Below you will find an interesting article about one photographer's thought about today's challenge as a landscape photographer (or artist) in an environment of abundant photographers (or artist).
Like many art form (look at music), I think it is very challenging to create unique work of art these days. It is easy to be influenced by other people's work and at least in regards to landscape, there are only so many locations in the world. However, art is subjective and every artist has a different interpretation of what could be the same vision. The differences might be small but they are different.
Commercially, it might be challenging to produce unique landscape images that would be successful. Although how do you measure success too... But if you aren't producing art commercially but for success, I'm sure there are enough creative images you can produce to last multiple lifetimes. You might not get the recognition but you will get the satisfaction of creating those images.
Maybe that is why I like portrait photographer. There are 250 new subjects being born every minute. Plenty of unique subjects to take pictures of :-)
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing. I think I agree, at least to some degree. I know I can feel a little overloaded with the number of super dramatic, ultra HDR landscapes I see. Or perhaps I'm just jealous because of the relative blandness of my own images?
Interesting and provocative article... The kind of thing one could debate endlessly and never arrive at a resolution... And likely end up in a nihilistic "what's the point?" corner... Or one could just shrug it off, do what one likes and ignore the epithets of "trope" and "panderer to the masses"...
Personally I do like to look at one or two glorious landscape images... But by the third or fourth I'm rolling my eyes... So sorry if you're the fifth glorious sunset I've seen on 365 today... The first one or possibly even two my garner a fav... After that I'm jaded...
but on the flip side, I do like to see new places, and I do like to get up at the crack of dawn and shoot landscapes when the appropriate scene and light avail themselves... And it's lovely to get kudos for it... But I do agree and accept that it can get old real fast for the viewer... But then, that isn't really why I shoot them (the pictures... Not the viewers ;p)...
very interesting article. thanks for sharing. i thought about adding emotions to my landscape photos as well. not just a landscape photo. and try to add people in there too. that adds a bit story into the photo too. a lot of amazing landscape photos make you "wow" but that's it. no emotions...
While I have an appreciation for Landscape Photography, it's my least favorite to produce. I love being transported to these "places that astound" but I know in my mind that so much has been taken out of the photo (the foot prints in the sand, or snow, or on the dew) or lines are a sign of ruining the perfect scene. That's my issue with these shots in the end; they are just too perfect! I feel the same way about a portrait shot that has had so much work done to it that it's just what any other portrait shot is (so I prefer candids). And if I'm doing something with a landscape, I want something in it (a person walking, an odd electric wire intruding, a car approaching, SOMETHING that provides a narrative element to the otherwise predictable shot!). But I LOVE the work people accomplish regardless. My last photo review was very interesting. The 1st place finisher had one of those landscape shots, with a huge technical problem in the top left corner--but it got the win because it was the type of shot that the author here describes.
SO interesting - and along the lines of what I'm struggling with: how to take pictures that are individual, not the mainstream of "beautiful". Be an artist, but still be able to sell. Have to live after all and pay rent.
Thanks for posting.
See, to me this goes along with the editing discussion we were having the other day. I feel that landscape and nature is best when the edits are mild and toned back a bit. The more natural an image, the better. In essence it should look like you "saw" it. I think those are the photos that really catch my eye.
The problem with these perfect images is it's what the populists "want". It's kind of like with children. They love sugar and candy. So, why not give them sugar and candy every day, for every meal. After all, it's what they want! That's what commercialism does to us today. WE are being sold a "product" always. Something that grabs us and doesn't let go. Perfectly refined images, smutty content and redeemless reality shows, sugar, hell might as well include heroine in here.
In the end, pleasure stimulates us and makes us feel good. It's a release of dopamine in the brain. The more it stimulates us, the more dopamine is released. We're all addicts.
Anyway, long rant.
Short answer - these are beautiful. But, they are fake. And because of that it loses it's luster quickly. CGI movies bore the crap out of me. I can watch Treasure of the Sierra Madres over and over and over, but I can't sit through the Avengers. My eye sees the candy, but my brain knows it's poison.
Very very very few of us will ever have an original idea. Too many people have already lived on the planet, many more times more intelligent than most of us. All ideas may have already been captured and tried.
BUT, there are truths too. Rule of thirds, exposure, proportion, leading lines, complementary colors, color wheels, COMPOSITION... all these matter, and maybe they aren't as obvious as a flaming pink sky, or deep aqua ice, but ... they remain overtime what brings us in and keeps our attention.
My favorite sculpture is Winged Victory of Samothrace - in the Louvre. It captured me when I was there in 97, and again in 2007 ten years later. There's just something about it, the lines, the angles, the thrusting foward of the bust, the wings arched back --- it says freedom, victory, jubilation, success, strength to me. There was no post editing on this sculpture. No additions have been added to make it more visually appealing. It's just a lump of mineral carefully carved out to make an image that is timeless. Raft of the Medusa AND Sunflowers are my two favorite paintings I have ever seen in person. It's all about the composition on one, and the way the paint comes off the canvas for the other. One is subdued colors, the other BRIGHT vibrant (contemporaries would say at the time ugly colors (colorful beasts)). But there is something more that makes me love them. It's the unknown factor.
I guess what I am saying if you are still reading is we can decided to listen to, watch, buy and produce easy hits that are sexy and bold and what everyone wants, or we can truly dig deep to add ourselves into the photos and art we make. We can ask for more. We can push for something new, and bold. But, we have to learn the basics first.
Very interesting article! And something I have mixed feelings about, but I don't think what he's talking about is limited to landscape. I feel this way about almost every "genre" of photography. You know the ones I mean... the beautiful landscape as described in the article, but also the high-clarity portrait of the craggy old man with the scraggly beard, the sheep-herder or shoe seller in the middle east somewhere, the Heron or Owl or Hawk in a dramatic pose, the Big City building reflected in another building, creepy dirty dolls, etc... it's ALL the same! Not to say they aren't all amazing photographs, but it definitely starts to feel all the same all the time.
Some days, it's enough to make you want to throw your camera out the window and give up altogether. (Especially on those days when you think you've had an original idea, only to find out half the photographers you know have already done it. This is the trouble with being a n00b.) On the one hand, I strive to be as great as those photographers... but on the other hand, then what? I'll just be another nobody churning out the same images we've all seen a million times? So then I think, well, I'm just going to continue doing my own thing and see where it leads and not worry about it. If you're trying too hard to be something (or not a thing) then you'll never really be able to express yourself in your art.
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Commercially, it might be challenging to produce unique landscape images that would be successful. Although how do you measure success too... But if you aren't producing art commercially but for success, I'm sure there are enough creative images you can produce to last multiple lifetimes. You might not get the recognition but you will get the satisfaction of creating those images.
Maybe that is why I like portrait photographer. There are 250 new subjects being born every minute. Plenty of unique subjects to take pictures of :-)
Personally I do like to look at one or two glorious landscape images... But by the third or fourth I'm rolling my eyes... So sorry if you're the fifth glorious sunset I've seen on 365 today... The first one or possibly even two my garner a fav... After that I'm jaded...
but on the flip side, I do like to see new places, and I do like to get up at the crack of dawn and shoot landscapes when the appropriate scene and light avail themselves... And it's lovely to get kudos for it... But I do agree and accept that it can get old real fast for the viewer... But then, that isn't really why I shoot them (the pictures... Not the viewers ;p)...
Thanks for posting.
The problem with these perfect images is it's what the populists "want". It's kind of like with children. They love sugar and candy. So, why not give them sugar and candy every day, for every meal. After all, it's what they want! That's what commercialism does to us today. WE are being sold a "product" always. Something that grabs us and doesn't let go. Perfectly refined images, smutty content and redeemless reality shows, sugar, hell might as well include heroine in here.
In the end, pleasure stimulates us and makes us feel good. It's a release of dopamine in the brain. The more it stimulates us, the more dopamine is released. We're all addicts.
Anyway, long rant.
Short answer - these are beautiful. But, they are fake. And because of that it loses it's luster quickly. CGI movies bore the crap out of me. I can watch Treasure of the Sierra Madres over and over and over, but I can't sit through the Avengers. My eye sees the candy, but my brain knows it's poison.
Very very very few of us will ever have an original idea. Too many people have already lived on the planet, many more times more intelligent than most of us. All ideas may have already been captured and tried.
BUT, there are truths too. Rule of thirds, exposure, proportion, leading lines, complementary colors, color wheels, COMPOSITION... all these matter, and maybe they aren't as obvious as a flaming pink sky, or deep aqua ice, but ... they remain overtime what brings us in and keeps our attention.
My favorite sculpture is Winged Victory of Samothrace - in the Louvre. It captured me when I was there in 97, and again in 2007 ten years later. There's just something about it, the lines, the angles, the thrusting foward of the bust, the wings arched back --- it says freedom, victory, jubilation, success, strength to me. There was no post editing on this sculpture. No additions have been added to make it more visually appealing. It's just a lump of mineral carefully carved out to make an image that is timeless. Raft of the Medusa AND Sunflowers are my two favorite paintings I have ever seen in person. It's all about the composition on one, and the way the paint comes off the canvas for the other. One is subdued colors, the other BRIGHT vibrant (contemporaries would say at the time ugly colors (colorful beasts)). But there is something more that makes me love them. It's the unknown factor.
I guess what I am saying if you are still reading is we can decided to listen to, watch, buy and produce easy hits that are sexy and bold and what everyone wants, or we can truly dig deep to add ourselves into the photos and art we make. We can ask for more. We can push for something new, and bold. But, we have to learn the basics first.
Some days, it's enough to make you want to throw your camera out the window and give up altogether. (Especially on those days when you think you've had an original idea, only to find out half the photographers you know have already done it. This is the trouble with being a n00b.) On the one hand, I strive to be as great as those photographers... but on the other hand, then what? I'll just be another nobody churning out the same images we've all seen a million times? So then I think, well, I'm just going to continue doing my own thing and see where it leads and not worry about it. If you're trying too hard to be something (or not a thing) then you'll never really be able to express yourself in your art.