Contemporary Landscape photography?

Although i'm grateful for everyone's suggestions, it's not reallywhat i'm after. Have a look at Shane Lynam's work. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

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Gursky (some work) comes to mind, Robert Adams (mens impact on the landscape in BW), Walter Niedermayr (mountain landscape ), Peter Bialobrzeski (Paradise now series), Olivo Barbieri (Cityscapes), Anne Lass (at the crossroad between city and landscape), Andrew Phelps (Urban and classic landscape). All except for Robert Adams are color photographers and quiet good imho.

Dominik

For American cultural landscape see Jeff Brouws
For Uk landscape, contemporary, abstract see Chris Friel
You could also lose a bit of time at J Colberg's Conscientious which I'm sure you're aware of?

cheers, Tony

Re: earlier comments in this thread about looking at other artists' work.

My recommendation is to let other artists INSPIRE you to do great things. If their work does not inspire you, then perhaps you should continue your research, but remember anyway, because the work that doesn't set off your creative juices can teach you something too!

To draw a social parallel - how do you form opinions of things? How do you learn in school? You talk to other people, read books they wrote, or listen to them speak, and then you combine those thoughts with what's in your own experience. Sometimes other people tell you something so profound that it alters the way you think. Other times not so much, but it still helps you gain perspective into other people's lives and develop empathy.

Now apply that to photography, or any other art form - I'm sure it could only be good to look at the work of others, whether it inspires you or not. But the idea is to learn from others, learn how to see things you perhaps otherwise would have missed, and you shouldn't be worried about 'copying' because it's all filtered through your mind and your process anyway. Even if you tried to recreate the work of someone else, you could not, so relax, enjoy the view, and learn as much as you can about seeing, printing, presentation, framing, gesture, etc.

- Thomas

ajmiller said:

For American cultural landscape see Jeff Brouws
For Uk landscape, contemporary, abstract see Chris Friel
You could also lose a bit of time at J Colberg's Conscientious which I'm sure you're aware of?

cheers, Tony

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Jeff Brouws is great stuff! Thanks for him. Chris Friel i know of but i'm not altogether keen on his work. And i'd never heard of Conscientious before you said but i'll certainly have a look!

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Re: earlier comments in this thread about looking at other artists' work.

My recommendation is to let other artists INSPIRE you to do great things. If their work does not inspire you, then perhaps you should continue your research, but remember anyway, because the work that doesn't set off your creative juices can teach you something too!

To draw a social parallel - how do you form opinions of things? How do you learn in school? You talk to other people, read books they wrote, or listen to them speak, and then you combine those thoughts with what's in your own experience. Sometimes other people tell you something so profound that it alters the way you think. Other times not so much, but it still helps you gain perspective into other people's lives and develop empathy.

Now apply that to photography, or any other art form - I'm sure it could only be good to look at the work of others, whether it inspires you or not. But the idea is to learn from others, learn how to see things you perhaps otherwise would have missed, and you shouldn't be worried about 'copying' because it's all filtered through your mind and your process anyway. Even if you tried to recreate the work of someone else, you could not, so relax, enjoy the view, and learn as much as you can about seeing, printing, presentation, framing, gesture, etc.

- Thomas

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I think we'll have to disagree here. I can honestly say that when i look at photography that doesn't interest me, i take nothing from it. I have a very short attention span so something has to grab me, if it doesn't i don't bother wasting my time going back to it. Take Shane Lynam for example, he started following me on tumblr, i followed back, i looked at his site and his flickr and there hasn't been a day go by since that i haven't looked at his work. Something has to grab me like that.

As for copying other's work, i never even attempt that anymore. Shirley Baker once said that everytime she attempted to copy another photographer's style, she failed. I've been there and done that and learned my lesson long ago. I just love to sit and look at photographs that interest and inspire me.

MamiyaJen said:

I think we'll have to disagree here. I can honestly say that when i look at photography that doesn't interest me, i take nothing from it. I have a very short attention span so something has to grab me, if it doesn't i don't bother wasting my time going back to it. Take Shane Lynam for example, he started following me on tumblr, i followed back, i looked at his site and his flickr and there hasn't been a day go by since that i haven't looked at his work. Something has to grab me like that.

As for copying other's work, i never even attempt that anymore. Shirley Baker once said that everytime she attempted to copy another photographer's style, she failed. I've been there and done that and learned my lesson long ago. I just love to sit and look at photographs that interest and inspire me.

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Ehrm... I'm saying pretty much what you're saying. You say you love to look at other photographers' work that grab you. Isn't that what I recommended?

Carry on...

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Ehrm... I'm saying pretty much what you're saying. You say you love to look at other photographers' work that grab you. Isn't that what I recommended?

Carry on...

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You said i should still look at work that doesn't really interest me because i might still take something from it, and i disagreed. At least i think that's what you said...haha

MamiyaJen said:

You said i should still look at work that doesn't really interest me because i might still take something from it, and i disagreed. At least i think that's what you said...haha

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OK. I see what you mean. It's so difficult to explain written language so that it isn't misunderstood.

When you're out looking at the work of other photographers, in order to find the stuff you really like, you have to look at some that you don't like too. Everything you find in books, catalogs, galleries, museums, curatorial departments, etc can't all be just wonderful - some of it has to fall outside your realm of what you like. This begs the question: If you don't know what's bad, how do you know what's good?

So my suggestion is to use what you don't like, since you're there, running across it anyway, to define and reinforce your aesthetic for what you do like, because it helps to define you as an art observer. Since you have to glance at it to determine that you don't like it anyway.

Or do whatever you want. I'm just speaking my mind, as I'm sure you are. Like you I prefer to seek out the work of others that I really love, since that's what really inspires me. But I certainly don't like everything I come across, even from great established artists, which makes me wonder why, and asking questions is good.

I was going to recommend Burtynsky, but he's already been mentioned. So I won't mention that you should revisit Burtynsky

Actually, I think it's important to look at things that challenge you.

You might enjoy these photographers:
http://www.paulwakefield.co.uk/
http://www.charlescramer.com
http://michaeljamesbrown.com/gallery_all.html
http://www.kenduncan.com/index.php/gallery
http://www.kosoff.com/images.asp?id=1
http://jefffrancis.com/MainHomeFrameset.html
http://dannyburk.com/
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Richard Misrach?

And for something a little different -- not to everyone's taste, certainly, but I think her work is fascinating -- Beate Gutschow. Mentioning her name also has the pleasant side-effect of doubling the number of female photographers mentioned so far in this thread, I think?

Trakl said:

Richard Misrach?

And for something a little different -- not to everyone's taste, certainly, but I think her work is fascinating -- Beate Gutschow. Mentioning her name also has the pleasant side-effect of doubling the number of female photographers mentioned so far in this thread, I think?

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oooh she's new to me but thank you i am loving her work!

rpsawin said:

A few to start...

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http://www.donkirby.com/
http://www.michaelkenna.net/

This should get you going.

Best regards,

Bob

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Thanks for turning me on to Bruce Barnbaum! Absolutely outstanding portfolio. Love it.

I've just taken a look at Shane Lynams work. I like it and repect the artistic practice and approach that informs it. This work starts from a concept, is informed by a personal aesthetic and presented in an artistic folio format. It has cultural and undercurrents of socio-political themes so isn't just a nice picture of trees or a hill side. In some ways its more diffecult taking this concept approach because you have to observe and edit towards a specific objective while of course remaining somewhat openminded if some preconceived notion isn't borne out in the images.

I wish you look in the formulation of your own concepts to explore.

Too many posts to read them all, but I am about to start a new body of work in the littoral zone

Thinking about the project this morning I remembered my sole duty is to my subject as light modulator - Light modulator in the L Moholy-Nagy 1947 exercise way, just a lot bigger and disclosing the subject as simply and honestly as possible, without any clever FIG JAM bullshit added - Getting older has it good side as well

(FIG JAM = Phuq I'm good, just ask me)

I'm likely being insufferably old-fashioned to bring this up: computer monitors are quite limited in their capacity to display, to really show, the essence of a photographic print... they are certainly adequate for studying composition, but never the same as seeing it in person. If I were your tutor I would insist that you get out to galleries and study work that is hanging; it does make a difference, or should.

Prints that I have seen recently that show the vast difference between a real print and facsimiles:
a series of prints of Moonrise, Hernandez that AA printed across several decades--very different interpretations of the same negative;
A series of prints from Life magazine;
Anything by Chris Burkett -- nothing compares to a Cibachrome print (obligatory contemporary content);
Really large format prints by Richard Fenker (http://richardfenker.com/).

I have a question, after looking at some (won't say which) of the contemporary work listed above. Are you using some definition besides "currently working" for "contemporary"? As in, there is some type of scale of development of photography as art that places later artists in a more advanced state? I ask, because I see a lot of work there that is stark, and just plain ugly, in the sense that it's not pretty and has no essential statement that communicates to the average observer. To me, that is the fallacy of much of "modern art", insisting that a viewer be privy to a secret code to interpret a work that has no other aesthetic reason for existence.
A bit more than you asked for, I'm sure, but hopefully seed for thought. Art needs no further reason.

And, of course, all the contemporary photography sites listed below each message are worth looking at...

lungehphoto.com

Dr. no said:

I'm likely being insufferably old-fashioned to bring this up: computer monitors are quite limited in their capacity to display, to really show, the essence of a photographic print... they are certainly adequate for studying composition, but never the same as seeing it in person. If I were your tutor I would insist that you get out to galleries and study work that is hanging; it does make a difference, or should.

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I think this is important perhaps for the connoisseurs and general photography lovers, more than practicing photographers. Learning this visual language, absorbing plenty of books and images on screen is much more important than seeing a print in a gallery. Do you have to dine out at fine restaurants to become a great chef? A gallery also doesn't allow adequate time, space or solitude to really immerse yourself in a print. Buying an original photograph might be the better option for studying and using as a printing reference. I think galleries and exhibitions offer a certain amount of inspiration and motivation, but little in terms of really developing your art - which is about self-motivation, less indulging in the work of others.

Dr. no said:

I have a question, after looking at some (won't say which) of the contemporary work listed above. Are you using some definition besides "currently working" for "contemporary"? As in, there is some type of scale of development of photography as art that places later artists in a more advanced state? I ask, because I see a lot of work there that is stark, and just plain ugly, in the sense that it's not pretty and has no essential statement that communicates to the average observer. To me, that is the fallacy of much of "modern art", insisting that a viewer be privy to a secret code to interpret a work that has no other aesthetic reason for existence.
A bit more than you asked for, I'm sure, but hopefully seed for thought. Art needs no further reason.

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The photographer the OP linked to as an example is the type of work that, in my mind, inspires amateurs because of the apparent passiveness. Photographers are, after all, inherently lazy!
"Haven't got the strength to pick up a paint brush?"

As somebody who tends to over-analyze my image making, having been lured into the casually observed/overcast sky/colour negative aesthetic, I'm honest enough to admit that it was a cop out. I'm convinced that a lot of these photographers once had real ambition and perhaps even gave up on a pictorialist approach, in favour of the trendy and much celebrated route of pseudo-intellectual appearences. Without being too ponderous, I think the reason this aesthetic is everywhere at the moment has something to do with the ostracized individual (who are instantly labelled freaks, mass murderers and pedophiles in contemporary society). You know, the people working away in obscurity who we don't hear about until they've gone. Got a feeling we'll be seeing MANY more of them in the future.

It's a very conservative style with a high profile and affluent in-crowd. In our now habitual, networking oriented way, it's very easy to get caught up in it all - disregarding personal expression. Speaking personally. So long as we're obsessed with social acceptance in this way, art will suffer and I think it definitely is.

David Maisel has done some amazing work with aerial photography (a form of landscape in a way!) in addition to the rest of his work which is worth checking out.

If you don't mind crossing to the DPUG, the work of Isabelle Hayeur, her series Excavations in particular, is really worth checking. You can find some images online.

If you want to go really off the beaten track, look for a copy of Jeff Wall's "Landscape Manual" via your university or local library (you'll need to inter-library loan it). It's rather old (1970), but as far as radical looks at landscape go, it takes the biscuit.