Photography and seeing the landscape

I recently read the following article
Slow Seeing-How a "rephotography" project taught me to go beyond looking By Rebecca Solnit I found the article interesting and thought some of you might too. Being a LF landscape photographer I found myself agreeing with much that was said. My favorite sentence in the article was "Painters, photographers, fishers, and birdwatchers, among others, seem to have developed their pursuits in part as sidelong strategies to do nothing, to be in a place long enough to see it."
I myself was first drawn to the landscape before I started photographing it. Over time I did find my photography as a way of being more often in the natural landscape, to better experience and see it better. To those of you who pursue landscape photography which came first - being drawn to the landscape and later combining it with photography, or was it first photography and later combining it with the landscape? Have any of you done any photographic projects that during/after completion gave you a greater insight into seeing the landscape?

When I take the time and make the effort to set-up my 8x10, photography, for me, is then about my appreciation of the world and those around me. My photography is mostly about me. It is about my relationship to the world I inhabit, the people I meet, and how I feel about what I see. At it's best, the photography I do is about how I saw something or someone, and what I felt about it. With age, it seems that it has become to easy to take things for granted, perhaps to think too much about too many things, and as a result lose touch with what is going on around me. Photography helps me to better appreciate the immediate world around me, to look at things a little more closely, as I go about my day to day.

She has a point. I have sat and just looked at a subject for hours waiting for the light. I of course looked around and got up and maybe explored the area a little but for the most part I sat and watched. This is the only time I can do that. Any other time there are tons of pressures on me and, honestly, I am moving to fast to really notice.

I need to get out more.

To those of you who pursue landscape photography which came first - being drawn to the landscape and later combining it with photography, or was it first photography and later combining it with the landscape?

Hard to say really. I picked up photography when I was about 10 or 12. I paid for my 35mm gear by working at the local paper covering high school and college sports. Then I went to college myself and didn't have time for it any more. Years went by. Things happened.

My wife and I like to hike, and I started taking her to more interesting places. I would show her the beautiful things that other people would walk right by. I explained it to her in terms of photography. I showed her how I would frame it, what I would keep in the photograph and what I would leave out.

She started prompting me to take photographs of this stuff that I was seeing. This time I went the LF route so that I could control the film plane, and therefore perspective. It's an interesting effect, this. For now, while I work, she sits and watches. Maybe my photography is her way to do nothing, to be in a place long enough to see it.

I agree with her statement. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest (top left corner, for you non-north Americans) - ;)

In our part of the world, nature and all its wonders are a part of the backdrop of everyday life. I have been hunting, fishing and expeditioning since I was able to walk on two legs. But I eventually came to the decision that I did not enjoy killing other beings. (Although fishing is still a passion, it is strictly catch-and-release) -

But when I stopped hunting, I realised that I missed being "out there" - and I found that my passion was not really about hunting/fishing as much as it was about "being out there" - so I picked up a camera and headed out........

One of the reasons I photograph is to share the environment, and to show what others aren't seeing. I have found that the longer I spend in a place the easier it is to photograph. It is as though it has to become a part of me, I have to truely experience it, feel it, know it, then I can express the feeling that it gives me. The longer I am in the landscape the more I am in tune with it. Getting to know the landscape involes sitting, watching, exploring, wandering, moving, stillness... If I don't feel at home with the landscape I don't even bother to photograph it.

I just drove home from visiting a new place this morning, yesterday and last night. Slept out under the stars, woke up in peace. I wasn't there long enough to get to know it, hence no photographs taken. Did start to fall in love with it, and will have to return with more time so that I can get to know it better and to capture the feelings it creates.

I think the landscape came first for me, with a keen interest in outdoor adventures (rockclimbing, bushwalking, canoeing, rafting, canyoning, camping), I latter discovered that I absoultely love photographing it.

Photographing the landscape is one of my ultimate escapes, getting away from the rest of my life, escaping my thoughts / worries. Relaxing, enjoying, focusing... Nature just has that effect on me.