the landscape, to apply their vision and knowledge of the landscape, weather and light quality, in creating images that underpin a narrative of their curiosity.