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

[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+...ages&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-mi...-conversation/