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Tim Parkin
Amateur Photographer who plays with big cameras and film when in between digital photographs.
The Duchess of Cambridge, or "Creative Kate" as the Daily Mail have patronisingly called her, turns out to be a landscape photographer and has been posting her pictures on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge website. Now the pictures may not be world class quality but they're pretty good for an amateur. What is a bit rich is the comments that have come from some of the press revealing certain attitudes to landscape photography.
Harry Page, Fleet Street photographer says “It looks like the pictures have all been take in colour and then turned to black and white, meaning they lose a lot of impact.” - well duh, unless she’s using film then that’s a good guess and the idea that colour has intrinsically more impact than black and white is quite a statement - or should I say quite a WRONG statement.
The Guardian Picture Editor takes the prize for critical chutzpah though... “Using black and white is a cool thing to do; the images look a bit more serious than the average holiday snap, even if the content is no better.” well that’s opposite to what the Daily Mail says but that’s no surprise but heres the next good bit “But the thing that these pictures sorely lack are people. A landscape photograph has to be pretty exceptional (an Ansel Adams?) not to need the scale and interest a human figure gives.“ Oh dear... and finally... “the only pictures that really engage – among all those seascapes, old ruins and sunsets – are the ones with people, even if they are gurning at the camera and burnt red by too much holiday sun.” (source).
I know he’s referring to ‘holiday photographs’ and that your average tourist landscape doesn’t have much merit but what if Kate intended to create something a little more interesting than that? And the idea that every landscape apart from those exceptional Ansel’esque ones will benefit from a person “to give scale” is laughable - Perhaps we should create some more interesting artworks by including the human in form in some classic landscape art.. perhaps this?
Original work copyright Andreas Gursky altered and posted under "fair use"