Perspectives on Place Chapter 1 Taming the View

Geography, Autobiography, Metaphor

Robert Adams offers these three varieties of landscape pictures, suggesting that each is strengthened by the other.

Geography is perhaps the most basic of the three - the most objective, the 'visual record. The US survey photographers of the the nineteenth century are fine examples, particularly O'Sullivan, an example of whose work is below:

Timothy O'Sullivan Black Canyon, Colorado. Accessed from http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/40210/timothy-h-o'sullivan-black-canon-colorado-river-looking-above-from-mirror-bar-american-1871/

These were pioneers of landscape photography and pioneers in the sense of bringing closer the excitement and wonder of landscapes far from most people's sphere. A modern version of the same concept is space photography, such as this image of Neptune taken from Voyager 2 in 2008:

Accessed from http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/011/cache/neptune_1114_600x450.jpg

 They seek to educate and to elicit a sense of wonder from the audience. 

Autobiography refers to the personal expression of the representation of place - what is important to us as individuals. Choose any of my albums from walking (see this section of South West Coast Path as an example) and there is a personal take to the images - not just the people but what subjects I chose to photograph and how I related to them in the narrative.

Metaphor is deciphering what is going through the photographer's mind when the image was taken. Why did he or she choose to photograph the particular subject? 

Composition

Broadly speaking, if the subject defines much of the metaphor of an image, composition adds to it; for many it is the most important point of analysis. Alexander considers: What, How and When?

Frames - I always shoot 3:2 unless using a camera phone at 16:9; basically it 'works; for landscape images the photographer nearly always wishes for some literally 'wider' view. An exception is where there is a distinct foreground element or where on wishes to centralize the view as in the image below:

SW Coast Path taken to show the route through an alley

Lenses - I use 18-85mm mainly as this provides a wide range around the 50mm 'norm'. I have a 10-24 mm lens that is used particularly when the sky is to be a main element such as image below:

Shot at 12mm I declined to 'straighten' the cross in post processing as considered the tilt attendant with using s awide angle was concordant with the wide pserspective of sky.

Alexander considers also Light and whether to use tripod or handheld. I take nearly all images for this course handheld simply because it is physically too challenging to carry a tripod on awkward terrain for any distance. If the opportunity exists to rest the camera on a wall or post I will do so. If the weather is bad, I use a camera phone in order to avoid potential water damage to an expensive SLR. The quality of post processing techniques are such that most exposure problems can be rectified after the image is taken.

In the final section - Behind the View - Alexander explores the concept of how photography can say something to the audience: connotation rather then mere denotation to use the terminology of Roland Barthes. Don McCullin has done this in combat and landscape photography, and the photobook has become popular as a method of narrative. Maria Short's Context and Narrative is instructive in this respect, albeit aimed more at people than landscape photography.