Comments about my National Parks photographs

[QT Luong]

I am curious to hear what you think about the following comments about my images of the National Parks (for reference, they can be seen at http://tgartworks.com/quangtuanluong/treasured-lands)

"The sense of reverence and love that animates these images is unmistakable. But reverence is a form of acceptance, not engagement. Awe, while certainly called for here, does not allow for the sort of back-and-forth that all art — good, bad, and mediocre — provokes. [...] Also, it’s the pristine aspect of the parks that draws [the photographer], and understandably so, not their human aspect. No person is visible in any of the photographs, which is as it should be — except that it’s not. A national park is a human construction, a splendid and necessary one, but no less an artifice for that fact. A national park is not natural as, say, a glacier or canyon or waterfall is. This isn’t to ask for images of litter or traffic jams. But it is to note a highly limited, and effectively superficial, view of a subject whose magnificence owes something to its intellectual complexity as well as its environmental sublimity. One recalls the words of William Blake (no friend of dark satanic mills), “Where man is not, nature is barren.’’ [The photographer] would disagree, but that there’s something sterile about these glorious images can’t be denied. "

[Lachlan 717]

Can you please check the link?

It doesn't seem to work...

Thanks,

[Marko]

As Ansel used to say, there are at least two people in every photograph - a photographer and a viewer.

And since they are both entitled to their opinion, most of what that unnamed critic is saying does not bother me, except for the following:

No person is visible in any of the photographs, which is as it should be — except that it’s not. A national park is a human construction, a splendid and necessary one, but no less an artifice for that fact. A national park is not natural as, say, a glacier or canyon or waterfall is.

This is simply not true. A national park is a human construct whose entire purpose is to prevent construction and preserve the nature within. That he or she does not like it does not make it less of a fact.

If nature is indeed barren where there are no humans, what would our inner cities represent?

P.S. Need to delete the parenthesis and the colon at the end of the link...

[QT Luong]

Thanks, I've fixed the link.

[lenser]

Having viewed with tremendous respect the images you have posted, I can only find it sad that the ego of a critic must force itself to try to over ride what is an exercise in pure visual joy.

I can only thank you for sharing your vision of what is essentially a completely individual experience of seeing and very perfect aloness in your images. To me, that IS what the national park experience is all about.

Gorgeous.

[Oren Grad]

This is not the first critic whose objection is that the photographer didn't make the pictures that the critic would have wanted him to make. That's his right, just as it's yours to respond "Thanks, but those were the pictures I wanted to make".

I think there's room for all kinds of pictures of the National Parks. In particular, either with and without overt signs of human presence is OK - whatever moves the photographer. I don't have much patience for anyone who asserts that there's one right way to photograph anything.

That said, do you have a specific concern that leads you to ask?

[Scott Knowles]

I can't agree with the comment. A national park isn't a human construction but the human act of preservation of the most recent natural state of a place free from all human impacts and effects, save what little there is from visitors. It's what we defined an NP to be. What the writer seems to want is what the Mountaineers and Washington Trail Association wants in the photo contests, people in nature, even wilderness. They promote the inclusion of people because they feel it connects the two, when it's actually the opposite, people go to be where others aren't. Many people like images to imagine being there, people only distract and subtracts from that.

ps. There is a typo on one of your Web pages for Mt. Rainier NP, specifically this one, where you misspell Reflection lake in the top navigation for other images of the NP. It's spelled right in the image information.

[Lachlan 717]

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, critique".

[CarstenW]

I am curious to hear what you think about the following comments about my images of the National Parks (for reference, they can be seen at http://tgartworks.com/quangtuanluong/treasured-lands)

"The sense of reverence and love that animates these images is unmistakable. But reverence is a form of acceptance, not engagement. Awe, while certainly called for here, does not allow for the sort of back-and-forth that all art — good, bad, and mediocre — provokes."

Apart from the comments above, with which I agree, I also find this part of the "critique" highly curious, and not entirely sensical.

I disagree that reverence is merely acceptable and not engagement. I can look at these images, find them beautiful, revere them, and still engage with them. There is also nothing stopping awe from being a more active feeling, as opposed to the dead-end that the critic implies.

It is as if s/he is saying that the photos are too good, and therefore not good enough, somehow...

[Nathan Potter]

I think we are learning something about the critic through QTs images. His comments indicate that he views the images as simple documents or records and that no social statement is made or implied. He feels they show a lack of arguable content or a message that reaches beyond simply what is presented. I understand his viewpoint and I don't think he is particularly wrong in his comments, although as pointed out there are some minor inconsistencies in logic.

This kind of impression is common among gallery critics because documentary photography leaves them intellectually destitute of discussion. Generally that's fine with me because I do the kind of image making that I want, and I'm sure QT does also.

But there is more to raw nature than he is able to discuss, I think because it's beyond his frame of reference. To look at a body of work as presented is simply a celebration of the infinite complexity of the natural world as brought to us by some "mythic messenger" from the cosmos.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.