Comments about my National Parks photographs

[Daniel Grenier]

Well, QT, I disagree with some of the things said by the reviewer, but the disjunctive perturbation of the negative space makes resonant the essentially transitional quality. It should also be added that the optical suggestions of the positive space brings within the realm of discourse the distinctive formal juxtapositions. Although he surely is not a photographer, I think that you think he thinks you think that the subaqueous qualities of the facture brings within the realm of discourse the remarkable handling of light.

HUH! Say what?!?! What a pile of BS, man. Anyway, I'd ignore one and all critiques if you ask me. Very few - almost none - are worth listening to. Proper critique has been fatally wounded when Szarkowski died IMHO.

Think nothing of it and press on. Your work, as is your dedication, is colossal.

[Jerry Bodine]

Think nothing of it and press on. Your work, as is your dedication, is colossal.

Amen!

[Heroique]

I dunno r.e., I admire your “fairness” to Feeney, but that may mislead one about his competence to criticize QT’s exhibit.

Feeney’s token “notes” at article’s start suggest he was at the show, but his overwhelming abstractions by article’s end, I think, ultimately blind him (and the reader) to the photos.

And his more concrete terms? Their zoo-like incoherency confirms the blindness:

“Specimens of religious art”
“Mae West”
“Feasts aren’t palatable”
“A fabulously rich entrée”
“Ken Burns’s recent PBS series”
“Dayton Duncan’s otherwise-amiable voice”
“Car alarm in Denali”
“The words of William Blake”

But it’s Feeney’s very next piece (about photos of movie theaters) that betrays him as a pretender about national park photography. He says in the final sentence:

“As chance would have it, I spent the next afternoon at Mesa Verde, the cliff-dwelling site that became one of the first national parks. May the spirit of John Muir forgive me, but I had a much better time at the theater.”

[r.e.]

I admire your “fairness” to Feeney...

That understates what I'm saying, by quite a lot.

Apart from your post, I am just amazed by the statement about Barak Obama. Where does this stuff come from, Ann Coulter/Fox Network/Rush Limbaugh/all of the above?

There are times when reading this forum makes me feel like I'm in an alternate universe, and this is one of them.

One of the issues in this thread, leaving aside the conduct of the person who started it, which pretty much defies good taste and good manners (yes, I know that he is the site owner), is that it demonstrates that there is no point in posting any photograph to this forum unless the objective is to be told that one is a great photographer, the criterion of which is in most cases whether the photo might, if the photograph is better than one is being told, sell to Hallmark Cards.

[John T]

But it’s Feeney’s very next piece (about photos of movie theaters) that betrays him as a pretender about national park photography. He says in the final sentence:

“As chance would have it, I spent the next afternoon at Mesa Verde, the cliff-dwelling site that became one of the first national parks. May the spirit of John Muir forgive me, but I had a much better time at the theater.”

I was at Mesa Verde a couple weeks ago to make plans for a photography workshop I'm teaching there this summer. And, if I were to use John Muir as a spiritual reference, based on the limited access in the off season there, I would have had a much better time at a theater-and I LOVE Mesa Verde.

There is one trail open (Spruce Tree House) and it is being worked on now so groups only go down once every two hours. There were an unusually large number of screaming and crying kids there. Because they were clearing rocks off some of the other trails, they were using these loud mechanical mules to haul the rocks to the surface. You could hear construction machinery all day long in the area. The rim drive was open, but without being able to get down to the ruins or to get away from the crowds just by walking a mile or two it was just the standard cliché vantage point.

The only real bright point was I met a photographer taking a photo of Cliff House with an 8x10 Arca Swiss. I forgot to ask his name, but if you are reading this, "Hi"

As for the debate over if a National Park is a human construct or not, I would defer to the human construction. Nature is the same everywhere. But putting the label and resources of a "National Park" in an area changes it. For some people and purposes it improves it. It makes these areas easier to access, it protects them from rampant development, (although some of my ranger friends think that the NPS is allowing concessionaires too much power to construct), and it is perceived to be safer.

But for others, it destroys the pristine nature of the space, it draws too many people to the area and it becomes a "museum" where people go to be told what to see rather than discover for themselves.

I think it is a combination of the two. Many years ago my friends and I would regularly go to the Escalante Region to photograph. Most of the time we never (or at least extremely rarely) saw another person in the area. Shooting the empty places was easy. Once it became a National Monument, it became very difficult to do the same photographs. I had to wait for people to leave the field of view, had to move people out from in front of my camera so I could take a photo, had to explain that Dick Phillips made my camera in the mid 1990's-that it wasn't an antique camera, etc.

It changed by the designation. People who never would have dreamed of going to a "wilderness area" thought nothing of going to a National Moument or a National Park.

I think this is the human construct he is talking about. To the general public (not necessarily outdoors people, photographers, backpackers, etc), National Parks are validation that something is worthwhile to visit. Most of them are made a little more comfortable and convenient. It isn't that people make the mountains, trees or water, it is that people declare it to be special and the place takes on a special importance. Also, they are promoted, which is also a human construct. The government spends money to let us know that these places are out there.


A friend of mine wanted to go backpacking in the Yosemite back country. I asked her why Yosemite and she said that it was beautiful and that if we were in the back country we wouldn't run into a bunch of people. Since I welcomed any opportunity to get out in nature, I agreed, although I knew better. After the first couple miles evidence of people was pretty much gone...for about a mile. Then we ran into the first of maybe 30 groups hiking the opposite direction. Each night she would complain on how there were too many people on the trail. ( I had to refrain from reminding her that maybe that is what all the other people were thinking about us.)

The next year, it was my turn. I chose the Mount Williamson Bowl. We drove up to the trailhead, hiked up to the bowl, photographed, and hiked around the area. At the end of the week, we hiked down to my Jeep. That whole time, on one day, we saw two fishermen. On the way home, we started comparing the two trips. She couldn't believe how beautiful it was, yet no one was there.

Everyone knows about Yosemite-everyone (mostly) wants to eventually go there. Why? because they've seen photos of it, they know people who've gone there and were blown away, etc. These are all things that humans bring to the park experience.

I used to live in South Dakota. I spent many days and nights in Badlands. The funny thing is that they used to not change an entry fee. I would spend 3-4 days at a time there and rarely see anyone, except the occasional car driving past. Once they started charging entry fees, and promoting the place more, I started to see more people hiking. Never very many, but definitely more than before.

As far as the original purpose of this thread, to me QT's photos are escapism. They take me to a place of beauty that is also inspirational to a lot of photographers, and people in general. But I don't think they are an accurate picture of the National Parks. I might consider them to be an homage to the intent of the creation of the National Park System, but they are only a small aspect of what the parks have become. Take a trip to Yosemite on a typical summer day-especially if you've gone to the park for years. Go in the valley and notice the number of people there. Go to one of the major geysers in Yellowstone in the summer. Try to take a photo without a person in it-that can be a lot of waiting and work.

I think that is what the critic was referring to with his article. There have been many aesthetically beautiful photographs of the NPs. Although QT's situation is different because he has been to all of them, they still are of that similar vein. Because of the nature of what the general public experiences at a NP (crowds, souvenirs, paved paths, etc.), there is a lot more to the parks than pretty scenes.

Instead of ignoring the elephant in the room he would like a photographer to deal with it. Show the bigger picture. (No pun intended-but it does work here)

[QT Luong]

First of all, thank you for your thoughts.

Call me man of poor taste and manners, but I am not exactly sure why it is bad form to wish to continue a dialog about one's work that started with a published piece.

On the other hand, I am guilty of not providing the full link. I thought it would be better that reactions not be influenced by the name of the publication or of the author (kind of like what is done in judging photographs in contests), both being well known. I realize that this was a mistake for which I apologize, and I may be moving this thread to the Lounge.

Since Peter asked for examples, here are a few favorite images from prominent contemporary photographers that include the "human element" in the national parks: Stephen Shore http://bit.ly/9rGZDc Thomas Struth http://bit.ly/9ht2wc Ted Orland http://bit.ly/cVfUvH There is also work from Richard Misrach and Bill Owens for which I do not have links. I particularly like the Struth photograph because it somehow manages to convey the awe, but frame it with a typical visitor experience. That's something I might try to do in a future project.

I am aware of the limitations of nature photography as an art form, that have even caused people in certain circles to dismiss it as not being art - even bad or mediocre. One of those limitations, that I discussed last year with James Balog (in my opinion one of the rare photographers of nature who managed to transcend it) is that almost all of this work is celebratory. However, in that particular project, that's what I set out to do. The variety of nature is what inspired me, rather than the "idea" of a National Park. I hoped that nevertheless I was able to bring to the table my own perspective. Therefore, my main concern about the comments is it seems to me that they could be applied to any nature landscapes.

[r.e.]

Sorry QT, but you did a lot more than fail to provide a link. You quoted a Pulitzer Prize winning critic without attribution, took what he said out of context and asked people what they thought about his views, on your own work, as you edited them. Who are you kidding?

The rest of your post is an exercise in obfuscation.

The idea that you are now going to relegate the thread that you started to the lounge just makes it worse.

You own this site, and you can do what you want, but you are doing a great job of destroying your own credibility.

[tgtaylor]

Since Peter asked for examples, here are a few favorite images from prominent contemporary photographers that include the "human element" in the national parks: Stephen Shore http://bit.ly/9rGZDc Thomas Struth http://bit.ly/9ht2wc Ted Orland http://bit.ly/cVfUvH There is also work from Richard Misrach and Bill Owens for which I do not have links. I particularly like the Struth photograph because it somehow manages to convey the awe, but frame it with a typical visitor experience. That's something I might try to do in a future project.

The Point, Counter-Point approach to photography is no longer as fashionable as it was in the '60's thru the '80's. It's both tiring anddead. You wouldn't have any of those images that you linked hanging in your living room, would you?

[QT Luong]

> Sorry QT, but you did a lot more than fail to provide a link. You quoted a Pulitzer Prize winning critic without attribution, took what he said out of context and asked people what they thought about his views, on your own work, as you edited them. Who are you kidding?

If I had provided the link, *none* of the issues that you mention would have stood, since the link would have provided the attribution and context. Apparently, independently of this failure, for which I apologized, you think that it is was bad manners, but did not explain why.

> The rest of your post is an exercise in obfuscation.

How ? There were two questions asked in this thread. I replied to both of them.

> The idea that you are now going to relegate the thread that you started to the lounge just makes it worse.

This forum has always allowed the OP of a thread, not just me, to have it deleted or relegated to the Lounge.

[r.e.]

Hey, you are now self-destructing. Use your power. Send the thread to lounge Siberia, delete the whole thing, do whatever you want. Run from the thread that you started, now that your don't like it anymore.

Prove that Feeney had you dead to right.