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Madeleine Lenagh

Madeleine grew up in the 1950’s on the north-eastern coast of the United States. She was given her first camera when she was 18. But it wasn’t until after her retirement in The Netherlands that she plunged into her photography wholeheartedly.

Her approach to landscape photography is expressive and often abstract. She lets her moods and the conditions she encounters dictate her images. As a nature lover, she’s committed to treating nature with respect and is ambassador for Nature First, the Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography.

lenagh.nl

Charlotte Parkin

Head of Marketing & Sub Editor for On Landscape. Dabble in digital photography, open water swimmer, cooking buff & yogi.

We published Madeleine’s article on The Biesbosch Wetlands back in 2020. The project took her almost three years to complete. The aim was to portray a hidden world that most visitors miss, but that forms the soul of the wetlands national park known as The Biesbosch. Madeleine’s latest project, Perpetual Motion, The Changing Faces, pays homage to the Dutch Sea coast, capturing the intricate interplay of wind, water, sand, waves, and tides. Her work reveals an ever-changing, awe-inspiring landscape shaped by the forces of nature.

Could you tell us how you started developing a passion for photography?

I grew up as a quiet, shy child, spending most of my time alone, roaming the woods behind our Connecticut home or with my nose buried in a book. We were encouraged to pay attention to birds, plants, geology, and all the other things that make our natural world so beautiful and interesting. So, even though my childhood wasn’t a particularly happy one, I found fascination and a sense of belonging in nature.

I wanted to emulate my artistic mother and grandmother, but everyone told me that, being left-handed, I couldn’t draw. My mother and uncle were both avid photographers, taking after their father, who had been a member of the New York Camera Club in the 1920’s. When I was 18, my uncle gave me a camera (a Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex). This finally gave me the means to explore visual expression.

Could you tell us what your early passions were, what you studied, and the career path you ultimately pursued?

At this point, we were in the middle of the 1960s, and my first urge was to document the social turbulence around me with my camera. I went to a liberal arts college known for its radicalism. However, I was too restless and unsure of myself to settle into a particular field of study. In my second year, I dropped out and convinced my parents to give me a trip to Europe for my 21st birthday. During my travels, I found an au pair position here in the Netherlands and ended up staying here. I settled down in Haarlem, married a photographer, and had two children. I was awed by my husband’s work and by the successful photographers in our circle of acquaintances, so I put my camera aside. Instead, I became involved in urban renewal, citizen participation, and local politics. (My marriage did impress upon me the fact that photography is a poor way to earn a living!)

After we divorced in the early 80s, I started using my camera again, but only as a hobby. I went back to school, first for a bachelor’s degree in community work, later for a master’s degree in public administrative law, and went to work for a town government. Eventually, I became senior project manager for the City of Utrecht and spent 17 exciting years running various urban renewal and development projects.

During the last five or so years of this work, I also coached fellow project managers. I enjoyed the coaching and went back to school to earn another degree, this time in coaching and counselling.

What inspired you to write your autobiography “Passage of the Stork – Delivering the Soul”

During my counsellor’s training, we did an exercise in writing a two-page autobiography. I was amazed at the degree of insight this gave me into my turbulent and sometimes traumatic childhood and subsequent development. I wanted to use my story to inspire readers to examine and understand their own stories. A small publishing company specializing in expat autobiographies was interested. I’ve always loved to write, and I enjoyed working on the book.

At what point did photography become more than a hobby? Did anything in particular prompt this?

In 2010, I set up a private counselling practice and took early retirement two years later to pursue this full-time.

But I soon became aware that I didn’t have time for clients! All I wanted to do was go out with my camera. It was as if the barriers that had held back my urge to express myself through images were finally crumbling. In 2016, I closed my practice and started devoting all my time to photography and other visual arts.

Who or what has been the biggest source of inspiration in your growth as a photographer—whether photographers, artists, or individuals? Are there any books or articles that sparked a deeper interest in photography?

My passion for nature and my passion for photography had finally found each other, and my photography was about the wonder that I felt when I was out in nature. But I was pretty caught up in the desire to make images that would meet with approval. ‘Am I good enough?’ was the foremost question in my mind. It wasn’t until I started working with Theo Bosboom as a mentor that I developed enough self-confidence to understand and follow my own instincts. Expressing the feelings that a scene in nature evokes in me instead of simply registering what I see. Now, when I go out with my camera, I make images that speak to me, and I don’t worry about who else might like them.

This was also stimulated by the fact that I’d started to paint. My paintings were very abstract, and that encouraged me to look for that abstract quality in my photographs. Artists like Mark Rothko and Georgia O’Keefe were (and are) a great source of inspiration for me.

Could you share the story behind how this project, "Perpetual Motion", came to be?

I’ve always loved the sea, and it has played an important role in my life. Three years ago, I moved back to the Haarlem area and now live very close to the shore. So, I started going down to the beach at all hours to take photos. As I mentioned in an earlier article (The Biesbosch Wetlands), I enjoy working on projects.

Working on a recurring theme helps me to dig deeper and uncover what the landscape means to me. In this case, I became inspired by the many swiftly changing moods of the sea. I could identify with this, as it reflects my own changeable moods.

I decided to keep the focus of the project on the Dutch coast, which is seemingly uneventful but shows its changing faces in the movement of water, sand, and sky.

At a certain point, I had collected quite a few seascape images. When Theo Bosboom saw them, he suggested that I make a book. At first, I wasn’t too keen on the idea. Putting together a book sounded wonderful; financing it and marketing it was another matter entirely. But I do want to share my work in another form than just as digital media. I decided that if I was going to publish a book, I was going to go all the way and make a beautiful one.

How did the creative process of producing Perpetual Motion compare to your first book? Obviously your first book was narrative driven, but were there any similarities in the overall creative process?

That is an interesting question, and I have never thought about it this way before. There actually are parallels. My first book emerged as a collection of vignettes that I ended up organizing into a narrative, selecting some and discarding some until I had a storyline that worked. This is very similar to the process of making a photobook. Another similarity is that my first book is very impressionistic and uses a lot of metaphors, often derived from mythology (I’m a great fan of Joseph Campbell’s work). My photography is never obviously metaphorical, but there are underlying layers of emotion and meaning in my images, and certainly those in this book.

Valda Bailey wrote the foreword for your book. How did that collaboration come to happen?

Valda is an abstract expressionist photographer whose work I greatly admire. I joined the Bailey-Chinnery forum, Abstract Rhythm & Blue Notes, about two years ago, and it’s been a wonderful source of inspiration and creativity, merging photography with other visual arts and learning from various modern art movements. I was very happy when Valda agreed to write the foreword!

How did you approach the development of this project and the book? Did you conduct much research beforehand, or did your time in the field shape the direction?

The book developed pretty organically, taking its shape from the collection of images I was building. It gained focus once I’d decided to limit the scope to the Dutch coast and the theme of changing moods.

Were there many key photographs that you knew would succeed when you took them? Conversely, did some of your pre-planned images fail in execution?

I hardly ever pre-plan images; I just go with what the landscape offers me. Some of my favourite images emerged during a ‘wow-moment’ in the field when I was so charged with excitement about what I was witnessing that I knew everything would fall into place.

At the other extreme, there was a popular location (Palendorp Petten) that I visited twice but was unable to find enough inspiration to make images worth including. Forcing myself to make something doesn’t work for me.

The book is ordered into sections, with poems at the beginning. What were your initial thoughts about including poetry and please tell us more about the significance of the ordering and quotes.

Valda writes, “This book not only highlights the physical beauty of the Dutch coast, but Madeleine’s words also give us an occasional subtle hint into exactly what this stretch of coastline means to her.” Could you tell us more about the poems in the book and how you paired them with the photographs?

One of the questions I needed to answer when I decided to make the book was, do I add text and, if so, what? I decided that the images needed some kind of textual accompaniment, but they needed to be minimal and only add what was not obvious from the images themselves. There aren’t really distinct chapters, just shifts in mood that form the storytelling aspect. Later, I wrote bits of text (in a lyrical style) to accompany those shifts.

Sequencing plays a crucial role in storytelling. How did you approach organising the flow of images and creating a cohesive visual narrative when you were working on the book? Did you manage the project yourself or did you work with an editor?

The image selection and sequencing was/is one of the most challenging aspects of making a photobook! I didn’t try to do this alone, and I wouldn’t advise anyone to do so. Theo played a prominent role in this stage. We would toss the work back and forth: he’d set up a set of images, I would then make one with my ideas, then it was his turn again, etc.

Gradually, the narrative started resembling a symphony (with the crescendo in the third quarter of the book), and the images fell into place naturally. We also had discussions about what types of images were still missing and whether or not to include images of birds, humans, and anything else that might distract from the main theme of the book.

How did you decide on the format of the book e.g. size and paper, print type?

I designed the book myself, teaching myself to use desktop publishing software. My first decision was a very practical one. I wanted a book that would fit through most people’s mail-slots to keep the shipping costs down! I also wanted something that would sit properly on a bookshelf, which meant avoiding a landscape orientation. After understanding how the pages were put together in bundles of eight, I fixed the number of pages to 112.

I wanted a clear, legible font that would be restful to the eyes, and I didn’t want the text to compete with the images for attention. I also chose a subdued presentation of the images, using only two different aspect ratios.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to make a high-quality publication, a book that would be a joy to leaf through. Theo took me to meet his printer in Enschede, and we discussed things like paper, covers, and print processes. That meeting left me inspired and excited. This was the book I wanted to make!

Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the book are and a little bit about them.

Blue Wave

Blue Wave is one of the first images that convinced me that the project had potential. I took it on a drizzly pre-dawn morning at nearby Zandvoort, using 600mm to shoot deep into the waves.

Spindrift

Spindrift was one of the final images I took for the book. I had gone down to the southernmost part of Zeeland for details like wooden pilings. I certainly did not need more wave photos! But the conditions, bright sun and a gale-force wind, were irresistible. I can still feel the adrenaline of that moment.

Passage

Passage was taken on a very foggy morning during low tide. To me it has a mythical quality. And what I really like about it is that it’s a quiet image that many people would simply ignore on social media, but it gets the attention it deserves in the book.

Although the equipment choice is secondary to your own processes, it inevitably affects the way we work to some extent. What equipment did you use for this project, and why did you choose it?

I took all these photos with my Sony Alpha 7RIII. I always go out with a single body and lens, usually a 70-200mm f/2.8. I chose a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens if I wanted a close focus (sand textures, for instance). Sometimes, I would take my 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 lens to help me focus deep into the waves. I have a small pouch of circular ND filters that I usually carry in my pocket. I don’t always carry a tripod, but sometimes I would take one along. Some of the ICM images came about because I had gone out before dawn and had forgotten to bring the tripod!

Were there aspects of making the book that appealed to you less than others?

A lot of things need doing when you’re self-publishing a book that has nothing to do with the creative process. I had to set up a registered business and build a webshop. There’s a lot of bureaucracy involved in both running a business and dealing with the national distribution system for bookstores. I had to start promotional activities. Marketing the book meant calling attention not only to the book but to myself, which makes me very uncomfortable.

I think these activities are often stumbling blocks for creative photographers. And I would like to encourage them to take that side of self-publishing in their stride. It’s worth it in the end to hold that beautiful book in your hands, that you have so lovingly and carefully built, and to share it with readers.

What is next for you? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?

This is an interesting question because I’m not entirely sure. Through my work with Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery, I’ve grown bolder about using multiple exposure and compositing to produce more abstract, less ‘photographic’ images.

I suspect that this is a transitional stage, fuelling my love of abstraction and bringing my other visual art practices and my photography closer together. I still view myself as a landscape photographer (albeit an abstract one) at the core.

I would like to interest one or more art galleries for my work. I recently took part in a group exhibition of not only photographs but paintings and sculptures. My images did very well and everyone there agreed that my work belongs in a setting like that.

As far as new subject matter goes, I’ve grown intrigued by the shallow lakes filled with marram grass in the dunes behind the beach, which offer many possibilities for visual adventures.

Were there specific scenes or images you aimed to capture to convey a particular message?

The book does carry a message which is summed up in this bit of text on page 48:

Sometimes I wonder
Why I would travel to far-off places
When everything I need is here
In this ever-changing landscape.

Many people and especially photographers, make bucket lists and try to visit all the locations they’ve seen photos of, thinking, ‘I want that too!’ My plea is to stop and pay attention to what’s around you. If you look carefully, there is so much beauty to be found in very ordinary things.

Lastly, I’d like to offer you a soapbox for something related to the natural world or the benefits of photography, or just living a good life... What would you like to say to readers or encourage them to do?

I can’t stress enough that photographing familiar scenes close to home enriches your art, encourages a mindful way of living, increases awareness of the need to preserve and protect these landscapes, and is better for the environment than traveling to one exotic destination after the other.

And, as an ambassador for Nature First, I’m very aware of the way crowds of photographers and tourists in general have ruined once beautiful and pristine landscapes. If we truly love nature and landscape, we should do everything we can to not only keep our imprint on the landscape to a minimum, but also raise awareness in others to do the same.

My self-confidence received a great boost when the IPA International Photography Awards, awarded the book Honourable Mention in the Fine Art Books category and selected it for the Jury Top 5. My conviction that I’ve made something special was reinforced by these awards. As I mentioned earlier, I find it difficult to engage in a lot of self-promotion, and I’m extremely grateful for opportunities like this to reach out to potential buyers. If the images and the concept speak to you, dear reader, please buy my book!

Perpetual Motion is available through my website at www.lenagh.nl/books and bookstores in the Netherlands.