Musings on landscape photography from a landscape ecologist's point of view

[bthphoto]

In my avocation as a photographer, I understand a landscape as a particular location, or the view from a particular location, at a point in time.
In my vocation as an ecologist whose work and professional passions frequently focus on landscape-scale ecology, I understand a landscape as a space defined by the functioning of a dynamic set of systems of connected and overlapping processes. As a landscape ecologist, I don't tend to view the subject matter in most of what we call "landscape photography" as landscapes. I would be more inclined to categorize them as "nature photography," along with photographs of trees or flowers or wildlife. I've struggled with this dilemma on and off for over 30 years, and it's often been a factor in driving me to set aside landscape photography and focus on other genres instead.

However, in planning some projects for this summer, I really feel a desire to try capturing landscapes as I understand them from my ecologist's perspective. I'm particularly interested in making imagery that communicates how the moment in time at a given location is influenced by current or previous conditions - both natural and anthropogenic - at other locations, and in making imagery that communicates a process within a space rather than a condition at a location. I have some ideas for how to go about that. Most involve sequential series of images, but others are double exposures with combinations of fast and slow shutter speeds and/or differing DOF, or exposing the same sheet of film in a view camera then a pinhole camera, or using masks to create series of partially overlapped images on the same sheet of film. Needless to say, it will take some experimenting to get to my destination.

With that background, I'm interested in hearing any relevant thoughts, ideas, or discussion. Some particular questions I have are:

1. Do you have other suggestions for approaches I might consider to explore those concepts?
2. Do you know of other photographers doing work along these lines that I might look at for inspiration?
3. How do you perceive landscapes, and how does that influence your photography?

Or, if you're thinking what a friend told me yesterday, "You're over-analyzing. Just shut up and go take pictures," that's OK too. Thanks in advance for any ideas or discussion.

[Pfsor]

Or, if you're thinking what a friend told me yesterday, "You're over-analyzing. Just shut up and go take pictures," that's OK too.

You have some wise friend. If you need to think so much about your photography, something is wrong.

[bthphoto]

You have some wise friend. If you need to think so much about your photography, something is wrong.

Perhaps, but I tend to agree with Socrates observation that: The unexamined life is not worth living.

[Pfsor]

Never mind. You still have a wise friend.

[scheinfluger_77]

I’ve always considered “landscapes” in photography to be mostly a matter of scale. That is, “landscape photography” includes more than just one or two ‘items’ such as flowers, rocks, trees, etc. as part of the frame. Closer views of ‘items’ in a “landscape” are more properly classified as photos of flowers, rocks, trees, etc.

This view of course is wholly subjective and personal and is my own definition, for me.

Bthphoto, your landscapes may be unique in this regard and might even be recognizable by others as your own. I suspect a little verbal explanation with them might really add to the photo. Making this kind of endeavor a great topic for publication as a “book” or some other type of collection.

Otherwise yes you may be overthinking it. :cool:

[Audii-Dudii]

Paging Rob de Loe to the white courtesy phone ... lol.

Personally, I gave up traditional landscape photography (or whatever you wish to call it) as my primary subject matter more than 20 years ago in favor of photographing the urban landscape (or whatever you wish to call that) and for more than the past decade, doing so at night.

For me -- and YMMV, of course! -- photography works best when done a few hours at a time.

As such, my typical outing lasts between two and three hours, including the drive (if any) to and from the area(s) being photographed, and my typical post-processing sessions last about the same amount of time.

Given where I live, it takes me a minimum of an hour each way just to reach a traditional landscape scene worth photographing, let alone actually photographing it. And having to invest the time blindly -- i.e., leaving home in the dark without any idea of the ultimate conditions so I can photograph an area at sunrise -- meant I was always frustrated when the light and/or weather ultimately proved to be a disappointment, as sometimes happens.

That said, I'm me and you're you, so I suggest you photograph whatever subject matter tickles your fancy at any given point in time and leave the philosophizing to others.

Remember: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, write about it; and those who can't write about it, merely think about it. ;)

[tgtaylor]

In the early days of nineteenth century photography the "view" was considered landscape photography as opposed to portrait photography. Hence the name "view camera" came to describe the cameras that were used and "views" were generally of the grand landscape - alia Watkins, Adams, etc.

Thomas

[bthphoto]

Remember: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, write about it; and those who can't write about it, merely think about it. ;)

Also remember: Action Without Thought is Impulsiveness, Thought Without Action is Procrastination. Procrastination rarely produces results, but impulsiveness rarely produces results of any value.

[rdeloe]

To the OP, I love your question. I don't think you're overthinking or overanalyzing. If our goal is only to make pictures that please ourselves, and only ourselves, then by all means go out and shoot and be happy. But if you're trying to say something with your pictures, I think you can't avoid thinking about what you want to say in advance, to whom you want to say it, and how. Drawing on your expertise from your "day job" is a perfect way to do that in my opinion. It's exactly what I'm trying to do in my work.

I am not an ecologist, but I rub elbows with ecologists and other natural scientists every day, so I have a decent lay person's understanding of how ecosystems work, and I have access to people who can put me on the right path. I drew on that expertise last summer to create this series "How we see trees". https://www.robdeloephotography.com/Works/How-we-see-trees/ My goal was to make it ecologically literate while saying something about the way people in my community see and interact with Eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis). It's definitely meant to be artistic rather than documentary.

[bthphoto]

Thank you for sharing that, and for sharing that outstanding project. Beautiful and thoughtful work. Bookmarked it in my inspirations folder.

P.S. I love the "Seasons of Ice" series there as well.

[Vaughn]

"Originally Posted by Audii-Dudii View Post
Remember: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, write about it; and those who can't write about it, merely think about it."

Always thought that was a lousy untrue saying. Those who understand, teach. Those who don't, talk about it.

For me, photographically, the landscape is what reflects light.

[Audii-Dudii]

"Originally Posted by Audii-Dudii View Post
Remember: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, write about it; and those who can't write about it, merely think about it."

Always thought that was a lousy untrue saying. Those who understand, teach. Those who don't, talk about it.

Hence the wink I added...

[6x6TLL]

Beautiful images Rob!

I loved your description too, with the interplay between anthropomorphism, romanticism and hard science.

Very nicely done.

[jp]

To the OP, I love your question. I don't think you're overthinking or overanalyzing. If our goal is only to make pictures that please ourselves, and only ourselves, then by all means go out and shoot and be happy. But if you're trying to say something with your pictures, I think you can't avoid thinking about what you want to say in advance, to whom you want to say it, and how. Drawing on your expertise from your "day job" is a perfect way to do that in my opinion. It's exactly what I'm trying to do in my work.

I am not an ecologist, but I rub elbows with ecologists and other natural scientists every day, so I have a decent lay person's understanding of how ecosystems work, and I have access to people who can put me on the right path. I drew on that expertise last summer to create this series "How we see trees". https://www.robdeloephotography.com/Works/How-we-see-trees/ My goal was to make it ecologically literate while saying something about the way people in my community see and interact with Eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis). It's definitely meant to be artistic rather than documentary.

Very nice photos!

[Dan Fromm]

I'm with your friend, mainly because a photograph is a snapshot -- shows what was present at one point in time -- and as such can't show processes or change.

You might want to pick a sight and take a series of shots over time that capture, e.g., seasonal changes, or a site that's subject to rapid change and, again, take a series of shots over time.

[Richard Wasserman]

I'm with your friend, mainly because a photograph is a snapshot -- shows what was present at one point in time -- and as such can't show processes or change.

You might want to pick a sight and take a series of shots over time that capture, e.g., seasonal changes, or a site that's subject to rapid change and, again, take a series of shots over time.

I don't agree and think this is a somewhat literal interpretation of what photography can do. I feel that photographs, while they are showing just a moment in time can strongly allude to other things which may or may not even be in the image. Some that come to mind—the presence of people, passage of time, emotions—the list goes on...

bthphoto—this sounds like a very interesting project, and no you are not overthinking. I hope you'll show us some photos when you can.

[jp]

I follow a very loose definition of landscape photography. If it's outdoors and the subject is the land/environment and not a macro/flower shot, it's a landscape. If it's a bird photo, it's not a landscape. Eliot Porter's Maine island "intimate landscapes" are my thing.

Trees and woods can tell stories like you want and hold great clues to previous conditions. You can easily show the past (dead trees) with current and new life (sprouting green plants) in one photo. Location can be clues from rocks, forest floor, etc... This takes practice and can't be forced, so get started. When landscape photos are matter of fact style it seems more natural to me than contrived photos or highly processed photos.

Find photos of a place you have been recently that someone else made; you'll see clues in them that remind you of that place that help you identify where it is. The exercise shows we who are interested in an informed understanding have many photographic clues to work with.

[Ken Lee]

I'm particularly interested in making imagery ... that communicates a process within a space rather than a condition at a location.

If it's process you're after, consider the old Taoist landscape painters.


http://www.kennethleegallery.com/images/forum/MaYuan.jpg
Scholar by a Waterfall
Ma Yuan (1190–1225)

[faberryman]

I've struggled with this dilemma on and off for over 30 years, and it's often been a factor in driving me to set aside landscape photography and focus on other genres instead.
Not sure why you are letting what is essentially semantics dictate what you photograph.

[LabRat]

In my playbook, (IMHO) is after living in the SW (where the land is laid bare/naked, is that LANDscape means sensing the flows and shapes of the earth are seen and shot as a large form, but the things on it are secondary... Even trees and grass are surface features etc... These might be elements, but the Earth features are dominant for form...

So the composition (Earth, sky, features etc) is stacked first in this order... Then the allowance of things that sit or are present in the environment... Man made stuff comes last...

Steve K

[bthphoto]

Not sure why you are letting what is essentially semantics dictate what you photograph.

I disagree that it's essentially semantics, but I do understand that it can easily seem that way to people without a scientific understanding of landscape ecology. Part of the challenge I see is making images that communicate the substantive difference between a picture of a mountain or a field, and a picture of the processes and systems shaping what's going on there. It's actually a pretty daunting challenge, which is why I've so often just set it aside.

Also, I don't think I'm totally alone in wrestling with it. Consider this quote by David Bayles (from https://photography.org/interview/david-bayles-interview/)

"DB: I grew up as a landscape photographer under the influence of Brett Weston and Ansel Adams. I spent a lot of time with Brett and some time with Ansel. That kind of photography gradually became un-nourishing to me and remains so to this day. The reason is pretty simple. That whole tradition of photography is not well connected to the ecological processes of the land. It’s not well-informed ecologically. The West Coast landscape tradition is a visual arts tradition. It’s not a tradition that’s deeply involved with the way natural systems work as ecosystems. Despite the fact that Ansel and his influence on the Sierra Club have had a profound effect on the world through the use of a photograph as a conservation device, it’s not a well-informed approach. So I withdrew. I withdrew from exhibiting, for several years from making landscape photographs at all, and now, 20 years later I’m back with my first gesture of what I think a landscape photograph ought to be about."

[faberryman]

"That whole tradition of photography is not well connected to the ecological processes of the land. It’s not well-informed ecologically. The West Coast landscape tradition is a visual arts tradition. It’s not a tradition that’s deeply involved with the way natural systems work as ecosystems."
Like the West Coast landscape tradition, I see photography as a visual art so I don't have the same concerns.

[John Kasaian]

I take pictures of places where I'm happy.
I figure that if I'm happy there, maybe the viewer would be too.
But since the viewer wasn't there, maybe sharing my photograph of the place will make them happy.

[rdeloe]

Thanks @bthphoto, @6x6TTL and @jp for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed them. I took enormous pleasure making them, which is part of it for me.

And @John Kasaian, I just want to say that's a really solid way of looking at things! Cheers.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, at least in the Occidental world, the godfather of this would be Eliot Porter's visual interpretation of Thoreau. But I don't think it's wise to get tied down to any philosophical model. Dissect and explain things too much and you end up with nothing. What I like about large format photography is that it slows you down and forces you to look at things. Avoid a pigeonhole mentality. Throw out all the pet terms like landscape and art and environmental photography and just start intently looking at things, especially through that ground glass. Eventually a bond forms.

[bthphoto]

Well, at least in the Occidental world, the godfather of this would be Eliot Porter's visual interpretation of Thoreau. But I don't think it's wise to get tied down to any philosophical model. Dissect and explain things too much and you end up with nothing. What I like about large format photography is that it slows you down and forces you to look at things. Avoid a pigeonhole mentality. Throw out all the pet terms like landscape and art and environmental photography and just start intently looking at things, especially through that ground glass. Eventually a bond forms.

Are you suggesting that Eliot Porter's interpretation of Thoreau captures the ecological context of the landscape? If so, I strongly disagree. I would say his work is just photos of nature shot at the right distance to see the trees rather than the forest. I don't see anything of systems and processes in them.

[tgtaylor]

In the beginning of Western photography in the US it was necessarily concerned with both describing the unique landscape of the west [U]and/U] depicting the economic possibilities it provided. This was in the beginning of westward migration when reliable information on the area was eagerly sought by potential immigrants. Charles Roscoe Savage was one of the prominent photographer in that era. As "amateur photography" blossomed - fueled by technology and the availability of photographic gear, "artistic" sentiments rather than the earlier informative and descriptive criterion became to dominate landscape photography:

...It is the power of seeing and deciding what shall be done, on which will depend the value and importance of any work, whether canvas or negative, Dryden says, "The most important thing in art is to know what is most beautiful"...We may claim for the photograph the ability to create imagery which calls forth ideas and sentiments of the beautiful... - John Moran, 1865.

Thomas

[Leszek Vogt]

Visual exploration IMO, and photography (landscape, etc) is sort of joined at the hip with that.

Les

[jamesaz]

Perhaps narrowing the scope slightly could help. Something illustrating land management techniques and relationship to systems or urban/wild land interface? Just what came to mind. Good luck.

[CreationBear]

Are you suggesting that Eliot Porter's interpretation of Thoreau captures the ecological context of the landscape? If so, I strongly disagree. I would say his work is just photos of nature shot at the right distance to see the trees rather than the forest. I don't see anything of systems and processes in them.

I think I understand (and suspect I admire:)) where you're coming from, but I think you might be butting your head up against a category error--a lot of ad copy gets written about photographers and "capturing" this and that, but it seems to me that silver halide is a very inefficient transmitter of intellectual concepts. Allusive of them, sure--in the hands of a genius, the entering wedge of the sublime, absolutely--but the real heavy lifting gets done elsewhere, specifically in the literary artifacts of "natural historians" like Virgil, Thoreau, and Leopold.

[pepeguitarra]

3. How do you perceive landscapes, and how does that influence your photography?

Or, if you're thinking what a friend told me yesterday, "You're over-analyzing. Just shut up and go take pictures," that's OK too. Thanks in advance for any ideas or discussion.

Coming from a hybrid engineering/science/artistic background, I remember one of my painting teachers who questioned me why I had drawn a tree in the middle of the painting. My answer was, because it was there! He explained that as an artist, I had license to do what I wanted, including removing the tree if that was going to help my composition. I was supposed to create my own composition. I do love the environment, work on it and help modify it in a sustainable way. However, when I see future photographs, I see forms, shapes, tones, lines, rhythm, and how best I can represent what I want to see in a photo using those elements of design. The challenge I have had several times is that nature has already done the composition for me, my job is to look for it and find it. While I photograph everything, I do feel attracted to shooting landscapes. Unlike photojournalists who can create their own composition (many times), my time is spent looking for that pre-arranged composition nature made for me. That is why I do not like digital photo manipulation and Photoshop. I have learned over the years, that my best photos are the ones of the subjects I like, so I try to shoot things that I like. I actually do my art for one client only: ME. So, I know what the client wants (most of the times). I do admire Ansel Adams because of that easiness to find the composition nature made for us. He had the right eye, and he was an ecologist.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

In my avocation as a photographer, I understand a landscape as a particular location, or the view from a particular location, at a point in time.
In my vocation as an ecologist whose work and professional passions frequently focus on landscape-scale ecology, I understand a landscape as a space defined by the functioning of a dynamic set of systems of connected and overlapping processes. As a landscape ecologist, I don't tend to view the subject matter in most of what we call "landscape photography" as landscapes. I would be more inclined to categorize them as "nature photography," along with photographs of trees or flowers or wildlife. I've struggled with this dilemma on and off for over 30 years, and it's often been a factor in driving me to set aside landscape photography and focus on other genres instead.

However, in planning some projects for this summer, I really feel a desire to try capturing landscapes as I understand them from my ecologist's perspective. I'm particularly interested in making imagery that communicates how the moment in time at a given location is influenced by current or previous conditions - both natural and anthropogenic - at other locations, and in making imagery that communicates a process within a space rather than a condition at a location. I have some ideas for how to go about that. Most involve sequential series of images, but others are double exposures with combinations of fast and slow shutter speeds and/or differing DOF, or exposing the same sheet of film in a view camera then a pinhole camera, or using masks to create series of partially overlapped images on the same sheet of film. Needless to say, it will take some experimenting to get to my destination.

With that background, I'm interested in hearing any relevant thoughts, ideas, or discussion. Some particular questions I have are:

1. Do you have other suggestions for approaches I might consider to explore those concepts?
2. Do you know of other photographers doing work along these lines that I might look at for inspiration?
3. How do you perceive landscapes, and how does that influence your photography?

Or, if you're thinking what a friend told me yesterday, "You're over-analyzing. Just shut up and go take pictures," that's OK too. Thanks in advance for any ideas or discussion.

Hi,

what comes first into mind is some kind of this:

"Yet another tree snapping densitometry afficionado who claims to battle for ecology, traveling around with his giant SUV and wearing supertechnical plastic clothes from Bangladesh ..."

I think there are a few questions a landscape photographer can ask to himself, and you are in a very privileged situation as you are able to observe and reflect your own behavior as phtographer from a qualified outside view.

1. What is "landscape"? Untouched, first nature or man-made artefact, a second nature?

2. What belongs to the ecological system "landscape"? Only plants, animals, topography? Men, as protagonists or as reflectors?

3. According to 2: is an aesthetic view part of an ecological view / understanding? Is there a theory of types (Wittgenstein) in speech acts / photography acting and speaking about speech acts / photography of photography (meta)?

4. If landscape is an ecological system: does it have to be interesting / worth of beeing photgraphed / nice / amazing / unique?

5. If there are classical / conventional acclaimed and admired subjects like bizarre trees and singular rocks and wetted leaves in photography: are there conventional acclaimed subjects in ecology?

6. Do you want to break conventions in 5.?

7. Contradictio in adiecto: fine art and nature?

Again and again I repeat: look at the photography of Robert Adams. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Robert+Adams%22+photographer&t=h_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images - So, I don't think you over-analyze your photography. There are too much people shutting up and trying to achieve fine print perfection without aesthetical, anthropological and ecological interest.

Regards

[faberryman]

There is a long tradition of landscapes in Western Art. That you want to do something different, does not make them, nor those photographs which follow in that tradition, any less landscapes. I suggest you do what you want to do, and not worry about labels. Quibbling about labels won't get you very far, and certainly won't result in any images.

[Graham Patterson]

My original study and work was in geology, so when I look at a landscape I also think about tectonics, erosion/deposition, *and* the effect of people. I can't help it - that early training sticks! But I can conceive of covering all of that in a single image.

Now, ecology covers everything from the microscopic to how the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere affect the weather. And it is different from locale to locale. This has to be a portfolio, a book, or even a documentary. Showing the gestalt of a local ecology in one, or a few images, seems very, very difficult to me. But it may well be that I have been so skewed that I do not have the visual vocabulary to do it.

But one has nothing to lose by trying, especially with a topic that one finds interesting.

[CreationBear]

There are too much people shutting up and trying to achieve fine print perfection without aesthetical, anthropological and ecological interest.

But at the end of the day, how often are such Midrashim just positional goods for bourgeois gnostics?:p

[mmerig]

"interested in making imagery that communicates how the moment in time at a given location is influenced by current or previous conditions - both natural and anthropogenic - at other locations, and in making imagery that communicates a process within a space rather than a condition at a location."

Some particular questions I have are:

1. Do you have other suggestions for approaches I might consider to explore those concepts?
2. Do you know of other photographers doing work along these lines that I might look at for inspiration?
3. How do you perceive landscapes, and how does that influence your photography?



Your idea is interesting and challenging. My background is in vegetation ecology, usually on a community scale in a landscape context over long (decades to centuries) time-scales, so I think I see the documental or scientific aspect rather than an artistic one here.

Some comments:
Your intended audience is not clear -- at first it sounds like this is for yourself, but your "making imagery that communicates" implies there could be others. Who these could be will have a bearing on how well your images are understood, of course.

One aspect that I would find extremely difficult to handle is the "other locations" influence. Without a textual narrative, it will be hard to convey what is affecting the location in an image that is not even in it.

Nature in a landscape typically moves slower than the eye can see, so trying to convey a process that influences conditions over time will be hard to do in one image. Lots of people use sequential images (repeat photography) with years or a century or so between image capture. But maybe that is too easy.

Without "over-thinking" it, I can only come up with a few examples of showing process at a given time and place, and the big challenge and interest would be doing this for many places and types of process, and having a broad audience understand it.

As for your questions,

The first one is partially addressed above, for the second, I don't know of anyone doing what you intend to do (excepting repeat photography in the traditional sense), and sometimes I see landscapes in an aesthetic sense, sometimes as an expression of natural processes; I don't have as much interest in man-altered landscapes. Much of my photography is work-related as a vegetation ecologist, and have done some repeat photography over the years, since the about 1990 to present.

Thanks again for the interesting post.

[Alan Klein]

Being from Alaska, you have some of the most wonderful ecology to photograph. Get out there and do it you lucky guy. Just shoot and deal with categorizing it later if you want.

[Alan Klein]

Here's my only landscape shot of Alaska, the Hubbard Glacier. Is it landscape, well, it's a vanishing glacier? I guess the mountains might be landscape. Then again the water is not and either. But how would you categorize this photo Maybe we could then understand your concerns better.

https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6198/6060527164_db4405b813_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/aexMzE)
Hubbard Glacier (https://flic.kr/p/aexMzE) by Alan Klein (https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/), on Flickr

[pepeguitarra]

e·col·o·gy
/ēˈkäləjē/
noun
the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
-----------------------------------------

An ecologist sees the landscape as a place where the ecological cycle of life happens. So, what does landscape photography have to do with anything other than represent that?

[bthphoto]

e·col·o·gy
a place where the ecological cycle of life happens

Actually, that's the antithesis of the landscape concept I'm after. As an ecologist, I see the landscape as a space that is defined by processes interacting over time, not a place where something happens. By way of analogy, consider a performance space, the size, shape, and character of which is defined by the performances conducted there, versus a stage that is defined by its construction and design, and which remains the same, regardless of the performances conducted there.

I understand that may sound to many as though I'm pressing some esoteric point of semantics. Some professional wildlife biologists have similar difficulties with concepts of landscape ecology and try to translate them into principles of population biology and animal behavior, because that's what they're familiar and comfortable with. However, the different is more than semantics, even if it's not immediately apparent to someone who hasn't spent 30 years contemplating it.

Consider a photograph of a stand of trees. It may be visually compelling, expansively composed, and evoke grand emotions associated with wilderness, purity, and adventure. However, could it have been conceived in a way that also leads a viewer to consider that its existence is dependent on nutrients that originated through decomposition at the top of the watershed, that its character is formed by the nature of the disturbance that set back its seral state, the seed source and distribution vectors available at the time, or that the community type it represents arrived and survived at that location through a series of events and processes that happened to synchronize at the right time? Or consider a photograph of a mountain stream. It may be visually compelling and evoke whimsical emotions associated with a sunny day on the stream bank. However, could it have been conceived in a way that also leads a viewer to consider its character as a constantly fluctuating artery transporting sediment and nutrients from one landscape position to another, providing perturbation to disturbance-dependent plant communities, and structural environments for aquatic organisms? Those are examples of the types of things I wish to be able put into imagery, and hopefully that will help illustrate the difference between a place and a process-defined space.

[rdeloe]

An ecologist sees the landscape as a place where the ecological cycle of life happens. So, what does landscape photography have to do with anything other than represent that?


I'll bite!

I would venture that a lot of landscape photography is made by photographers who don't really understand what they're seeing in a scientific ways. Their focus is on things like beauty, form, shapes, light, etc.

So where the non-ecologist landscape photographer sees a meadow filled with beautiful plants and flowers, lit by spectacular morning light, the ecologist might focus on all the invasive plant and animal species that dominate in the meadow. The meadow might be “beautiful”, and the landscape photographer might make a beautiful picture, but the ecologist would take something different from that picture than the non-ecologist. The ecologist who was also an artist-photographer might want to show something other than the “beauty” of the meadow.

The project I pointed the OP to earlier is a kind of case in point. I started making those pictures simply because I loved the cedar wetland near my house. At the start, I didn’t realize that Thuja occidentalis (Eastern White Cedar) is not native to most of south-western Ontario, and that the trees I was photographing are likely part of a relic forest planted by the farmer who used to cultivate the land. I only saw the beauty. Ecologists like G. Waldron, author of the classic Trees of the Carolinian Forest book, would see a rather “meh” species that doesn't fit into the ecology of the Carolonian forest.

From this perspective, it’s clear to me what the OP is trying to do, and that it’s something different from pictures made by people who are not grounded in an understanding of ecology.

[faberryman]

There are lots of different ways of looking at the world. Find the one that resonates with you and call it whatever you want.

[bthphoto]

Some comments:
Your intended audience is not clear -- at first it sounds like this is for yourself, but your "making imagery that communicates" implies there could be others. Who these could be will have a bearing on how well your images are understood, of course.

...

Nature in a landscape typically moves slower than the eye can see, so trying to convey a process that influences conditions over time will be hard to do in one image. Lots of people use sequential images (repeat photography) with years or a century or so between image capture. But maybe that is too easy.



Thanks for the feedback. You make some really good points. My motivation behind this is largely for myself, but I also hope that I can make imagery that conveys something of my intent to some others as well. I would be pleased if I could at least cause a moment of reflection among scientists in other field of natural and physical sciences, and among educated lay-peoplen with enough interest in the environment to spend time and effort increasing their knowledge.

And I'm very familiar with repeat photography as a scientific tool, but that's not really what I'm after here. I'm more interested in suggesting a story and inspiring thought than in presenting data, if that makes any sense.

[bthphoto]

There is a long tradition of landscapes in Western Art. That you want to do something different, does not make them, nor those photographs which follow in that tradition, any less landscapes. I suggest you do what you want to do, and not worry about labels. Quibbling about labels won't get you very far, and certainly won't result in any images.

I don't think I'm quibbling about the term landscape, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'm simply trying to explain a different concept of what a landscape is and explore ways to approach that concept as a photographer.

[bthphoto]

Hi,
Again and again I repeat: look at the photography of Robert Adams. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Robert+Adams%22+photographer&t=h_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images - So, I don't think you over-analyze your photography. There are too much people shutting up and trying to achieve fine print perfection without aesthetical, anthropological and ecological interest.


Thanks. I wasn't familiar with Robert Adams. I will spend some time studying his work.

[faberryman]

I understand that may sound to many as though I'm pressing some esoteric point of semantics.
Calling traditional landscapes nature photography and process defined spaces landscapes is semantics. It is not even esoteric.

[rdeloe]

I'm with you. This is a fruitful line that could lead to really interesting work. Keep going!

It occurs to me though that you're asking photographs to communicate an awful lot of information. This isn't a problem if the goal is simply art; in that case, it's on the viewer to figure out what the picture means to them. But if I'm understanding your goal, you actually want the viewer to see something. From that perspective, I think you're going to run into two problems:

1. A single photograph on its own can only say so much.

2. What you want the viewer to see can't be seen unless the viewer has your knowledge. Someone not familiar with ecology and hydrology may not understand what you just said in your post -- let alone a picture of it.

These are both problems that are present with all photography to some degree, so the usual solutions might be helpful in your case too. (I'm assuming that your goal is artistic rather than scientific. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

* First, I'd recommend that you think in terms of groups of pictures rather than individual "hero" pictures. A well structured group of photos can say a lot more than a single photo. The photo essay format might not be the best fit, but there are lots of other ways to build a group of pictures that work together to carry an idea.

* Second, words are your friend. Captions, introductory remarks, etc. are all ways to fill in the blanks and help people see what you want them to see.

A resource I use when I'm teaching this stuff is Michael Freeman's 2012 book The Photographer's Story. It's out of print, but you can still get the Kindle edition.




Actually, that's the antithesis of the landscape concept I'm after. As an ecologist, I see the landscape as a space that is defined by processes interacting over time, not a place where something happens. By way of analogy, consider a performance space, the size, shape, and character of which is defined by the performances conducted there, versus a stage that is defined by its construction and design, and which remains the same, regardless of the performances conducted there.

I understand that may sound to many as though I'm pressing some esoteric point of semantics. Some professional wildlife biologists have similar difficulties with concepts of landscape ecology and try to translate them into principles of population biology and animal behavior, because that's what they're familiar and comfortable with. However, the different is more than semantics, even if it's not immediately apparent to someone who hasn't spent 30 years contemplating it.

Consider a photograph of a stand of trees. It may be visually compelling, expansively composed, and evoke grand emotions associated with wilderness, purity, and adventure. However, could it have been conceived in a way that also leads a viewer to consider that its existence is dependent on nutrients that originated through decomposition at the top of the watershed, that its character is formed by the nature of the disturbance that set back its seral state, the seed source and distribution vectors available at the time, or that the community type it represents arrived and survived at that location through a series of events and processes that happened to synchronize at the right time? Or consider a photograph of a mountain stream. It may be visually compelling and evoke whimsical emotions associated with a sunny day on the stream bank. However, could it have been conceived in a way that also leads a viewer to consider its character as a constantly fluctuating artery transporting sediment and nutrients from one landscape position to another, providing perturbation to disturbance-dependent plant communities, and structural environments for aquatic organisms? Those are examples of the types of things I wish to be able put into imagery, and hopefully that will help illustrate the difference between a place and a process-defined space.

[bthphoto]

I'm with you. This is a fruitful line that could lead to really interesting work. Keep going!

It occurs to me though that you're asking photographs to communicate an awful lot of information.

Thank you, and you're absolutely right. You listed many of the reasons this is an intimidating venture to dive into. As I suggested in my original post, I think a project like this will have to rely on sequential series of images or various approaches to multiple exposures. I really can't imagine capturing what I'm after in a single exposure. As I said in a post above, though, I'm more interested in leading a viewer enough to imagine a connection or a story, not presenting data that lays out a scientific explanation.

One example I've turned over in my mind is a triptych with one image of decomposing fish carcasses in a headwater stream, another of exposed roots and sediment deposits on an eroded bank near the mouth of that same stream, and a third of a stand of tree saplings next to the receiving stream shot from a vantage point that allows recognition of the first two locations within the scene. It will take some planning and testing to shoot all three images such that the related locations are emphasized enough to stand out to a casual viewer. I've also thought about presentations that use additional materials such as string or wire to draw lines between the corresponding locations on the three images, though I have yet to actually lay something out and see how that reads.

There are definitely challenges to something like this, and stand-alone single-exposure images aren't likely to cut it. However I've got plenty of food for thought from this thread and have become even more encouraged to dive into it this summer, so thanks to everyone who's contributed.

[Alan Klein]

There are loads of pictures depicting the ecology of the landscape in college science texts if that's what you want to shoot for. But there's no reason to not shoot them in a beautiful way. Combining esthetics with science seems like an worthwhile endeavour. I was thinking along the lines of NASA Hubble photos of the universe. While they present important scientific discoveries, they are also beautiful to the lay viewer. If ecology of the landscape interests you, you should study how NASA does it to learn how to capture and present similar concepts in your field that would attract the average person. Maybe essays with numerous photos combined with text might be a good approach. I'm sure there are others. Start shooting and see what develops and then adjust as the methods becomes clearer. First you do; then you understand.

[Colin Graham]

For some ideas you could check out the Petrochemical America project by Richard Misrach and Kate Orff-

https://aperture.org/blog/richard-misrach-and-kate-orff-in-conversation/

[rdeloe]

For some ideas you could check out the Petrochemical America project by Richard Misrach and Kate Orff-

https://aperture.org/blog/richard-misrach-and-kate-orff-in-conversation/

Nice lead. Thanks Colin. I was not aware of this one.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Thanks. I wasn't familiar with Robert Adams. I will spend some time studying his work.

Hi,

people often mention a certain "view" or a "perspective" from a certain "point of view" - it is obvious that you have different points of views, as a photographer and an ecologist, perhaps with parentship, pecuniary interest, etc pp.

The word "persepctive" shouldn't be monopolized by geometry, neither by Mr. Filippo Brunelleschi, nor by Nikolaus Karpf, this is what I say as an art historian. "Space" in a phenomenological sense is the impression of a (non-)disposable distance resulting from the fact that there is something in opposition to us. And a "perspective" is the entireness of the principles how something is organized while standing in opposition to a viewer. In phenomenology you have perspectives onto feelings, actions and assumptions (Husserl, Heidegger, Ströker). Central perspective, the euclidian space is a subset of being the origin and a part of assumptions.

There are literary perspectives, too. They also implicate "origines" (lat.), "personal point of views", opinions, that organize what a figure sees and how he sees it. This figure can be in the landscape or in front of the landscape, as the spectator or the photographer. This figure can be an animal, a plant, a human being, this figure can be explicitly present - perceptable - or implicitly present - like the figure in front of the landscape.

When viewing at a landscape (and photographing it) you will be a narrator. You narrate a story.

If you take a picture with a 90mm wideangle and if you incorporate some foreground you constitute an implicitly present point of view of a figure (photographer or spectator, narrator or animal, a plant perhaps) from which the picture space, the scene, the stage is accessible. From this point of view the objects, circumstances and facts of this scenery are organized, always according to certain laws.

BTW. the centralized perspective of Brunelleschi is a proper subset of this concept of "perspective", defined by the geometrical order and the shape of things in a centralized view (a "prince's eye", "oeillade", as the french say). The implicit author of his Baptisterium scetches narrates the story of taking complete possession of the visible world, that is now organized by the spectators laws.

The large format camera is a vehicle to take possession of the visual world, corresponding predefined laws that are disposable in camera movements.

Another perspective - Robert Adams - would emphasize the structures of polluted, wasted, exhausted or abandoned environment, constituing an order of deficit as a (street) ballad about how the unsolicitous man negates and abandons everything that should be worthful.

There are many perspectives, views - we can position ourselves as well as our fictive protagonists in our sceneries, constituing many differnet landscapes, topographies, ecologies.

[Drew Wiley]

bth - I don't think you've done your homework. The West Coast school was intensely involved in the ecological aspect. Eliot Porter, though first recognized by Stieglitz for black and white pictures things like bird's nests, then went ahead to represent nature in color in a HOLISTIC CONTEXT like nobody previously. Who else would have dared print expensive books containing pictures of ouzel droppings prominent at the streamside? It was groundbreaking, particularly the images presented in "In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World", and "The Place No One Knew". And if that tango with Thoreau wasn't ecological in essence, what is? Yes, perhaps it is best to aspire to something more illusive, that can ONLY be expressed photographically. But that rapidly risks becoming pretentious, not necessarily by capitulating to some commercial postcard mentality (which is the case 90% of the time), but often by pandering to critical stereotypes for sake of obtaining an art reputation. Robert Glenn Ketchum mimics Porter but leaves a bright soda can, chewing gum wrapper, or outhouse in the scene to make it "relevant" as "environmental photography"; a politically-correct gimmick if ever there was one. Misrach had it printed all mushy bland with plenty of human imprint - sometimes quite interestingly, but still in a manner which makes his baiting of museum pontification unquestionable - a local art career type. Same could be said for Burtynsky - he has a very interesting mode of visualization, but it's all conspicuously marketed around contemporary human mauling of the environment themes. Robert Adams is more nuanced, but not necessarily ecological in any particular sense. Maybe this term "ecology" itself becomes a trap. What are you after? I've got a degree in field biology, even more education in geology, and a lifetime of outdoor large format photography. And frankly, I don't give a damn what it's called. It's just it. I'm not trying to copy anyone, and I hate labels. Leave taxonomy to those who collect dead insects on pins, or stuff snarling big kittie-cat skins for Smithsonian dioramas, and for rote ideas critics put into photographer's heads without really understanding us in the first place. Pigeonholes = pigeon poop, at least if there's anything really worth looking at. I remember picking up a brand new book about Carleton Watkins just to find out the critic who wrote it didn't actually see a damn thing; he was just pontificating and spinning off a bunch of historical stereotypes. Fine. It's how they pay their bills, I guess. Nowadays everybody seems to need some gimmick to get noticed. I'm sick of it.

[rdeloe]

Eliot Porter trained as a medical doctor rather than as an ecologist. He made pictures of things in nature he found beautiful, and he liked the details rather than the grand vistas. His pictures were used to promote conservation agendas, but he says that’s not why he made them. In his own words from Intimate Landscapes, “I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself – for the photograph – without consideration of how it may be used. Some critics suggest that I make photographs primarily to promote conservation, but this allegation is far from the truth. Although my photographs may be used in this way, it is incidental to my original motive for making them, which is first of all for personal aesthetic satisfaction.”

Porter wanted people to think about nature and the environment by showing them beauty, so he took pictures of things he loved. I think this is a good strategy. A lot of “environmental” photography tries to trigger a fear/disgust reaction in people, and that’s not a viable strategy for promoting long-term changes in thinking or behaviour. Martha A. Sandweiss, who wrote the foreword for the 1987 retrospective of his work, called it well: “He does not make pictures of despoiled landscapes littered with beer cans or criss-crossed by utility wires in order to suggest that man should leave nature alone. Rather, he continues to focus on the wild, unspoiled landscape, hoping to suggest the merits of conservation through a positive, persuasive illustration of nature’s inherent beauties.”

It sounds to me like the OP also wants to get people to think about nature and the environment, but through pictures that are grounded in, and reflect, an understanding of ecological systems. I’m not seeing a problem here. I like the OP’s approach and am curious to see where it goes. I also love Eliot Porter’s work and take huge inspiration from it.

[Drew Wiley]

The conservation aspect caused a lot of friction with AA, perhaps jealousy, as Porter's beautiful folio books gained traction as conservation fodder, overtaking Adam's work. Ironically, Porter's own brother was the chief engineer of the Glen Canyon dam project which he so bitterly fought. The late David Brower basically seceded from the Sierra Club over the book controversy. We didn't have money to waste, but my older brother idolized Porter's work and my parents scraped together enough money to buy him an original of the Glen Canyon book, with the beautifully varnished pages (a varnish which eventually yellows). But even that young, I habitually held a white card in my hand and kept re-cropping into Porter's images, which kinda shows how different my own vision was to become, even though appreciating what Porter did as is. Now many years later, I look at some of those very pictures and note how so much that made them work was in a specific knack for subtle details which the myriads of mere copycats of his work have no sense of. They just want some slot canyon splash, or a tangle of weeds to mimic a painterly abstraction. It takes more than that. That fine holistic sense was really rooted into his vision. He wasn't just illustrating Thoreau. He was independently wealthy, so didn't have to pander. Many of the shots he took in Maine, which did contain a lot of manmade objects, were adjacent to pricey family property. He acquired machinist training during the war, and utilized it when he undertook dye transfer printing in an attempt to faithfully reproduce bird coloration. His main assistant when he was in New Mexico was Jim Bones, who recently posted a dye transfer video primer within that old facility, but in recent years has been involved in his own version of environmental activism, but was incensed when Kodak broke their word and prematurely discontinued dye transfer supplies, and for awhile simply refused to photograph, seemingly in protest, while others simply moved on to Cibachrome. I guess it takes hard heads to make stubbornly stunning prints. Eliot Porter himself unquestionably fell into that category. Many people today have forgotten the original impact of his work amidst the millions of easy-come/easy-go pictures of "raw nature" - a myth in itself. Most of the planet was altered by man long ago, even Walden's Pond.

[rdeloe]

The conservation aspect caused a lot of friction with AA, perhaps jealousy, as Porter's beautiful folio books gained traction as conservation fodder, overtaking Adam's work. Ironically, Porter's own brother was the chief engineer of the Glen Canyon dam project which he so bitterly fought. The late Eliot Brower basically seceded from the Sierra Club over the book controversy. We didn't have money to waste, but my older brother idolized Porter's work and my parents scraped together enough money to buy him an original of the Glen Canyon book, with the beautifully varnished pages (a varnish which eventually yellows). But even that young, I habitually held a white card in my hand and kept re-cropping into Porter's images, which kinda shows how different my own vision was to become, even though appreciating what Porter did as is. Now many years later, I look at some of those very pictures and note how so much that made them work was in a specific knack for subtle details which the myriads of mere copycats of his work have no sense of. They just want some slot canyon splash, or a tangle of weeds to mimic a painterly abstraction. It takes more than that. That fine holistic sense was really rooted into his vision. He wasn't just illustrating Thoreau. He was independently wealthy, so didn't have to pander. Many of the shots he took in Maine, which did contain a lot of manmade objects, were adjacent to pricey family property. He acquired machinist training during the war, and utilized it when he undertook dye transfer printing in an attempt to faithfully reproduce bird coloration. His main assistant when he was in New Mexico was Jim Bones, who recently posted a dye transfer video primer within that old facility, but in recent years has been involved in his own version of environmental activism, but was incensed when Kodak broke their word and prematurely discontinued dye transfer supplies, and for awhile simply refused to photograph, seemingly in protest, while others simply moved on to Cibachrome. I guess it takes hard head to make stubbornly stunning photographs. Eliot Porter himself unquestionably fell into that category. Many people today have forgotten the original impact of his work amidst the millions of easy-come/easy go pictures of "raw nature" - a myth in itself. Most of the planet was altered by man long ago, even Walden's Pond.

Thanks for this post Drew. So much of our history exists only in the memories of people with this kind of personal knowledge.

[bthphoto]

Thank you very much for these last few posts. They're packed with food for thought and I've just printed them to study a bit, as I tend to think better with a highlighter than a mouse pointer. :)

One thought that has occurred to me, as it came up at work today, is that many people define ecology differently, and that may fragment the discussion. Some equate it with anything in nature. Some equate it with conservation. Some equate it with environmental activism. Some equate it with the ugliness of humanity's imprint on nature. While I appreciate the beauty of nature, and I'm certainly in favor of raising peoples' awareness about the impacts of how carelessly we live on this planet, those aren't the inspiration for the project I've got in mind. What I'm interested in is producing imagery that helps people notice and think about flows of matter, cycles of energy, disturbance, succession, patterns, corridors, and fragmentation at scales that affect communities and ecosystems rather than individual organisms or populations, not in the form of diagrams in a text book, but in the form of art works that connect at an emotive junction rather than an academic one. Hopefully that helps clarify what I'm aiming for a bit. Regardless, I'm grateful for all the discussion, feedback, and points of view here. This has been extremely helpful.

[mmerig]

. . . many people define ecology differently, and that may fragment the discussion. . . . . .What I'm interested in is producing imagery that helps people notice and think about flows of matter, cycles of energy, disturbance, succession, patterns, corridors, and fragmentation at scales that affect communities and ecosystems rather than individual organisms or populations, not in the form of diagrams in a text book, but in the form of art works that connect at an emotive junction rather than an academic one. Hopefully that helps clarify what I'm aiming for a bit.

How people define ecology is one thing, but people tend to see what they are already aware of, guided by their own biases. Just the other day, a forester viewing an historic image, (taken by Owen Wister, long before local Euro-American settlement), assumed that "the rancher that lived near there cut all those trees", without a stump, ranch, or cow in sight. He was not dumb, and had 40+ years of experience, but was just casually looking at it.

Even in the field it could work that way. I remember being out with J. David Love (geologist in Wyoming, see John McPhee's "Rising from the Plains"), and seeing a scarp in glacial outwash, he interpreted it as a fault scarp. A few years later, while I was out with Luna Leopold, (fluvial geomorphologist), he interpreted the same feature as an alluvial terrace scarp. Both interpretations were plausible, but without more context and deductive reasoning, it was easy to see how there were two different answers from notable experts.

Without a narrative context, a single image could be like a Rorschach ink-blot test to naive viewers. A series of them, as you suggested earlier, should work better, but it will be generally challenging to convey what you know to viewers, or what you would like them to know. That is what makes your project so interesting.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Thank you very much for these last few posts. They're packed with food for thought and I've just printed them to study a bit, as I tend to think better with a highlighter than a mouse pointer. :)

One thought that has occurred to me, as it came up at work today, is that many people define ecology differently, and that may fragment the discussion. Some equate it with anything in nature. Some equate it with conservation. Some equate it with environmental activism. Some equate it with the ugliness of humanity's imprint on nature. While I appreciate the beauty of nature, and I'm certainly in favor of raising peoples' awareness about the impacts of how carelessly we live on this planet, those aren't the inspiration for the project I've got in mind. What I'm interested in is producing imagery that helps people notice and think about flows of matter, cycles of energy, disturbance, succession, patterns, corridors, and fragmentation at scales that affect communities and ecosystems rather than individual organisms or populations, not in the form of diagrams in a text book, but in the form of art works that connect at an emotive junction rather than an academic one. Hopefully that helps clarify what I'm aiming for a bit. Regardless, I'm grateful for all the discussion, feedback, and points of view here. This has been extremely helpful.

Hullo,

let's have a look at this: http://artistsinlabs.ch/en/

Perhaps the Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts (ICS) of the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) could be your friend ... They offer long-term residencies for artists in scientific laboratories and research institutes (usually 6 months).

Are you interested? It would be some kind of a role changing: being as a photographer at an institution you normally know as scientist.

EG. Claudia Tolusso was a guest in 2009 at the "Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft (WSL), Birmensdorf ZH" (forest, snow, landscape), scientific discipline: ecology and environment. Her residence was in Bellinzona, Tessin / Switzerland.

Sylvia Hostettler was in 2008 at the Centre for Integrative Genomics (CIG), at the Université de Lausanne, scientific discipline: molecular biology. She traveled with her collegues to various glaciers in the alps, collecting genetic materials, then she passed a few weeks in Iceland ...

The director is a native English speaker Everybody in Zürich talks English. https://www.facebook.com/artistsinlabs/?_fb_noscript=1

Regards

[Drew Wiley]

bth - Just follow your heart and don't overthink it. It can take awhile to efficiently integrate your personal instinct with both efficient technique and a corresponding visual eloquence others can identify within your images. The train needs a steady pull to achieve due momentum. Don't let this fact discourage you. People who reach for some visual or philosophical gimmick to overtly speed up the process tend to spoil it. Overheating things in a microwave is one thing, patiently allowing things to simmer to flavor is another. In other words, don't be in a hurry to define your niche. Take time to deeply look at things, then try to patiently reproduce that same sense in your prints or whatever visual mode of expression best suits you. I've always thought that traditional Australian aborigines would make great photographers because they spend so much time just observing the details of nature around them. Or like Ed Abbey wrote, if you want to understand the desert, don't drive past it, but get out and slowly crawl on it. You'll get there.

[Drew Wiley]

Hi mmerig - I studied fluvial geomorphology under a relatively young fellow (back then) who went on to set up the Geomorph program at Princeton. We were deemed heretics by the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers because all they wanted to do was stream channelization to get water from Point A to Point B as fast as possible, which is exactly why New Orleans gets flooded over and over again, and the whole Mississippi Delta is eroding away. So it was strictly a research field back then. But now my nephew has a very successful geophysics company based on applied geomorphology. The underlying science is pretty much the same, but now they have all sorts of computer modeling that makes the practical side of it quite efficient and in demand. But I was also a heretic because my main interest concerned the close of the Pleistocene - a lot of periglacial geomorphology; and I was the only one at the time who was convinced - and had distinct evidence - of human migration to the New World mainly via a coastal rather than inland route, and probably a few thousand years earlier than most assumed, or even still assume. That made me a pariah with traditional peck-order archeologists, but brought backing from the geomorphologists who were far more scientific in their approach. But someone had come to the same conclusion twenty years before me, and was not only ostracized and forgotten, but all his research effort only accidentally rediscovered in a garage cleanup in recent years. Now those same ideas have become mainstream, as "smoking guns" slowly continue to turn up. But I never made a career of any of this. The only actual jobs were in the oil fields of either Arabia or the North Slope of Alaska, which didn't appeal to me; and I was fed up with the backward mentality of the academic set back then. A lot has changed; but I keep up with just bits and pieces of it. Now I go out and see a big swath of land with an interesting fenceline up a hill, and eroded old tractor or bulldozer roads, and potentially make a very detailed prints of it from 8X10 film. A city art critic would just turn his nose up, if he even bothers to look at real prints, and would suggest that's it's just another example of a dated genre devoid of contemporary human interest. Those kind of people are functionally blind, stuck in ideological stereotypes. But to me those dilapidated fences and winding old tracks are someone's autobiography. Generations of ranchers lived and died according to those lines on the hills. It sums up their entire lives - a rich human story otherwise forgotten, as well as the story of the land. And all the erosion in between, that I understand as part of the ongoing story. And in certain places you discover bits of chipped stone that tell you, if you have studied the specific subject enough, that someone set foot on those same hills thousands of years earlier, when things might have looked quite different. It's all in the details. Well, I should stop at this point and check out the sky, to see if today has potential too, or if it will just be too rainy again, like yesterday.

[Vaughn]

bthphoto: in a way, I have been involved with a similar project over my photographic lifetime. It takes a while to get to know a Place well enough to form an understanding of the processes and life that created it. Photographing along a section of creek in the redwoods these past 40 years has opened my eyes to such processes...taking a class in redwood ecology by the expert on the subject when I first started to photograph influenced me, also. Forty years is long enough time to see, after a fall of a giant, an opening in the redwoods close back up...to see the fallen redwood slowly become an elevated forest floor. Enough time to have to say good by to 200+ year-old, 80 foot-tall Big Leaf Maples as they age and collapse, to witness changes in the creek, and see the steelhead, salmon and cutthroat swim up from the sea in the winter. And also enough time to notice the fluctuation in trail maintenance funds, impacts from road construction, increases in visitor use and hints of our changing climate. And of course, plenty of time to fall in love with a Place.

So that is what I am bringing to the viewer -- my exploration, experience, and understanding of the landscape/ecosystem/world through the workings of light. I suppose that when I reach the point of perfect understanding, I can set the camera aside and like the Aborigines, just sit and observe, but I doubt I'll reach that point so I'll keep on taking photographs (but with an increasing desire to be still).

One way to express a system is to follow it top to bottom -- a classic way is to do that with a watershed with emphisis on the water cycle.

https://www.amazon.com/San-Joaquin-River-Spirit/dp/B000N3VUXK

[Drew Wiley]

I was unaware of that book, Vaughn... what little is left of the San Joaquin, at least. I lived right on the edge of the San Joaquin canyon, with a view right up the canyon (the second deepest on the continent, just behind the Middle Fork of the Kings nearby) to the Ritter Range. The Indians once had huge salmon camps at a couple places on the River nearly. But so little were things like environmental impact reports in existence when the river was "tamed", that this can be explained in a single anecdote. My dad had come from the big dam projects in the Northwest and asked the chief engineer why a salmon ladder could not be installed there too, beside the dam. The engineer thought about it and made an instant decision, "Nobody is going to drive way out here just to go fishing". That's how the whole salmon run for the southern half of the State instantly ended. A few landlocked chinooks still swim around in Mammoth Pool. Most years much of the San Joaquin riverbed down below is totally dry. But during an exceptionally heavy rain year, exactly once in my memory, a single salmon made it all the way up through San Francisco Bay to the dam. So their instinct is still there. Ironically, that's right where the Fish Hatchery is, attempting to mass produce enough trout for the hordes of fishermen.

[Peter Lewin]

In the thread starter, the OP asked for ideas which he might use to express his views on the ecology of a place. Staying away from the philosophical musings, I suggest using Google to look up Stephen Wilkes and his "Day to Night" series. His use of photography to capture the passage of time might trigger some creative ideas which the OP could pursue. While a search returns many possible sites (i.e. images and interviews), this article from Shutterbug is an interesting introduction (and points out that, much to my amazement, Wilkes is shooting with a 4x5!) https://www.shutterbug.com/content/how-photographer-stephen-wilkes-compresses-time-create-startlingly-original-images. His own site, https://www.stephenwilkes.com/fine-art/day-to-night shows many of the images in the series.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, I hate those kinds of gimmicks, Peter. I find it the antitheses of real visual contemplation. Every issue of Natl Geo these days is basically gimmickified with such fare, mostly via abuse of the adolescent digital toy mentality. I can understand it as a fun diversion; but it's all so darn shallow. Reminds me of advertising photography - Gotcha imagery. Guess I should clarify that a bit. The idea of trying to put a successive frame time-lapse story into a single fixed frame is interesting, and has been done before. In this case, it's digitally doctored-up for mere surface drama. But I'm a lot more impressed at how the concept of time can be encapsulated in a fixed moment. I think of de Chirico's Pink Tower painting, with a Spanish schoolgirl pushing a hoop on an empty street. Or, musically, Christ Christoferson's "Sunday Morning Sidewalk". These leave a lingering impression based on a single moment, rather than briefly gluing your eye to a temporarily clever technical concoction. Wynn Bullock's long shoreline shots of blurred surf had nuance to them; it wasn't all on the surface like an advertisement seeking an instant payday. But if this kind of thing is what rings true for you, who am I to decide otherwise? I'm just giving my take, and why it doesn't do much for me. Too commercialized in look.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Gosh, I hate those kinds of gimmicks, Peter. I find it the antitheses of real visual contemplation.

wilkes uses a linhof. - look at his videos. this isn't gimmickery. i like his photographs. he knows how to use the digital medium. it's tough.

btw. such pictures were painted in renaissance and baroque, as theatrum mundi. studying art and it's history isn't stupid at all. even if you have an opposite opinion, apparently, as you wrote above.

[Drew Wiley]

Semantics. Maybe if you called it something other than photography, like Fauxtography or imitation painting. But a real painter can do it vastly better, as art history itself abundantly proves. Cameras have a different kind of strength. Yes, just my opinion. I happen to prefer real ice cream to imitation ice milk. Don't worry. It's a good day for me to be grumpy. I wish it would either clear up or outright rain. This flat blank slate sky overhead is my least favorite kind of light for either color or black and white photography. It should make up its mind. I'd prefer to be outside. Finished all my yard chores yesterday.

[Peter Collins]

I'm of the persuasion that it is easy to make things complicated. Sometimes, too complicated.

Using photography to effect art, and using paints and canvas, etc., to effect art (as with music, stone and hammer, wax and bronze), is a kind of language vehicle, a communication vehicle. The artist uses such vehicles because they say it the best way for him/her. So, necessarily, words aren't the best communication vehicle for this kind of artist. On the other hand, for the poet, words are indeed the best, the only.

There is a story about Beethoven and Immanuel Kant. Kant was going to give a lecture, and Beethoven's pals urged him to go. He wouldn't; he didn't. Maynard Solomon, writing about this incident, said that for Beethoven, words were clumsy, inadequate, and for him, difficult-to-use vehicles for what he was saying in his art.

So, I think photography to effect art doesn't need in outdoor locations a foundation or appreciation of ecology, geology, anthropology, etc. (As an ecologist, too, "landscape" means much more to me [scale, for instance] than it does as a modifier, e.g., "landscape photography." To me, it means the artist is working outside.)

Bruce Birnbaum noted his work was better when he had an emotional connection with the subject. Let's start there.

[Drew Wiley]

No thanks. Barnbaum could be too conspicuously theatrical for me at times, image-wise; and non-doctrinaire he certainly wasn't. But I suppose that goes with his "longhair" musical gravitation. Perhaps my dislike of opera is coming to the surface. Or maybe I just didn't appreciate him blowing his top for for simply noting AA's famous image of Mt Willamson from Manzanar wasn't, as Barbaum and many others continued to claim on local workshops. It's a mere bump on the ridge of an unnamed peak. Mt Williamson is plainly visible from there 7 miles to the north - a huge thing thousands of feet higher. Just an anecdote, and I had the advantage of being a local; but illustrative of how art historians and workshop gurus are often full of it. As for all that digitized time lapse imagery previous discussed, it's just way too Disneyland-esque for me, theme-parky. Even when I was a child I had zero interest in going to Disneyland. I was far more content with real cliffs, n caves, n forests, n critters. Still am. Why attempt to gild the lily when all you're going to do is spoil it?

[Peter Lewin]

Drew, I see the problem. I (and probably some others) actually enjoy classical music, opera, and maybe even ballet (my mother was a professional ballerina who danced all over the world). In other words, what you dislike as “long haired,” some of us gravitate towards.

I’ve met Stephen Wilkes and discussed his photography with him. He was a professional photographer who transitioned to digital as it took over the professional and commercial world. For him it was an intellectual problem: if he was going to use digital, what did it allow him to do which he couldn’t do with film? His answer was the compression of time into a single image. You may find it artificial or theatrical, but to Wilkes it was expanding an existing form to make use of new tools now available. Like all art, some will like it (I particularly like some of his images which coincide with my interests, such as the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and the Tour de France cyclists rounding the ARc de Triomphe), and some, like you will not. Goes with the territory.

I only raised his work in response to the OP, who is looking for ideas that will allow him to encompass a number of ecologically related themes or ideas into a single image. Wilkes’s work may give him ideas, or it may not.

[Drew Wiley]

I hate ballet too, Peter. Best to think of me as a barbarian. I do enjoy some classical music. But most of all I dislike anything overproduced and commoditized, like much contemporary music. I don't like commoditized photography either. Just my perspective. I don't expect everyone to be the same. But I do admire restraint, nuanced layers, things that reward intent viewing over a period of time, rather than in-your-face market imagery. Right now, it's the sheer adolescence of digital, with its myriad of gimmicky apps, that seems to spawn a tsunami of pseudo-creativity. In the past, others things had the same effect. It takes awhile for any relatively new medium to find gracefulness. My notion of the utter ruination of art lies with blatant advertising types like Warhol and Avedon. I'm more in line with the poetic mode of Kertesz, who phrased the biggest insult to Avedon's work ever, calling him "a zero, just a commercial photographer". That would have stung from someone like Kertesz. Oh well. I guess being ornery keeps us ole mountain men going longer. I just get disappointed at the superficiality of it all, especially the whoring of nature. With all the incredible real light out there, what's the need to pour sticky-sweet jelly and jam all over it, or reduce it into one cute gimmick after another? Our own eyes hold more potential than any clever app ever invented, or that ever will be invented. Having all this new technology suddenly available is just like having a race car. Fine. But you need an equal set of brakes to go with it. ... Now back to my three vicious mini mountain lions. One of them is snoring loudly at the moment.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

This flat blank slate sky overhead is my least favorite kind of light for either color or black and white photography.

Ideal conditions to use an orthochromatic black and white film. E.g. https://www.maco-photo.de/files/images/24-29RolleiOrtho25.pdf

Instead of insulting digital photographers, art historians, ballet dancers, and the rest of the world. Why do you hate them?

AA? - Life goes on. I am sure AA would have liked digital photographs (he did a lot of Polaroid), art historians (B. & N. Newhall were his friends), ballet (he played Strawinsky). Geologists?

The art of Wilkes is great. It's unfair to devaluate something, just because of a locked idea of an art that finishes itself.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, thanks for the tip. The Ortho look is easy to achieve in a sheet film like T-Max (either speed) and a deep green separation filter. But I'm not in the desert. Everything is a green as Ireland around here at the moment, and even a modest yellow-green filter would turn the hills into white paste. But I don't hate any of these people. That fact doesn't prevent me from commenting on particular genre. Do you somehow think that only career critics and historians have that right? Nonsense! If they're always so perceptive, why aren't they the ones making the paintings and photographs, and not just hobnobbing and pontificating? I've been around that set; they don't fool me. (Of course, there have always been certain individuals genuinely proficient at both roles, like Stieglitz; and I have personally known other examples.) Misrach pretty much pegged it when he called art critics "essentially parasitic". That must mean something from someone whose entire career has been dependent upon them, reciprocally. But I have no problems accepting all kinds of genre within a limited sphere of definition. Those digitized Wilkes time-lapse simulations in question are indeed entertaining and among the best examples of the plethora of that kind of work being done now. I have no objection to it as visual entertainment. But I can't realistically regard it as anything much more than that. It's cute. The National Park Service is deliberately courting that kind of visual output to attract the younger generation with their electronic devices to the Parks, so the flow of necessary interest, and tax and entry fee money will continue unabated. But in another sense, it's counterproductive, because it engenders stereotypes of what things should look like, and diverts from taking a deeper look. Why have parks and wilderness areas been set aside at all, if these are just regarded as theme parks, or if you can otherwise concoct scenic stereotypes sitting on yer butt abusing Fauxtoshop? Believe me, I don't pass judgment on anyone enjoying what they do, as long as its legal. My backpacking companions include both serious film photographers as well as amateurs using digital gear for all kinds of fun effects and trip documentation, with no pretension to art whatsoever. I never discuss that kind of thing on the trail. But just being along means they're learning how to look. I point things out - not only hidden details of flora and fauna and geology, but the infinite shading of the light. They observe my intensity and waiting, before I trip the shutter. Seeing is a process in itself. Shortcutting this is just penalizing yourself - you miss the real treasure. I don't care how many thousands of hours it took to shoot and digitally assemble a catchy jigsaw puzzle composite; it's not the same thing. Yes, commercial photographers need to make money if they're going to travel and pay their bills, etc. And, just like advertising photography, instantly snagging the eye with a clever new tweak is way to do it, though any specific such strategy gets tiresome very quickly. Fine; I understand. Just call it what it is. Or, if you can't, don't deny my right to do so. This whole thread is, after all, posted on the "On Photograhy" section, where opinions should be accepted.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

But I don't hate any of these people. That fact doesn't prevent me from commenting on particular genre. Do you somehow think that only career critics and historians have that right? Nonsense! If they're always so perceptive, why aren't they the ones making the paintings and photographs, and not just hobnobbing and pontificating? I've been around that set; they don't fool me. (Of course, there have always been certain individuals genuinely proficient at both roles, like Stieglitz; and I have personally known other examples.) Misrach pretty much pegged it when he called art critics "essentially parasitic".

Hullo Drew,

now I really wonder about it, because you can't stop insulting.

1. You really wrote that you "hate" particular genres. Apparently you spend much time with posting. But even a hardworking typist don't have the licence to affront others.

2. It's not about a personal opinion. When speaking in a pejorative way of "career critics and historians", you suppose that they're only interested in climbing the social ladder or in advancing in a position. You're inventing a bugaboo. But nobody is interested in shadow plays. - Somebody who is familiar with the analysis of art works will always be able to defend his opinion in a qualified way, without "hating". Why should he shut up when some self-proclaimed hero claims to be the cat's whiskers and emphasizes the authenticity of his process?

3. Being "perceptive" does not mean that one produces art. Being a red wine connoisseur does not mean that one produces red wine. - Artists appreciate me because they see their art through the eyes of another human being. In many cases I am even the only one who looks at their (good) work: the others, especially other artists, gorge themselves at the vernissages, talk about their yoga warm-up.

4. "I've been around that set" - I suppose that you have got some experiences. Is this the gist of the matter?

5. Stieglitz: this is history. Life goes on. We don't live in the 1950ies. We are talking about actual art and ecology, about life in the 21th century.

6. If Misrach, the other name you have thrown in, like many others, as you like it, experienced only "essentially parasitic" people, his experiences of the ecology of art would be pitiable. - But Misrach ins't a loser at all. He experienced a lot of people with university diplomas in art history, who publish his works, who helped him to publish himself. He received a lot of grants and awards. He is appreciated by many people and institutions. In fact he makes a living of this cultural activities, as well as he lives on his prints I suppose. Many artists, at least here in Europe, live on grants and scholarships, paid by public authorities, that means by me as the tax payer. You pay up to 45% tax in Europe ... As far as the artists are concerned: they don't even generate taxable incomes. Most of them exist in precarius conditions. The taxpaying art historian who nourrishes this bohemian universe: he shall be the parasitic one? - Do you see my point? It's the other way round, not at all how you want to tell it.

Regards

[Vaughn]

Richard Misrach is an excellent example for the OP to look into for the type of work he is interested in pursueing. Really...not many are finer. He's been thru the wringer a few times, but still keeps going (change in a paper's production stopped his main body of work just as he was getting them into museums, etc, and a fire that took out his studio, negs, etc).

His Desert Cantos is a classic. I watched him use an 8x10 like a 35mm camera...a good skill for chasing fires in the desert.

[Drew Wiley]

Daniel - thank you for at least articulating your position. But it is a private opinion, just like mine; and I find your response inadequate. No, you're not talking about ecology at all. Mythologized Photoshopping etc might be fine for an action flick, but has no place in alleged science, which ecology implies, whether photographically presented or not. But I don't understand the over-sensitivity. Why do you feel your toes are getting stepped on? And why should I be obligated to worship at the altar of certain practicing or pontificating peers? I can stand on my own feet. I don't need their approval one way or the other. Nor am I impressed with academic resumes. Nor do the economics don't define this topic, while common-sense business practices might. Lots of the art world, whether aspiring or academic, barely earns a living here too. People who now have a reputation often chose the long dreary path of "starving artist" beforehand. Just because someone chooses to find a more efficient means of making a living doesn't necessarily constitute them into anything less, photographically. The old school heroes like AA and Edward Weston primarily supported themselves as commercial photographers, not as artists; but at least they made the distinction as to what examples applied to personal versus client applications. New-school names, several of which live in my own general neighborhood, and who take me as an equal, did come out of academic environments, tended to either miserably grub their way up the ladder, or had a spouse supporting them. There's nothing "self-proclaimed" about me at all. I don't need that either. I'm not pretending. Sounds like you are the one dishing out the insults. And what the heck makes you think I'm any less educated? That's a pretty bold presumption in itself. I don't care. I don't have a thin skin. But I do have a point to make. I'm not claiming it's any more valid than your viewpoint, or anyone else's here. But I should have a right to articulate it, without such genre distinctions being perceived as "insults". I don't like sugar in my coffee either - should that fact condemn me as somehow being out of touch?

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, Vaughn ... his 8x10 camera technique was awful; but he was honest enough to admit it. What I didn't have patience for was the manner he angrily harangued the two lab owners who printed his work, who were both friends of mine. He eventually wore out his welcome. They went through hell to print those so-so negs. He's adapted much better to MF digital. Yes, a lot of interesting images over his career, and a few iconic ones, which I've followed from the beginning. But he was the epitome of a starving artist. A brave guy, willing to go off on tangents and work through entire bellyflop projects before finding his feet off n'on again. Began with night photography of Telegraph Ave in its sordid heyday of narcotics and homeless victimized youth. That launched his career at an NYC gallery; but not a single person other than him and his wife attended the opening. Nobdody. So he worked his way up the ladder, something I have no interest in doing. All my opportunities came comparatively easily. When my wife was attending UC and we were dating, we'd walk to Blondie's Pizza there on Telegraph, and she spotted one of her professors dumpster diving behind the shop, probably buried six miles under student loans. It was a popular dumpster with local artistes too. Not a lifestyle I envy. But yeah, I have a copy of Desert Cantos on a shelf behind me, and have seen every one of the original prints, which have all probably faded into oblivion by now. It was the Ektacolor 74 era. But we all fade too. Some of his recent work is skillful and rewarding. I didn't see the point of his, Pictures of Pictures project - that was just too academically pretentious for me. But he's one person I just don't care to personally interact with.

[Tin Can]

Read OP's opening and the first 20 odd replies, read the last few too

I think time is what some are looking for, at least I am

Last night I woke with a plan, I had almost forgotten until I read OP's post 1, five minutes ago.

Now I remember and back to my drawing board, in reality.

Nothing to add to this discussion, except 'time'...

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, time indeed. I've got a big printing project lined up, but it needs a block of time, and the usual little circumstances of life have got me stuck in the house. ...getting over a cold, vet issues with pets, filing taxes. Every half hour I see if things are ripe to sneak out with a camera again. The rainy sky cleared an hour ago and some beautiful thunderheads appeared, but within ten minutes everything went slate gray again. Hope tomorrow will work out. If not, I'll default to a raincoat with a Nikon tucked under it. Cabin fever.

[Tin Can]

Not at all what I meant.

[Drew Wiley]

Sorry, photographic rendition of a sense of time, apparently? If so, good sailing!

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Dear Drew,

I am absolutely unable to understand what you want to say.

Please excuse me, perhaps it is because I am not a native English speaker: everything you write sounds confused to me.

I think that you think that I think something about you. But I don't even know you, and I don't want to be forced to think about somebody as well as I don't want to be hated as a parasite only because of my profession.

Of course I don't know whether you are a great artist with a great education or not. I live on the other side of the world, so you are completely unknown to me (as well as many others). Living in Europe I know that many of the artists in neighbour countries are unknown to me, too.

I told the OP about some things I experienced here in Switzerland, concerning art and science. But I don't have neither the force nor the patience to follow or participe mock debates.

So please don't get discouraged and don't worry - I am leaving this "discussion" now.

Thanks, D.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes, me too. But I wonder if I've been a bit culturally insensitive and it has led to misunderstanding. I sometimes express things in a strong manner which is not intended to offend, but stimulate thought and brisk conversation; and that kind of habit can potentially get lost in translation, so to speak. Thanks for your patience, Daniel.