Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity by Liz Wells: Chapter 2 A North American Place: Land and Settlement

In the first of two chapters on North America, Wells uides us thorugh the work of several photographers: Pfahl and Brennan notably.

The chapter focuses on the ealry settlement phase, loosely the picturesque Eastern US as opposed to the harsher sublime West, discussed in next chapter.

Wells highlights the work of Pfahl, in particular his contrasting images of waterfalls, from natural geomorphological entities to artificial urbanised versions, a tension, Wells observes, between the 'natural waterfalls and their colonisation for industrial uses'. He has a rather idealistic view of photography and place:

"Some people think that the camera steals their soul. Places, I am convinced, are affected in the opposite way. The more they are photographed (or drawn and painted) the more soul they seem to accumulate." (Pfahl, 1997)

Wells agrees that the fact that certain places are photographed repeatedly supports this, using Niagara as an example. A counter argument to this is that Niagara is unique - the sheer breathtaking size of it attracts people; one questions whether this is 'soul', more the herd effect: people have been there so more people go because others have been there.

Pfahl is criticised for not reinforcing the dissonance between romantic pastoralism and potentially dangerous industrial power plants:

"Edifices, which may in themselves be formally striking, are photographed in order to draw attention to their presence, but composition enhances a sense of form and beauty which, arguably, distracts from the implications of the site or buildings in terms of purpose and use." (loc 1293)

But Pfahl may simply be trying to selling his work, for which Wells has sympathy: artists need to sell to obtain recognition and finance new projects.

 Settlement

• Historical context - English, Protestant, facing eastwards to wards Europe; 
• Manifest Destiny - expansion of 19th century America was justified and inevitable, technology was the answer, exemplified by descriptions of railroads (loc 1400);
• Religiosity underpinned the tension between the land as a source of raw material on the one hand, and as nature's garden on the other: 

"American arcadia was not a utopian pastoral community living within and preserving a natural environment; rather it was a facet of Manifest Destiny and a natural environment out of which a living could be wrought." 

Mapping Settlement

"Borders – for instance, between ‘South’ or ‘West’ and the rest of the USA – are historical constructs; they are imaginary as much as they are physical." (loc 1583)

"A map is a composite of places, and like a place, it hides as much as it reveals. It is also a composite of times, blandly laying out on a single surface the results of billions of years of activity by nature and humanity." (Lippard ,1997) (loc 1625)

• memory maps inscribe personal use and experience of place;
• mapping involves measurement and exploration;
• memory maps will be gender oriented (men hunting and fishing, women closer to home); 

References:

Lippard, Lucy (1997) The Lure of the Local. New York New Press.

Pfahl, John (1997) Permutations of the Picturesque. Syracuse. Photography Gallery