Why "no people" in American Landscape Photography?

[Drew Wiley]

Among earlier "landscape" photographers, human figures given for scale were almost
routine. One of my favorite images was made by Vittoria Sella on the upper Baltoro
glacier in Pakistan with an 18X22 plate camera, when his party was being pursued by
Gurkha soldiers. Back in Italy, he dubbed in a series of roped climbers crossing the glacier, using a negative from the Alps! It was so seamlessly done that no one realized
the subterfuge until recently. Who says you need to photoshop to add (or remove)
people?

[Bruce Watson]

How did it happen that the current American landscape ethic is to not have people or show "human influence" in photographs?

I reject your premise. Why should there be people in landscape photographs?

I can understand why there should be people in most portraits. But landscape photography is about... landscape.

[drew.saunders]

Because when the settlers were traveling West, they killed everyone in front of them, and that ethos carries over to today.

Their diseases did the job for them, the settlers just cleaned up those who remained. I don't want to get too off photography, but the book "1491" by Charles C. Mann does an excellent job of trying to figure out the true pre-columbian population, and the many disagreements over the numbers (mostly political), as well as the different thoughts of the extent of the cultures of pre-columbian north, central and south America.

Back to the topic: It's nearly impossible to find any true "wilderness" untouched by man outside of Antarctica; however, I find that images that contain clearly discernible faces are really about the people, not about their surroundings. If that's not "Landscape" to some people, I can understand that point of view. I'm mostly concerned with whether or not I like the image.

Drew

[Walter Calahan]

I have no problem with people in my landscapes, but when shooting LF the people tend not to stick around long enough. That said I always look for the human element.

http://www.walterpcalahan.com/Cheers...ll_County.html

http://www.walterpcalahan.com/Cheers...ington_DC.html

[walter23]

How did it happen that the current American landscape ethic is to not have people or show "human influence" in photographs?

Cuz we're all sick of being surrounded by others

[walter23]

Incidentally (not LF, sorry):







And also: LF but kinda crappy

[Mark Sawyer]

Maybe since all the "serious" photographers started shooting at f/64, the exposures got so long that nobody holds still long enough to show up...

[Duane Polcou]

Why are there no people in Wildlife photos? I think that calendar shot of the "searing eyes of a leopard" should also have in the frame the beer gutted animal wrangler with an electrified cattle prod.

[Nathan Potter]

Drew Wiley, your comments about using people in a landscape for scale reminds me of the Canadian photographer Byron Harmon working out of Banff Alberta in the earlier part of the 20th century. A good majority of his images of then wilderness Canadian Rockies contained hikers and fellow climbers, presumably for scale. Even pack horses were included as well as camping equipment. These are now classic images and I believe his grand daughter still runs a gallery in Banff featuring reprints of some of his most famous images. I have an image of Helen Walcott in front of a tent at Mt. Assiniboine taken in 1925.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Kirk Gittings]

There is at least one human presence implied in every landscape photograph and that is the photographer, the witness.