Steve McCurry is a travel photographer, not a landscape photographer. Nothing wrong with his work, but being a color photographer doesn't automatically make one a landscape photographer.
Agree with what you wrote, Robert. Since this thread seems to have digressed slightly, I thought I'd slip that in.
Have you rethought your position on the definition of "landscape photography". I just spent some time leafing through Sternfeld and Shore, and I want to lean towards these guys being included as landscape photographers. Granted, not "nature" in the usual sense, but certainly landscape. Your thoughts? And I promise I won't ask you about Meyerowitz again.
I haven't changed my mind about Shore; his work is urban photography, not landscape photography. There is nothing wrong with urban photography, but it is not landscape photography.
Landscape is a complex and contested concept. Its meaning, value and characteristics are unstable. It has been used to refer to a measurable range of material forms, to the representation of those forms in painting, texts and photos, to a way of seeing, and to the imagined and desired spaces of the mind (Rodaway 1994, p. 129). Despite some scholars suggesting that the landscape concept should be avoided due to its multiple interpretations (Hartshorne 1939) the term persists. This is perhaps because it can be employed to denote both material form and our interpretations of it. There is no simple linear history of the landscape concept and it is not solely limited
to what is seen. For example, the German term ‘Landschaft’ and its derivatives give a sense not only of territory but also of community and polity (Olwig 1996; Olwig 2002). However, a persistent feature within modern usage of the landscape concept is a connection with seeing and the sense of sight (Rodaway 1994; Olwig 2002; Cosgrove 2002; MacDonald 2003).
I like his work as well. I'm real weak on photographing people, so I look towards his working hoping to learn something.
I haven't changed my mind about Shore; his work is urban photography, not landscape photography. There is nothing wrong with urban photography, but it is not landscape photography.
Robert,
Is your image "Ala Wai Boat Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii" in your APUG Portfolio landscape photography or urban photography?
Walker
"I love landscape but I loved the land first, not just those bits that fit neatly into the camera's frame..."
What about the urban landscape or the social landscape?
LANDscape. I can't make it any plainer.
Urban and Social are bastardizations of the term landscape photography, as surely as "digital" darkroom is.
Landscape photography isn't about the location of an image, it is about the role that aesthetics plays in the image. The aesthetics comes about as a result of the feeling and understanding that the photographer has for his subject. It reminds me of the late Peter Dombrovskis whose photographs saved the Franklin River in Tasmania from being dammed, or Jack Dykinga, whose work was instrumental in the establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, as well as Sierra Alamos National Park in Mexico. Their work had impact, because they had a feeling for their subject. The one thing that is lacking from the work of people like Shore.
You might want to get a copy of Landscape Within: Insights and Inspirations for Photographers by David Ward (Author), Joe Cornish (Foreword)
It is a great book about the philosophy behind landscape photography.
As David Ward recently wrote in his blog
"I make positive images and I refuse to apologise for that. The natural world makes me feel positive and that emotion is one of the prime reasons for me making images. I am convinced that positive emotions are much more likely to effect change than negative ones. Seeing something as beautiful is much more likely to motivate somebody to fight to protect that thing than seeing something as having already been despoiled is. It's simple human nature that negative images cause negative reactions."
Absolutely, 100% agreed. See my earlier post in this thread. Singh was a master, and taken away from us too soon. I think Steve McCurry and Singh are at the very pinnacle of what they do with color.
Landscape photography isn't about the location of an image, it is about the role that aesthetics plays in the image. The aesthetics comes about as a result of the feeling and understanding that the photographer has for his subject. <snip> The one thing that is lacking from the work of people like Shore.
It is a lot like people calling photographs of flowers portraits. They are not portraits. I don't care what type of lighting was used.
When did the type of lighting dictate that an image was a portrait. And I do consider a lot of the floral images I do a form of portrait.
Be well and enjoy
Seamus
www.seamusryan.com
I don't care what type of lighting was used.
Just like a photograph of an urban cityscape is not a landscape
I think the term landscape, or portrait, is a very broad and general term that doesn't necessarily only mean pictures of beautiful, untouched land or pictures of people.
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