Ugly photographs of nothing

[John Brownlow]

Sorry for the defensive title but I have a feeling the following might offend the aesthetic sensibilities of some here. Or in other words some of ya are going to flat out hate this stuff. Hey ho. Others, I hope, might get a kick.

These are some 4x5s from my ongoing Wild Things project... Linhof + 90mm on Portra NC 160 converted to BW in most cases.

johnbrownlow.com/wildthings/XIIa/

The 4x5s are really a sideline, most of the traction is coming from the Noblex... you can see that stuff here:

johnbrownlow.com/wildthings/XII/

The Noblex stuff is Ilford Pan F, wish I could get it in 4x5. Hmph.

Hopefully Ansel is spinning in his grave. But I read all his books.

[Marv Thompson]

Definately a kick. They are some beautiful images of a tough subject.

[Jim collum]

don't think they're ugly at all.. i think it's a great series.. love to see more in the future

[Frank Petronio]

Makes you appreciate how hard the settlers worked to clear the land. And why villagers were afraid of the forest.

Well done, thanks

[Gregory Gomez]

I don't know why you think they are ugly? Give yourself a break man! You have potential and your subject matter is interesting to me on several levels.

[paulr]

they're my favorite kind of ugly of my favorite kind of nothing.

[Brian Ellis]

Like others have said, this is really good work. There's a lot to be said for photographing the kind of landscape that most of us can actually see on a routine basis as opposed to the mountains, rivers, aspen groves, etc. all photographed at sunrise or sunset and with a warming filter added to make it really "pop" that seems to make up so much of commercial landscape photography today. I don't know that Ansel would be spinning in his grave, he wasn't a particularly dogmatic guy and I think he might very well have appreciated your efforts. FWIW I thought the black and white images worked better than the color for this subject matter.

[chris jordan]

My favorites are the B&W 4x5's, especially the ones on page 2 of the website. There's a wonderful wild chaotic un-composed look to them, but they are somehow aesthetically satisfying at the same time--but just barely! I think they're killer, John. It won't be long before you have a cohesive series of images (or maybe you do already) that will be fun and rewarding to put out into the world. I think Ansel wouldn't be spinning in his grave at all-- he'd be phoning up his favorite galleries to give you an introduction.

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com

[John Brownlow]

chris -- thank you. I am trying to put together a portfolio at the moment but I really want to shoot this series for a whole year and see where it goes.

Dan -- that is a great question. The answer is that I am shooting two different projects at the moment, and I like to keep my 7(!) Grafmatic backs locked and loaded with film, in the back of the truck so I can leap out when the light is right. I am quite capable of shooting all 7 backs in an afternoon if I get excited.

One of the projects is color and the other, this one, is mostly BW. I have been caught with the wrong film loaded so many times that I resolved to stick to a color neg so I could be ready for anything. I actually like the look of Portra NC converted to BW because it allows me to add fiilters in post-processing -- these were converted with a virtual yellow filter (ie Channel Mixer with 50%R 50%G 0%B) for example which brought down the values of the sky.

[adrian tyler]

i'm with the rest of the guys, great work, keep at it. viva ugly! viva nothing!