[One may] discover how new and beautiful the familiar can be if we actually see it as though we had never seen it before. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

The local is the only universal, upon that all art is built. ~ John Dewy

In Part One, I offered a roadmap of sorts that I suggest could lead anyone to artistic discovery in expressive image making and creative engagement generally. Here, I explore my journey along that map through my relationship built over years of engagement with a nearby wildlife refuge.

Engagement with Place and Place

Joe Cornish in his masterful Scotland’s Mountains, A Landscape Photographer’s View, described his engagement with Scotland’s “heart and soul . . . its mountainous landscape.” In his introductory essay, Cornish explains that, with respect to his image making, “My goal has been a feeling for place, for mood, depth, intimacy, grandeur, beauty.”

His approach to achieving this goal included an examination of his relationships with those places, professing that “I have tried to learn from the mountains, to make pictures that reflect, even in some small degree, their heart and soul (or perhaps more truthfully, mine).”It was through this exploration of and communion with “a landscape both complex and beautiful,” that Cornish explored the edges of his own image making form. He confessed that his exploration of the “wildest edge of edges” had an impact on him and his image making, admitting that “On the way, I have discovered a new level of patience, application and acceptance to fulfill my ideas of what makes a picture,” substantiating with these words and his magnificent images Galen Rowell’s conclusion that “The most interesting parts of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.” Or known meets unknown.

One foundational aspect of form in expressive landscape image making must be place. Place is typically integral to most of the outcomes we landscape photographers seek. Even for intimate landscape images, Place has its place. Ultimately, we strive to present to the viewer our interpretation of, engagement with and emotional responses to the places we go, whether or not we reveal or make recognisable those places in our images. We do this, in part, in order to arouse in the viewer an engagement with and an emotional response to an image—their own interpretation of our experience in that place.

We do this, at a basic level, to transform an image from a deliberate documentary representation of a place into a presentation of our intention to create something more, that is, to make art. Critical to best achieving the presentation of our interpretations to a viewer, image makers must, at a fundamental level, unreservedly engage with the places in which we work. In order to foster and grow our relationships with the places we go, that engagement must go beyond that afforded merely through the intermediaries of camera and lens. As Cedric Wright put it, “to try to cover the relationship of photography to our serious reactions to nature” remains “the most important considerations” when image making. As a result, our relationships with Place and the places we go warrant diligent and continual examination.

Place is a cornerstone of the form that circumscribes, fundamentally, all outdoor expressive image making. Though exceptions abound, as a documentary instrument, the camera must adhere to a certain, if not nearly comprehensive, fealty to the “reality” of what is encountered on the other side of the lens. Of course, that fealty is fundamentally informed by “how film sees the world” so to speak—a foundational aspect of form. However, because of that fealty, we are bound to a considerable degree within the “reality,” that is, the form, of the places we encounter when image making. From the scenery to weather and atmosphere, to the topography and accessibility, to seasonal changes of rebirth in spring, summer’s boom, the decay of autumn and winter’s icy deprivation, these aspects of place literally frame our efforts.

For those of us who, over time, visit and revisit the same places again and again, we do so in lockstep with the incessant march of entropy, where blemishes of time appear and leave scars that add or take away from the character of the face of the land. Even after we leave with our data, analog or digital, we are bound by the place from which it came as we move to the next phases of attaining the outcomes we desire as image makers. While processing an image one may be able to remove or even add features and qualities lacking in the field, we certainly are not afforded the latitude of J.M.W. Turner or Richard Wilson or Thomas Cole—or any other landscape painter—and must adhere to a relatively great degree to what was or was not present in the field. Exceptions abound to this statement and the degree of allegiance to the “reality” of any given place any image maker carries through to the final image, print or digital, is a wholly personal aspect of form.

Nevertheless, Place is more than the physical space—the landscape—from which we build images. Place encompasses all that is beyond the lens at any given time—including the image maker—and includes one’s relationship and engagement with those places, beyond that of mere image making. It involves not only those things listed above that you can see, but the history of the place, the uses put to it, if any, and any threat or benefit those uses pose to a place.

Place for the expressive outdoor image maker includes the smells and sounds encountered and the feelings evoked in that environment at any given moment. It also includes the image makers engagement with the creative process when in a given place. It even includes and is shaped by our hopes and the purposes we bring to a given place, the expectations laden in those purposes and the outcomes we desire from engagement with the creative process while in that place at that time.

Creative engagement with a place encompasses one’s ability and desire to leave or bring with them into the frame, into the image, their expectations, thoughts, emotions, sentiments and history—photographic and otherwise—with that place. In expressive image making, the importance of the attributes of any given place to the process and the outcome achieved are, to a relatively great degree, up to the image maker and the circumstances they face when setting out to make images. All these and more encompass the essence of Place in expressive image making. This process, this engagement with Place is part and parcel of the form that must be examined, made familiar to the point of intimacy, and that we must strive to master in order to push our photography to the realm of magic beyond the “wildest edge of edges.” But how? The inimitable nature writer Barry Lopez, in his short essay A Literature of Place, provides a wealth of insight into fruitful engagement with Place and the places we go.

Lopez was “a lyrical writer who steeped himself in Arctic wildernesses, the habitats of wolves and exotic landscapes around the world for award-winning books that explored the kinship of nature and human culture.” Author of the acclaimed Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, Lopez, in A Literature of Place, submits that,

If you're intimate with a place, a place with whose history you're familiar, and you establish an ethical conversation with it, the implication that follows is this: the place knows you're there. It feels you. You will not be forgotten, cut off, abandoned. . . . How can a person obtain this? How can you occupy a place and also have it occupy you? How can you find such a reciprocity? The key, I think, is to become vulnerable to a place. If you open yourself up, you can build intimacy. Out of such intimacy may come a sense of belonging, a sense of not being isolated in the universe.

Significantly, with respect to my efforts concerning engagement with Place and the places where I make images, Lopez adds that,

A succinct way to describe the frame of mind one should bring to a landscape is to say it rests on the distinction between imposing and proposing one's views. With a sincere proposal you hope to achieve an intimate, reciprocal relationship that will feed you in some way. To impose your views from the start is to truncate such a possibility, to preclude understanding.

This is a frame of mind I try to bring into my relationships with and my work in all places I visit including Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area, where the images included here and with Part One were made. Poland Brook is an area I have visited scores of times since I first went there in the summer of 2020, only a fraction of which outings resulted in any effort at image making. For me, it has been the feelings and emotions evoked when in places with which I have forged such relationships that I have been drawn to most of my life. When in them, including Poland Brook, I pursue the vulnerability Lopez speaks of so as to build an intimacy and form a reciprocity that can only serve to enhance my experience and find “a sense of belonging, a sense of not being isolated in the universe.”

Beginnings

It is Lopez’ belief that “a human imagination is shaped by the architecture it encounters at an early age.” He notes that “The visual landscape, of course, or the depth, elevation, and hues of a [land]scape play a part here, as does the way sunlight everywhere etches lines to accentuate forms.” For Lopez, the visual landscape’s role is not singular in the development of one’s imagination from an early age. “The way we imagine is also affected by streams of scent flowing faint or sharp in the larger ocean of air; by what the North American composer John Luther Adams calls the sonic landscape; and, say, by an awareness of how temperature and humidity rise and fall in a place over a year.” If we credit Lopez, my imagination was molded by the fact that early in my life, before, at the age of 9, a family move entombed me in the confines of an urban landscape, I encountered the rural settings in which my family lived both in upstate New York and later in the northeast corner of Massachusetts wedged between the New Hampshire border and the Merrimack River.

From my earliest memories, we lived in a farmhouse on a nonoperational farm in the rolling countryside of Stillwater, New York. On three sides of the house were unmanaged fields overrun with thickets of bramble amid overgrown grasses, weeds and wildflowers. The fields were peppered with dilapidated outbuildings, a mouldering bulldozer and a very old car somehow embedded, upside down, in a small, dirt cliffside. Beyond, the farm was bounded to the west and north by acres of forest through which a fire road edged with blackberry bushes led to Plum Creek.

To the south, an unruly meadow lay, submitting only to our rowdy play and to the yearly visits from the hay tedder and baler—the bales scattered like throw pillows across the field, the only produce the farm yielded. Below the meadow, cutting into the hillside was a gravel pit, strictly off limits to me and my brothers—a rule we broke, jumping from the grassy edge to slither down the soft sandy expanse exposed by excavation. During the summer, in an undulating field across the street stood an army of cow corn, arrayed in a formation as organised as any battalion, frozen in a march that would cease only with autumn’s scything.

My earliest memories come from this place, the “architecture” that I encountered during the reverie in my wandering and play with my brothers in the expanse of the terrain surrounding our home, shaped the imagination that shapes my image making today. Hour upon hour we roamed, and we rambled, wholly unsupervised living in the only house for miles on a street with few passersby. Summer play, bounded only by our imaginations—and the road running by our house—was embroidered with the sonic landscape of birdsong. The rhythmic “cheery, cheery, cheery, cheery, cheer, cheer” vocals of the American Robin, ever accompanied by the chirpy, “see bee, see bee” backing of the Black-capped Chickadee and the melancholy croon of the Mourning Dove’s “hooOOA, hoo, hoo, hoo.” And from the balcony of the upper branches of the Sugar Maples sentineled before our home, the heckling of the Crow’s “caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” rounded out the soundtrack to our juvenile melodrama.

Scents varied from season to season and place to place in the acreage we wandered, our sensory experiences defined by where we went, when we went and what we did in the land. Loam and an earthy, damp heaviness scented the air in spring from soil upturned for the corn’s impending procession, an aroma that returned more pungent with fall’s decay. The appearance of sweet grassy aromas in the spring and summer morphed into a sharpish, woody tang wafting in the air after the fall reaping of the little bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass in the meadow to the south of our house. Summer brought fragrances of golden rod, common milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace, whose subtle aromas demanded from me the same intimacy of a flitting Monarch butterfly in order to appreciate their elusive scents: licorice, a delicate vanilla and a fresh carroty smell, respectively.

After a summer rain, a concoction of moist freshness spiked with the electric tang of ozone permeated the air, greeting us as we bolted from the confines of the house. Winter’s knife-sharp cold scraped our nostrils with an astringent paucity of odor that amounted to an aroma as distinct as any, escaping our faces in an atmospheric vapor.

When we roamed the edge of the yard to the north in summer, we were greeted with wild rhubarb’s “tart, zingy and sharp, at the same time refreshing, sweet, fruity and green” scent, bringing teacups of sugar to dip our freshly plucked stalks, cutting its overbearing tang. When we surreptitiously explored the upturned sedan, embedded, inverted in a small dirt cliffside, we were assaulted by decay’s overripe perfume—clammy, loamy and cloying in the summer; shrill, strident and claylike in the winter.

Undoubtedly my imagination was shaped by these surroundings, by the “architecture” I encountered outside my door. But it was one incident in particular that took place mere steps from that door that has left an indelible mark on me, becoming a runestone stood in my imagination to this day, inscribed with the otherworldly wonder, magic and majesty that one may encounter in even the most familiar and ordinary of places. It was Easter Sunday. I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. We boys glumly readied for church, the delight of leaving church with a memento of a woven palm cross the week before a distant memory, the doldrums of a lengthy sermon in the offing. As we boys dribbed and drabbed out of the house and onto the porch, waiting for our adult subjugators, a cool springtime air, fragrant with the season, and laced with a foggy mist, blanketing the countryside, rendering much of it hidden.

As we stood on the porch, shuffling our feet and fidgeting with tight collars and clip on ties, we heard a distant, rhythmic rumble, soothing in its cadence as it neared, its source concealed in the haze. The rumble became ever louder hinting at menace and intrigue to my young mind. I walked down the porch steps, stood in the gravel driveway, and stared into the blank face of fog as the rumble neared. Like lightening incongruously following thunder, the approaching roar entered my body through the soles of my feet, surged upward, through my tremulous legs and set up shop in my stomach, fluttering the wings of butterflies uncocooned. Mere feet from where I stood, the mist was split by the regal muzzle of an unbridled horse, its wild main flailing over a brindled, bobbing neck. Like chiseled marble in motion, its muscled haunches clenched a tail that thrashed in front of an ensemble of cohorts—a conductor’s baton leading an orchestra of chaos. Frozen in place, rooted as a runestone by a grave, the string of horses, too numerous for my young mind to comprehend, split and flowed around me like rapids around a stone, all force and brawn in roaring, cacophonous movement, regimented yet frenzied, sublime and unconstrained by even the hint of domesticity, disappearing into the fog once again.

Even though I cannot doubt now that those horses, surely fewer than I believed then, were steeds of a local farmer escaped from a nearby stable, the legend of the wild horse stampede engulfing me on a foggy Easter morning remains as a reminder to expect the unexpected even in your own yard.

A reminder to remain open to what is offered in the rumble of the unseen that approaches in the fog in which we wrap ourselves in the guise of those preconceived notions and expectations we carry with us everywhere we go. I try very hard to carry that experience with me whenever I engage with Place, for whatever purpose, endeavoring to remain open, to propose rather than impose in a search for Lopez’ reciprocity. For I, like Lopez, “long to become the companion of a place, not its authority, not its owner” most especially when engaged creatively with any given place, including Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area.

Gaining Intimacy

Lopez’ offers practical advice as to how to go about fashioning a meaningful experience in and forging a reciprocal relationship with any place. It is advice that I and, I am sure, many have followed to a degree innately while engaging with the places in which we make images. It is advice that should form the bedrock of any excursion into any “geography” whether local or far flung, near field or far field.

How does one actually enter a local geography? . . . To respond explicitly and practicably, my first suggestion would be to be silent. Put aside the bird book, the analytic state of mind, any compulsion to identify, and sit still. Concentrate instead on feeling a place, on deliberately using the sense of proprioception. Where in this volume of space are you situated? The space behind you is as important as what you see before you. What lies beneath you is as relevant as what stands on the far horizon. Actively use your ears to imagine the acoustical hemisphere you occupy. How does birdsong ramify here? Through what kind of air is it moving? Concentrate on smells in the belief you can smell water and stone. Use your hands to get the heft and texture of a place—the tensile strength in a willow branch, the moisture in a pinch of soil, the different nap of leaves. Open a vertical line to the place by joining the color and form of the sky to what you see out across the ground. Look away from what you want to scrutinize in order to gain a sense of its scale and proportion. Be wary of any obvious explanation for the existence of color, a movement. Cultivate a sense of complexity, the sense that another landscape exists beyond the one you can subject to analysis.

Lopez concludes that “The purpose of such attentiveness is to gain intimacy, to rid yourself of assumption.” His summation that “it should be like a conversation with someone you're attracted to, a person you don't want to send away by having made too much of yourself,” resonates whenever I am in Poland Brook and other such places. My time in the local geography proves to me that “such conversations take place simultaneously on several levels.” I too have found that such conversations “may easily be driven by more than simple curiosity,” and that the forces that drive me to such engagement are much deeper, sustaining and compelling than mere inquisitiveness. And while I share the “compelling desire, as in human conversation . . . to institute a sustaining or informing relationship” with any given place, I seek also to feed my imagination so as to make something from the intimacy gained. [widepullquote]For, like Lopez, the relationships I have forged with the places in which I make images have established in me an unshakable faith that “the power of the human imagination to extrapolate from an odd handful of things—faint movement in a copse of trees, a wingbeat, the damp cold of field stones at night—the human ability to make from all this a pattern, to compose a story out of it fixes in me a sense of hope.”/widepullquote]For, like Lopez, the relationships I have forged with the places in which I make images have established in me an unshakable faith that “the power of the human imagination to extrapolate from an odd handful of things—faint movement in a copse of trees, a wingbeat, the damp cold of field stones at night—the human ability to make from all this a pattern, to compose a story out of it fixes in me a sense of hope.”

Here is where I could tell you about the ethereal echo of the rumble of those stampeding hoof beats that remains with me to this day. An echo that surges up from the soles of my feet, through my legs, across my midriff, lodging a lump in my throat when I am nowadays stood waist high in golden rod, the sun only a hint above the ridge, awaiting the intimate subtle stampede of murmurs and whispers of the sustaining and sustained conversation with Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area to manifest through the fog I carry within. But alas, the magic of such conversations with good friends, the power that resonates within from having had them, diminishes or disappears altogether in the strict retelling. And worse, like gossip, can leave the relationship unsteady, threatening to send Poland Brook away from me by having made too much of myself in the retelling. Some conversations are just private. But the outcomes, the benefits of having those conversations, the benevolence taking root, that I am made better by having such conversations, and the stories that I have made from them in my images must be shared. “We keep each other alive with our stories,” Lopez tells us. “We need to share them, as much as we need to share food.”

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Mornings spent wandering amongst the trees with a camera in hand, before the world has woken, offer something of a spiritual cleansing. They are enough to make one forget about the madness of this existence and return ‘home’ to the soul of Nature. They offer, for a short while at least, an escape from the world of ego, and bring forth forgotten feelings of belonging, and a deep, universal oneness, restoring internal balance and harmony.

A fruitful morning of photography presses a reset button inside and allows us to see through the thick smog once again into the clear, icy blue of the vast, expansive ocean. It is enough to make us forget about all the trials and tribulations that we have faced in our day to day lives. Any emotional and psychological pain that we would have inevitably, either consciously or unconsciously, accumulated since the last outing is transmuted into the purest of beauty and given new meaning and purpose. In the precious moments during which our shutters are opened to the pureness of the mornings’ light, we are liberated from the stresses and struggles of life at last, and we add more colour to our soul.

Crossing the Threshold from the Known into the Unknown

Nature photography, as with any other creative and artistic pursuit, can help us transcend beyond ourselves and our limited, thinking minds. The camera is a vehicle that carries us beyond the physical plane; the known world, and into the world of spirit; an unknown world reliant on feeling, intuition and an understanding of energy through which to navigate. It is a world of pure consciousness in which there are no limitations, barriers, or identities. When we stand upon the crest of a mountain at sunrise and look out over the vast, expansive wilderness, we get the sense of a connection with something much greater than ourselves. During this escape from our small, limited, rational minds, we are left to ponder the age-old question, ‘can this really be all that there is?’

A morning amongst the trees, enveloped in the safe embrace of the mist is enough to bring us back home to the core of our existence. We become the witnesses of divinity and observe the process of eternal creation that is at work before our very eyes. We come back home to the feelings of limitlessness and oneness that make this often complex and nonsensical existence so worthwhile and meaningful. In this place of oneness, we come to terms with and make sense of our place here on this swirling rock. It is here, in our ultimate state of spirit, that we are unbound to the minds and bodies that contain us.

As the golden light of morning penetrates the veil of fog and pierces through our lenses, all our photographic senses are heightened, and there is nowhere else that we can be but right here in the ‘now’.

In moments like this, we escape the dreaded world of thought and lay on the brakes that temporarily prevent our descent into the darkness of chaos and destruction. The resulting photographs, created from the souls’ intuition and, therefore, enriched with depth and meaning, is the order that is needed to deal with the chaos of our egoic existence and the madness of modern society that seems to be, all too often, so focused on division and separation. In the moments that we open the shutters of our camera to capture the beauty of these sacred hours, we choose the path of creation instead of that of destruction, and we make the daring ascent from darkness into light.

Society Divides, Nature Unites

Following mornings like these, I can’t help but contemplate some of the deeper questions about this human existence and the current state of our co-created world of society. I often wonder why it seems to be that, overall, humanity is so intent on dividing itself and creating enemies out of another. Everything we know seems to be a game of two sides.

Either we are black or white, Christian or Muslim, left or right, right or wrong, good or bad, awake or asleep. Isn’t it an irony that our quests for community and belonging so often force us to cut ourselves off from certain people and demographics? For us to belong somewhere, we must not belong somewhere else. Why does a human being have this innate tendency to think in such dualistic ways?

Outdoors in the natural world, there is no place for division, hierarchy, or competition. In Nature, there is only unity. Everything works towards one common goal. The pursuit of Nature is one of growth and expansion. What would our world look like if more people prioritised their own personal and spiritual growth and the expansion of their own consciousness over the expansion of only their houses, bank accounts and businesses? When did this disconnect from our soul’s growth and true purpose begin? What if we all realised that the real competition is the one that lies within; for us to transcend the ego and live from the soul that seeks for nothing but joy, love, and peace, and finds all of this in the freedom of its’ own authentic expression?

When we look towards the beauty of the forest networks, we see such unity and come to realise that everything is divinely connected and perfectly balanced. There are no arguments of right or wrong, good or bad. The ‘woodland’ itself is an entity, made up of what we label as ‘trees’, ‘fungi’, ‘moss’ and ‘ferns’. Through the ‘woodland’, runs a small ‘stream’, in which there are ‘rocks’ and ‘silt’ and all kinds of ‘bacteria’ and other living species. The ‘stream’ runs into a ‘river’, and the ‘river’ into the ‘sea’. At which point, then, does the ‘woodland’ become detached from the ‘sea’? We apply such language to understand the world in our minds. Is it, therefore, our minds, then, that create the division and separation? What happens when we learn, instead, to tune into our hearts and choose to feel instead of think?

Returning Home to the Heart

The act of creating a photograph, for me, is a response to a feeling inside of my heart. I feel compelled to pull out the camera and create when the cogs in my mind cease their relentless turning, and I come to rest in a place of deep, internal stillness.

My heartbeat falls into rhythm with that of the earth and we dance in perfect harmony across the woodland floor. The trees stand as witnesses of my hearts’ truest expression and, in these precious moments, the soul that resides within reunites with the eternal soul of Nature.

Following such moments, it is difficult to look into the eyes of another human and see an enemy. I realise that the same feelings, and the same soul, exists, too, inside of them. It is important, therefore, that mornings like these are experienced regularly. Too long spent away from the soul of Nature and our own true, authentic, expressive nature, might cause a human to become too disconnected from its’ heart. What happens when one spends too long living in the darkness of the mind and falls out of tune with the song of one’s own heart? Could this, perhaps, be the reason that so many people find their only peace and purpose in war? In the same way that the woodland, in our minds, is detached from the sea, so have our minds become detached from our hearts. When did this happen and how can we restore balance and harmony between the two?

The truest test of the human being lies in its’ ability to create harmony between mind (rationality, thoughts & fears) and heart (intuition, feelings & love), ensuring that each remain connected to the other in every given moment, come fear, or love. Perhaps then, given the current state of our world, it is time to return home to the heart on a global scale. What the world needs now, more than ever, I believe, is a deep cleansing of the collective soul as we look to repair our relationship with the earth, ourselves and, therefore, each other, and co-create a better world for tomorrow.

Nature provides the pathway way back to our hearts and soul. I find my own way back beyond the gatekeepers of ancient trees in Eryri during the sacred hours of the morning, and they help me to strip back the masks and peel off the armour, so that I can emerge from the darkness and stand to be seen in all my light once a

So, MrsLJ and I have entered our fifth year in the wilds of Wester Ross. Leaving the comfort blanket of our home in Cumbria far behind us. Why did we even contemplate such a move. I’m not sure that I’d even scratched the photographic surface of Cumbria in that time. People, and by people I mean photographers, think of Cumbria in terms of its lakes and the various views that surround them. But Cumbria is so much more than that. There’s the quiet, pastoral beauty of the Eden Valley, the vast open spaces of the Pennines and the East Fellside. The Cumbrian views are quite polished. Civilisation is obvious at every turn. The dry stone walls, the boats that ply its lakes, the chains of pubs that open all year round.

If Wester Ross has a layer of civilisation, it's skin deep, a thin veneer only. The mountains are bigger. More rugged. Instead of manicured fields, there are miles of bog and rock.

If you dropped me anywhere in the Lakes, I would know exactly where I was, and I would be able to walk easily to the comfortable safety of the nearest pub. In contrast, I could get lost just about anywhere in Wester Ross. I could get lost ten minutes from my back door. I fondly imagined that the move would be great for my photography. In a way, it would just be more of the same things I’d always done. Just on a larger scale.

I thought I’d be exploring the relationship between mountains, Scots Pines, tumbling streams and bottomless lochs. But in truth, I failed miserably in that task. I found that photographing the (even bigger) view was not my forte. I can’t do it. Joe Cornish and the like can do it with ease. But my attempts to capture the grandeur of my locale left me seriously underwhelmed. Instead, I found that my head was being turned with greater regularity by the smaller view. Views that I’m fairly sure I would have walked past in the lakes.

Views that were as nothing to the grand views. But continued to hold my gaze the longer I looked at them. I’ve always said, “See with the heart, shoot with the head”. Perhaps it was time to take my own advice. To shoot the smaller view.

I’m not going to say the ‘intimate view’ as I hate that phrase. I love our landscape. Photographing it is my passion. Every image I make is intimate. They’re all a labour of love. And that love, that feeling of awe at the smaller and smaller world around me, led me to take all sorts of images that would have been beyond my more narrow-minded Cumbrian persona.

Do I question my failure at capturing the bigger view? No. It's just the way it is. If I dwelt on that failure, I might question our move to the desolate wastelands of the North. Instead of basking in my failure I’d rather look back at some of the images over the last three years or so with a smug feeling of pride. Having said all that, I’ve no idea what is next. But whatever it is, I’m looking forward to it.

“[C]reativity is inherently . . . tied up with process, you cannot escape it. ~Joe Cornish

“Form: manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to recognised standards of technique ~Miriam-Webster Dictionary

The Pioneer Valley consists of the three counties through which the Connecticut River—the longest river in New England—flows down Western Massachusetts from Vermont to Connecticut. The “Pioneer Valley” was dubbed by nameless travel writers a century ago to draw tourists into the area, an invention that adds a deceptive veneer to an area suffused with over 6,000 years of human history. Accounting for its fertile soils and arboretum feel, the Pioneer Valley is situated on a former seabed snugged in an ancient rift valley, sat between the once rugged Berkshire Mountains and an unnamed ridge of peaks to the east. It is in this rather narrow former ocean floor turned terrarium that I, nearly exclusively, make images, and in which I have come to hope for and rely on the unexpected in doing so. Making images on an ocean floor turned veritable botanical garden, where over 6,000 years of human experience has been expunged and from a name contrived by forgotten advertising men, it seems fitting that a random quote from surrealist novelist Tom Robbins has provided a key for unlocking a more considered approach to my image making.

It is an approach that I have applied for some time and that has allowed me to start pursuing, as acclaimed American photographer Ralph Gibson puts it, a “visual signature” and to evolve the artistic outcomes I seek (and the methods by which I achieve those outcomes). This renewed approach — a roadmap of sorts — could lead anyone to artistic discovery in expressive image-making, and creative engagement generally. For, as Paul Strand put it, “If the photographer is not a discoverer, then he is not an artist.”

Edges

Robbins, a renowned novelist who the New York Times called “a cosmic lounge lizard,” morphed from a strict Southern Baptist upbringing, “into a moonbeam of the counterculture” of the American 1970s and beyond. Robbins seems never at a loss for the enigmatic, if not oddball, prophetic turn of phrase (or entire novel). Robbins, largely known for works that are “very weird . . . hilarious and curiously moving,” (like Jitterbug Perfume and Still Life with Woodpecker), is by all accounts a meticulous writer who “knows words the way a pool hustler knows chalk.” One of Writer’s Digest “100 Best Writers of the 20th Century”, Robbins was a well-known art critic in Seattle, Washington, before turning to novels. It was an experience that seeped into his fiction. In “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, Robbins gave sound instruction to the artist.

If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.

Enticing tuition for the artist, for who among us does not desire entry into the realm of magic? This directive to push art to the “wildest edge of edges” has given me a key to unfurling a vast expanse for exploration and discovery in my expressive image making.

When speaking of pushing any discipline beyond the “wildest edge of edges”, Robbins is speaking of form, that is, “manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to recognised standards of technique” — what Cornish calls process and what Gibson refers to as the protocols of photography. Robbins' invitation to the artist is to go beyond the limitations confronting all manner of creative engagement, including those “recognised standards of technique.” Form (process/protocols) are the parameters within which all photographers must work. However, I see form — Robbins’ form — as something broader than merely recognised standards of technique, process or protocols. Robbins’ form is virtually bespoke for each of us and encompasses aspects spanning the unique to the universal. This form concerns the methods employed by the artist, rather than the goal, the achievement, the outcome. This form is that distinct space — physical, emotional, material and metaphoric — in which we dwell as creatively engaged artists. Form includes limits, boundaries, that confine that space — frontiers for exploration, at the outer limits of which lie Robbins’ “wildest edge of edges.”

I imagine this broader version of form as the structure in which an artist must dwell and work while creatively engaged, and includes all that bounds our efforts as artists. It involves every aspect of the creative process. Among myriad others, form for the photographic artist includes our chosen genres, our subjects and thematic approaches, the choices we make with respect to our gear and processing, our decisions whether to practice predominantly near field or far field, digital or analog, our intimacy with the areas and the conditions in which we work. It also includes the thoughts, feelings, emotions, preconceptions and expectations we bring to each and every step along the process of creative engagement. Expressive image making is bound on all sides with the parameters of this more expansive version of form.

These boundaries include what is achievable with whatever gear is in one’s kit and the proficiency one has with it — our understanding of and proficiency with, so to speak, “how film sees the world,” as Ansel Adams put it. They include the ability and aptitude to access, interact and commune with desired locations and subjects, and one’s capacity to work in the conditions met. They include the personal constraints we all have as people, such as our physical condition, our locality and our ability or willingness to travel, and monetary limitations that directly shape our creative efforts. These various strictures and boundaries all apply their forces on our output as creative agents. For me, however, the ultimate importance of form lies not in its structure, per se, not the boundaries that hem us in. Rather, form’s significance lies in a purposeful, contemplative engagement with that framework and its limits, that is to say, the critical and ever-evolving relationships we build and cultivate with that space in which we are bound, in which we dwell while creatively engaged with image making.

Applying this broader interpretation of form, Robbins’ edict becomes a personal invitation to explore unreservedly that structure or space we all inhabit while engaged creatively. It is an invitation inveigling me “to push my art beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges” that limit me, and the outcomes I seek, from creative engagement. It is an invitation that perhaps should be accepted by anyone engaging with creativity, with artistic expression. Robbins’ edict is to explore the imaginative space that form provides, that space we inhabit as individual artists, such that we evolve, grow and move toward that realm of magic. To evolve as artists, we must assess and reassess our expectations from and our relationship with this comprehensive form, from the mundane to the esoteric, from form’s universal aspects applicable to all engaged in expressive image-making to those completely unique to our individual efforts.

We must do so with our gear and technology, our ability to achieve desired outcomes with the tools we employ, our intimacy with their means and their machinations’ breadth, and how those limits determine the outcomes we seek. It means examining freely and with regularity our relationships with and connections to our creative environs, whether near or far afield, before we arrive, in situ and after we depart, and how those relationships and connections enhance or inhibit our creative efforts. For those of us engaging with the landscape, it means examining and gaining an understanding of the history of a place and our history with that place as it evolves over time. It means ever striving to gain a better understanding of what we can expect when in those environs in which we choose to make images — weather, mood, atmosphere — in order to foster an ability to engage with the creative process when expectations are altogether met, when those hopes are not met or prove altogether unfounded, or when we choose to leave all expectation behind. And importantly, it means examining our relationship with ourselves, our goals and aspirations, writ large and small, and our engagement with those things I list, and others, that is, our engagement with form.

Following Robbins’ guidance to push art as far as it will go could provide the artist a route to those edges of form where I would suggest, the artist may coax art “into the realm of magic.” It is this engagement, this process, that I believe could be a foundation from which any artist to pursue any goal, any outcome, they seek to achieve, both in any given moment and over the long term of committed creative engagement. This requires a commitment to probing our relationships with form and its innumerable facets unrestrainedly, becoming so well versed in form as it pertains to our efforts that its boundaries become inviting, enticing us to explore those edges. We must see our limits not as a threat to achieving the outcomes we desire, but rather we must see them as an invitation, calling us forward so we can push ourselves and our art toward those “wildest edge of edges.” For, as film critic and essayist Phillip Lopate promises, “The fulsome confession of a limit carries the secret promise of an almost infinite opening-out.”

When we, as expressive image makers, examine deeply and regularly our engagement with form and our relationships with its components, no matter “how trivial or mundane” those things can seem, we open a path that can take our art “to such extremes that we illuminate its relationship to all other things . . . to that point of cosmic impact.” Once open, that path sets a bearing on the “wildest edge of edges” and perhaps a glimpse, if not entry into, that “realm of magic.” As grandiloquent as this may sound, I am convinced of the practical impact such an approach can have in the creation of meaningful images. I am not alone, it would seem. Joe Cornish has said that “photographic creativity, is also inherently a reflection of process, from both the science of photography itself and the limits on the materials, the methods and the equipment that are available to you at the time. I think that is a very important lesson to learn and is a great springboard because you can use to your advantage the limitations and the oddities that are the photographic process. . . . Process and creativity to me are intrinsically linked and importantly so.”

At this point in my development as an image maker, entering the “realm of magic” remains largely aspirational. I have, however, glimpsed Robbins’ edge of edges and the distant realm of magic beyond through my purposeful engagement with those intrinsic and important links between my creativity and the processes and protocols of expressive image making. There is no doubt there are countless image makers who regularly dwell in that realm, but there seem few, if any, external signposts pointing the way to it. However, in his approach to his writing, Robbins offered some direction as to the state of mind conducive achieving such engagement with form—a state of mind that would certainly aid any image maker in going beyond the mere glimpse and may even plunge them and their work deep into that realm of magic.

Zen Universe

Michael Dare, a screenwriter and movie producer, assisted Robbins with writing a screenplay, an adaptation of one of Robbins novels that never made it to the screen. During that period, Robbins described his writing process to Dare. In his essay How to Write Like Tom Robbins, Dare discusses that guidance in some detail. Dare explains that when Robbins starts a novel, it works like this. First he writes a sentence. Then he rewrites it again and again, examining each word, making sure of its perfection, finely honing each phrase until it reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes an entire day is devoted to one sentence, which gets marked on and expanded upon in every possible direction until he is satisfied. Then, and only then, does he add a period. Next, he rereads the first sentence and starts writing a second, rewriting it again and again until it shimmers. Then, and only then, does he add a period. While working on each sentence, he has no idea what the next sentence is going to be, much less the next chapter or the end of the book. All thoughts of where he is going or where he has been are banished. Each sentence is a Zen universe unto itself, and while working on it, nothing exists but the sentence. He keeps writing in such a manner until he eventually reaches a sentence which he works on like all the others. He adds a period and the book is done. No editing or revising in any way.

Or, as Robbins himself put it, “I try never to leave a sentence until it’s as good as I think I can make it.” Dare thought Robbins’ methodology was senseless for any writing project, declaring it “was no way to write a book, much less a screenplay.” Robbins himself confessed his approach was “painting myself in corners and seeing if I can get out.” If one wants to aspire to approaching and transcending “the wildest edge of edges” to gain entry into that “realm of magic,” Robbins’ approach of treating each sentence as a “Zen universe unto itself” during which “nothing exists but the sentence” seems a most suitable way to approach image making, what Thomas Joshua Cooper, among others, refers to as building an image.

As Cedric Wright, photographer and mentor to Ansel Adams, said, “[a] secret to fine results is to enjoy the most luxurious deliberations in each step of the work.” He warned that “there is a contagious contentment . . . out of which is apt to flow more of the spirit and qualities needed” to make an image. Wright determined that, “ideally, it should be as if on that one part of the work alone were focused the entire essence of a lifetime.” To strive to engage with this approach when light is fleeting and other limitations are encroaching, or when distractions abound, can reveal for us that “edge of edges” and thereby lead us to that place where creative transcendence may be glimpsed or, perhaps, even realised. Approaching any creative endeavour — except perhaps writing according to Dare — as close to this method as you can seems one route to achieving creative fulfilment, of approaching that realm of magic. While there may be some well-placed reticence to painting oneself into a corner as a routine, Robbins was on to something in his approach to writing that seems perfectly applicable to making images and our engagement with the form. It is through engagement with form that will lead us toward a comprehension and, ultimately, an intimacy with the boundaries that shape our efforts — both those that we all share and those specific to ourselves — such that we can dare to aspire to enter that realm of magic. Committing to such engagement is something that I have explored for some time, but still struggle with. The first step seems to be finding those edges of edges, wherever they may lie. As Lopate suggests, the artist must be “iintrigued by their limitations, both physical and mental [because] what one doesn’t understand, or can’t do, is as good a place as any to start investigating the borders of the self.”

Anamorphosis

From what vantage point must one be positioned to discover the boundaries of form? Where must one be stood in that unique space we each inhabit as creatively engaged artists in order to delineate those edges of form that limit us? What does it mean to and how does one explore those boundaries of form individual to our efforts as expressive image makers? For the artist there seems to be no more of a personal question, one that will elicit unique and individual responses. However, some general steps to those ends seem apparent. First, we must become proficient in those aspects of form necessary for attaining our desired artistic outcomes. We need not master every facet of the recognised standards of technique employed in photography generally, just those necessary to make the images we want to make, to attain the outcomes we desire. And once proficiency with the aspects of form applicable to our particular efforts is attained, those edges become delineated, made ready for exploration, for in order to explore edges of form we must know what they are and where they lie. We must not only know those limitations, we must become intimate with them so that we may strive to master those aspects of form that apply to our unique approach. As Gibson admits, “I have always, always, always worked within a set of specific limitations that led me to an infinitely broader horizon than I would have otherwise arrived. It’s the limitations that open the doors.”

To strive to master form, we must appreciate form as it pertains to Wright’s “luxurious deliberations” throughout image-making. Form in expressive image making is bespoke to each and every expressive image maker. Form is individual. Form is founded upon and bounded by the methodology, aptitude, attitude, psyche, aspirations, desires, gear—and more—that we each bring to our image-making and how we each choose to employ and incorporate those elements into our efforts. Form redefined here is the “[unique] manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to [more than merely those] recognised standards of technique [and includes everything that shapes those efforts].”

Where does one begin to explore this form when it includes all that which bounds the methods of engagement with the creative process of image making—from the basic to the advanced, the mundane to the esoteric? It seems that the application of a restriction to our craft is widely accepted foundation from which to explore form. Like Gibson, who “always, always, always” applies of “specific limitations” to his work, renowned Australian educator, artist and environmental advocate Len Metcalf, known for his transcendent square sepia images (as well as Len’s School and Len’s Journal), has said that “By having restrictions . . . I find immense freedom and so much extra room to explore.” Examples of intentional restriction of some aspect of form abound. Henri Cartier-Bresson famously used only one camera, a Leica rangefinder, and one focal length, 50mm, for nearly all of his work. For Guy Tal, much like me, the restriction of where he works applies to his image-making, as he confesses to working “primarily in the landscape of my home, the high deserts of the Colorado Plateau.”

As these few examples show, the choices of a starting point for defining and applying some restriction to our work, whether temporary or permanent, are myriad and run the gamut from those that are universally applied to all image makers to those that only affect a given photographer at a given time in a given place. From the basic to the advanced form is all that binds, controls or contorts—desired or not—our efforts. Engagement with form is pervasive and unavoidable. That engagement is where we may begin to seek and, once found, push the boundaries, the edges of form. That engagement will take you from awareness to comprehension and mastery of all that limits our image-making efforts. By applying a restriction, such considered and purposeful engagement with form may allow one to find and surpass the “wildest edge of edges” of form so that we may create something that “reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite.” Under these circumstances, setting off and exploring the edges of form seems formidable. Being one who engages with the land and landscape nearly exclusively where I live, my interactions and relationships with and connections to Place and the places I go in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts are foundational components of form that provide fertile ground for me to grow as an artist. The “restriction” of repeatedly making images in one specific location, not for days or weeks, but over the years and under varied conditions and circumstances, has afforded me a vital starting point for exploring the edges of the form within which I create images.

In Part Two, I explore my relationship with Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area, a nearby wildlife refuge, where the images accompanying this essay were made. I tell how my repeated visits over the years have enhanced my efforts to grow as an artist and offer that the same effort could help anyone grow through engagement with form.

Another year of the Natural Landscape Photography Awards has passed and our final judging was just over a couple of weeks ago. Our fourth year ran very surprisingly smoothly with over 12,000 entries and I’m now finishing off the book to go to print at the start of November.

The results are fabulous, as ever. If anything, the quality has been going up or at least the entered images are showing a diversity and creativity that we didn’t see as much of in the first year. We had some especially strong images in the Intimate Landscape category.

I thought our readers would like to see a few of the winning images (the ones I particularly liked) and also some of the images that didn’t make the awards page but have been chosen to be printed in our book.

Photograph of the Year - John Hardiman

Our winner by John Hardiman was a really interesting photograph. Something that grew on our judges as they looked at it repeatedly over the nearly three months of judging. In the end, it was easily our panel’s favourite for “Photograph of the Year”.

John has contributed a short essay for our book which I’ve included at the end of this for you.

Living on the Edge Project - David Southern

I’d like to include the winner of the Project of the Year as well, as it embodies the idea of a project so well.

David Southern’s work on the North East coast of England has resulted in some fabulous photographs, including his sandstone abstracts which you can see in our Featured Photographer article about him.

This time he moved his attention to the seaweeds that live on that same coast. Over three years of photography, the work was distilled into eight wonderful and varied images which you can see below. If you want to read more about them, you’ll have to wait for the NLPA book which will hopefully be finished around Christmas.

"The aim of this project was to showcase the rich beauty of the seaweeds that thrive on my local shoreline. Seaweeds make for an attractive photographic subject. They have rich diverse colours, rhythmic shapes and are naturally arranged to artistic affect by waves, currents and wind.

I set out to concentrate on only a few varieties photographed in a living state on both the upper and lower shore. All the images in the project were captured within a 25 mile stretch of Northumbrian coastline.

It is during the late spring and summer months when most species look at their best. It is also at this time of year that have the lowest ‘spring’ tides and when the kelp forests are fully exposed and the thongweed thrives.

Out at these furthest margins of the land surrounded by such elemental nature it is easy to forget that these important habitats are under threat. A changing climate is affecting the distribution of the kelp forests and marine pollution is evident in even the most remote stretches of coastline. Marine forests provide a vital role in capturing carbon as well as providing a nursery habitat for a myriad of marine creatures."

 

A Selection of Images from Vol 4 Book

Finally, here’s the promised selection of images that I found particularly engaging.

Mathias Libor

Northern Norway has no shortage of prominent mountains or pine trees, but to combine the two with such finesse requires great skill. The flat light allows us to see both elements unembellished, with the snow adding a sense of quiet. This places a greater emphasis on the composition, which has been expertly crafted. The slightly elevated position shows the pines diminishing into the distance, creating an important sense of perspective. The twisted foreground trees frame the mountain without competing with it and every brand and twig seems to be in exactly the right place.

Puneet Verma

I think it's fair to say that we all like the occasional god ray but these images are particularly heavenly. Puneet's photograph's rays could well be extra-terrestrial they're that out of this world. The image works so well because of the perfect central trees, their cast shadows and the stunning receding valley hinted at beyond.

Brian Pollock

This expansive vista over Loch A’an in the Cairngorms is more reminiscent of the Norwegian Fjords than the Scottish Highlands. It’s a perfect example of a panoramic vista. Shot in soft light of sunrise it illustrates the expansive nature of the landscape but also introduces a complex foreground to bring depth to the scene.

Franka Gabler

The creative potential of drying mud seems to always gift us with wonderful and personal images. Franka's graphic creation uses triangular motifs surrounding that single peeling back flake, opening like a birthday present. The black and white treatment works well here and creates high contrast on those cracked edges, adding to the three dimensional feel.

Katarzyna Gubrynowicz

We initially presumed Katarzyna's photograph was some form of multiple exposure but in reality, it's a natural optical illusion created from an extraordinary shaft of light illuminating just the tips of skeletal trees as a hill rolls off into a small valley. The way the light seems to reincarnate a section of forest is quite magical. There are also some subtle but useful darker bands of trees which create interest in the otherwise homogenous areas of forest.

Duncan Wood

The colours of Autumn in the Scottish Highlands may not quite live up to the Colorado with its stands of aspen, but for sheer variety and texture, it's hard to beat. Here the colour of late hearther, birch and spruce, plays background to a set of seemingly floating, elderly birch branches festooned with Old Man's Beard (Usnea Subfloridana) and Shield Lichen (Parmelia Sulcata).

Claire Ogden

When abstract photographs are this abstract, it’s difficult to break down their success in formal terms. There is some compositional structure, but it’s instinctive and relies on visual balance. It’s the colour that engages the most, a raw, Pollockesque splatter of maroons, oranges, blues, greens. The white threads a crazed pattern throughout. An expression of abstractness!

Tristan Todd

The thing that immediately stood out about this photograph is the incredible sense of luminosity of the sunlight on water. With modern camera sensors, the temptation that many succumb to is to reveal all those deep shadows. What is the point of all that dynamic range otherwise? However, by keeping much of the image in deep shadow, letting the highlights almost blow out and having a suggestion of flare/glow around the brightest area (that clump of trees in the foreground), Tristan has almost made us squint at the intensity. And what a composition, even the triangular boulder in the foreground seems to point at the scene and shout "Look at this!". There is almost too much to like here!

Chris Darnell

The “Bear and Rabbit”, and “Stagecoach” in Monument Valley are familiar to most photographers ‘but’ these conditions and this perspective reveal them in a very different context. The intense contrast between the sunlit and shaded areas is moderated by the beautiful mist of a temperature inversion. We particularly liked that we can see the continuation of the ridge with specs of sunshine and the frost tipped desert scrub in the top left.

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Pre-order Volume 4 Book

The fourth book is available for pre-order here and hopefully will be complete and sent out for Christmas (for UK and European delivery).

If you'd like to see all of the images that received awards, you can view them on the Natural Landscape Photography Awards website.

'Choice’ is at the heart of the collecting process; a word which expresses its special dual nature as the selection and as the allotment of value, whatever form this value might take.~Susan M. Pearce

Photographs are of course about their makers and are to be read for what they disclose in that regard no less than for what they reveal of the world as their makers comprehend, invent, and describe it.~A.D. Coleman

As photographers we are all collectors of images. We might sort our images in different ways (in digital catalogues and galleries, in Instagram feeds or Pinterest themes, in portfolio boxes … ) or with different subjects (family, holidays, workshops, or on-going project ideas, …)¹ but we will all have multiple collections in one form or another. Our collections may not, of course, be limited to photographs; we may have other interests from stamps to train numbers to works of art. In some cases, collecting might become a passion, or even a compulsion². One of the most well-known collectors of photographs is Elton John, who has employed a full-time curator, Newell Harbin, to build up one of the most extensive private collections of 20th Century photographs, many of which are displayed on the walls of his several houses (though he has some 8000 in total, having started his collection before some major art museums started to take an interest in photography). He is reported as saying that photography is ”the love of my life, in art terms. I love surrounding myself with them”³ and that the reason he works so hard is so that he can collect (though reportedly he has slowed down to only one or so a week now…)⁴.

The excellent photographic collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles was formed by purchasing the collections of a number of private collectors, including those of Bruno Bischofberger, Arnold Crane, Volker Kahmen/Georg Heusch, and Samuel Wagstaff, Jr. Other extensive collections include those of Artur Walther (a former partner in Goldman Sachs); David Dechman (CEO of a wealth management company); Andrew Pilara (an investment banker); Michael Wilson (producer of many of the James Bond films); Bob and Randi Fisher (son of the founder of Gap); Peter Cohen (another investment banker); and Jamie Lee Curtis (the well-known actress). So, to have a significant collection of celebrated photographs (including celebrated landscape photographers) evidently requires considerable wealth today!

So what about the rest of us with much less disposable income. It does not cost that much to build up collections of our own images of course (even if we could not have done so if digital storage had not become so cheap so quickly⁶). Perhaps it costs a little bit more for a collection of reproduction prints or books (I suspect that many of us already have too many photo books⁷). And there may still be current photographers that we admire whose original prints are not tooooo expensive (especially those who sell digital prints and are not so well celebrated). And perhaps it might be worth investing what might seem a considerable sum for something we consider particularly special (even if this might then compete with an investment in new gear). But certainly, for most of us, any thought of systematic or compulsive collecting of originals would be out of our reach.

Unless, perhaps, it is only in the form of digital files. In a recent book, the Swiss author Mona Chollet (currently Editor of Le Monde Diplomatique), discusses her passion for collecting all types of images under different themes on Pinterest⁸. She will scour magazines, postcards in Museum shops, other digital sources and imaging streams, for images that attract her and which she relates to strongly. These are by no means limited to photographs but include art from around the world and she suggests that

they are the equivalent of the list of things “that make the heart beat faster” drawn up by Sei Shônagon, Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress Consort of Japan in The Pillow Book written in the 11th Century⁹~Mona Chollet, D’images et d’eau fraiche, p.23¹⁰

Such a collection can clearly become compulsive, but has an associated difficulty of dealing with what is essentially choices from an infinite gamut of possibilities, what she calls the “vertigo of the elusive”. She notes that “I felt the almost irresistible force of attraction of this infinite labyrinth, it sucked me in, it siphoned off my attention, my energy, it wore out my eyes.” (p.86), raising the question as to whether this is something to be enjoyed or regretted. Her collection is frequently revised and rearranged because, as she writes,

“..it is also the inside of my brain that I organise, it is the neural connections that I hope to encourage; it seems to me that I am working to increase my mental clarity. To sort, eliminate, reorganise, is to update a body of books or images, and bring it into line with the evolution of my tastes and interests, and thus create a magic mirror which will show me the way, and indicate which subject I should follow now~op.cit., p76/77

The book has, as a subtitle, “what our collections say about us”. We do not perhaps have to be quite so passionate about collecting images as Mona Chollet, as to reveal something about our tastes and interests in what we choose to show others, either on our walls at home, in the galleries on our photography web sites, or sometimes, if we are brave enough, in exhibitions.

Objects are not inert or passive; they help us to give shape to our identities and purpose to our lives. We engage with them in a complex interactive or behavioural dance in the course of which the weight of significance which they carry affects what we think and feel and how we act.~Susan M. Pearce, 2013, p18¹¹

Because showing our collections to others (whether of our own images or of our collections of other photographers or artists) does surely reveal a lot about us. Our own images will reveal our (good or poor) technique, our (good or poor) sense of composition, our tastes in subject matter. Our personal selection of others, especially those we have spent real money on, will reveal the things that make our hearts beat a little faster, though that can, of course, change over time so that some reorganisation and replacement might be necessary. And, we may not need to spend so much.

Nowadays I am recognised as a bona fide collector, but I doubt there are any other collectors who buy so much with so little money. That’s because I leave the collecting of already recognised pieces [and signatures] to others: I concentrate on beautiful things that have yet to be recognised. In short I have always collected things with little market value.~Soetsu Yanagi, 2018, p246¹²

I can remember two important images that sort of started my collection of the images of other photographers many years ago now. Both were not so expensive. The first was one of Ansel Adams, Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Sierra Nevada, 1932¹³, not perhaps one of his best known, but which revealed to me the potential of achieving abstraction in landscape photography. It was not too expensive because I only have a reproduction print, but it was framed and on the wall of my office for decades. The second is the Lynch Clough image of John Blakemore from his All Flows series¹⁴, which I also only have in reproduction, and that only in book form (and at first I only had a photocopy that is still in a box somewhere¹⁵). That image showed me how water could produce fascinating abstracts, something I have been exploring ever since (and perhaps was trying to do even before… it is a very long time ago now). Later, as money became a little less of a worry, I have original prints from John and Eliza Forder and Paul Kenny to Fay Godwin, Michael Kenna and John Sexton (all when prices were still not toooo expensive!)¹⁶. My first purchase from Paul Kenny, Blackstone, Bright Water, 1992¹⁷, led to a great admiration of his work, and a small collection of his images¹⁸.

The point is, I think, that a collection does not need to be large to be personally important. While clearly any collection that is only stored on Instagram or Pinterest does not involve great cost and can be so enormous as to be difficult to control (a little like our own archives of digital images), those that we might put on the wall when space on the wall is limited will have a particular significance. Being built up over time, they are part of our history and development as photographers. They reflect where we were as well as where we are now. They will generally have been chosen with great care and get to be changed from time to time as we ourselves change.

What is true of all objects as such is equally true of those groups of objects that we call collections. They, too, as collective entities as well as in terms of their individual components, have histories which can be traced, and are susceptible to analysis, which, viewed from the appropriate perspective, will reveal the very important part they play in the construction of power and prestige and the manifestation of superiority. They too, are active carriers of meaning, and have a very large share in the creation of individual personality and the way our lives are shaped.~Susan M. Pearce, 2013, p.20

For me that also tended to be the case when taking my own images in the days of film. I had a sort of unspoken question when thinking about taking an image (at least for those when not directly documenting family or travels). Would it be likely to replace one that was already printed or on the wall? If not, then why not wait or look elsewhere because film exposures were limited, and enlargements were expensive (and, of course, even more so now). That inevitably changed with the collection of digital images. Storage is now cheap, multiple variants on an image and bracketing of exposures or focus are cheap. The problem is much more how to organise the collection and decide on which of the variants of the image appeals most. This choice might also change over time so perhaps it is worth keeping all of the variants for now…… It is all too easy to be a little lackadaisical about managing our own collections (and their back-ups – also an important consideration).

But collections require research and careful consideration - in short, a commitment of significant time. To be successful they need regular arranging and managing and rearranging and re-evaluation. There will be moments when choices are made that become more or less fixed – when we finalise a book of our work, or publicise a portfolio, or decide to print and frame an image, or to make a new purchase – but, as in the case of the on-line image collection of Mona Chollet, we are more and more faced with the immensity of the task created by the sheer number of images that build up over time.

Photography is all about such choices. This starts with where we choose to go, the equipment we choose to take, where we choose to stand and what composition and settings we choose for an image, and the moment we choose to take an image. The choices continue with what to keep of all the images taken. There are ways of limiting that task, such as giving star ratings in camera when first reviewing images. Some systems then allow only the chosen starred images to be downloaded for later storage and post-processing. Our starred images can then be kept in categories by themes or places, as digital galleries or printed portfolios.

In some cases we can follow this outcome, if not the process, of selection, such as in the book produced of The Portfolios of Ansel Adams¹⁹. In some cases, we can see how a collection can become addictive, such as in the enthusiasm of Martin Parr for his wonderful Autoportraits (started well before the age of selfies, but which he has followed up more recently in Death by Selfie)²⁰, or the attempt by David B. Jenkins to photograph all the See Rock City farm barns scattered through multiple US states²¹. At this point, the question of when collecting crosses that border to addictive hoarding becomes an issue. Perhaps in the cases of the famous photographic hoarders such as Vivian Maier and Garry Winogrand there was a problem of choice from all the negatives that they had taken (or was just that the act of photographing was more important than the results).

In the late 1990s, the popularity of relational model theories, such as self-psychology, led to the application of these theories to describe collecting as well, which pose the idea that collecting establishes a better sense of self. The psychoanalytic perspective generally identified five main motivations for collecting: for selfish purposes; for selfless purposes; as preservation, restoration, history, and a sense of continuity; as financial investment and as a form of addiction. Addictive collecting was termed hoarding and reflected a "dark side" of collecting behaviour.~Susan M. Pearce, 1994, p.157²²

Is there a little of that compulsive hoarding behaviour in us all as photographers²³? An imperative feeling of need to add to our collection of visual memories so that they do not get forgotten²⁴. Our collection of images shows that we were there, that we had that experience (which is surely one reason why over-processed and artificially generated images are so dissatisfying). That imperative explains, perhaps, why we are enthusiasts, and why, in some cases, we are prepared to carry equipment to higher elevations and more extreme environments to record the experience. It might also explain why we will try to emulate the work of other photographers we admire and might want to include in our collections, including going to some of the classic landscape locations.

Fortunately, such dark psychotic behaviour seems to be very well-hidden in most of the landscape photographers I have encountered (including at the On Landscape Meeting of Minds sessions when we still had them). They seem to be mostly a very cheerful and supportive bunch. It would, however, be really interesting to hear a little about your own collections and attitudes to collecting in the comments.

References

1. See A Classification of Landscapes in Issue 294
2. Following the death of former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, it was revealed that he had devoted significant resources to collecting some 25 thousand paintings, many of them not very good by all accounts, including purchases made on television auction shows, see https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/world/europe/berlusconis-art-collection.html,
   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/31/silvio-berlusconi-art-collection-italy-lucas-vianini-curator?ref=upstract.com,
   https://www.thecollector.com/silvio-berlusconis-worthless-art-collection/ )
3. see https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/elton-john-tate-modern-radical-eye-photography/index.html
4. Part of the Elton John and David Furnish collection can be seen in the exhibition Fragile Beauty at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London until 5th January 2025 (though if you are not a member it will cost you £20 to do so). See https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/fragile-beauty-photographs-from-the-sir-elton-john-and-david-furnish-collection
5. Taken from https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/sir-elton-johns-photography-collection-unveiled/
6. I remember a professorial colleague who worked on the processing of radar rainfall images, proudly showing off his new 256Mb hard disk system that had been purchased for his research group in the late 1980s. It had cost £250,000 (or approximately £1000 per Mb). Compare that to a 128Gb SD Card (about £0.0002 per Mb) or a Terabyte Raid Systems today!
7. And there are, of course, guides available as to what landscape photography books you should have in your collections, see https://photographycourse.net/best-landscape-photography-books/ or https://amateurphotographer.com/book_reviews/the-best-landscape-photography-books/ . You may not agree with those choices!
8. Mona Chollet: D’Images et d’eau fraiche, Flammiron, 2022 (in French)
9. From Wikipedia : Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–1017 or 1025) was a Japanese author, poet, and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is the author of The Pillow Book (makura no sōshi). The work is a collection of essays, anecdotes, poems, and descriptive passages which have little connection to one another except for the fact they are ideas and whims of Shōnagon's spurred by moments in her daily life. In it she included lists of all kinds, personal thoughts, interesting events in court, poetry, and some opinions on her contemporaries. While it is mostly a personal work, Shōnagon's writing and poetic skill makes it interesting as a work of literature, and it is valuable as a historical document.
10. The translations from D’Images et d’eau fraiche are mine throughout
11. Pearce, S., 2013. On collecting: An investigation into collecting in the European tradition. Routledge.
12. Soetsu Yanagi, 2018, The beauty of everyday things, Penguin Books
13. https://www.anseladams.com/frozen-lake-and-cliffs-sierra-nevada/?doing_wp_cron=1706804874.2047240734100341796875
14. https://www.johnblakemore.co.uk/collections/landscape-all-flows/products/lynch-clough-from-sequence-all-flows
15. Actually in the pre-internet days I even had a collection of simple photocopies of images that I thought important. The quality was appalling of course, but it was still a reminder of something that had had impact on me. It is so much easier now with digital collections, even if available images are often limited in resolution.
16. I once had the chance to buy a copy of The Sea Horizon by Garry Fabien Miller, with tipped in original colour prints, in a bookshop in the Charing Cross Road in London but £75 was much too much money for a book on my budget at the time. How I wish I had a copy now (apparently only 750 were produced and many of those were destroyed in a warehouse fire). To get an idea of some of the images, taken from his house near Bristol looking across the Bristol Channel, see https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/sep/12/garry-fabian-miller-sea-horizons-photographs
17. https://paul-kenny.co.uk/gallery_283322.html#photos_id=5010416
18. See https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/01/full-moon-over-mayo-paul-kenny/
19. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/447910.The_Portfolios_of_Ansel_Adams
20. See https://www.lensculture.com/articles/martin-parr-martin-parr-s-hilarious-self-portraits; https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/feb/19/the-many-faces-of-martin-parr-autoportrait-returns-in-pictures; https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/martin-parr-interview-book-death-by-selfie/
21. See David B Jenkins, Rock City Barns: A Passing Era, 1996 at
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3201274-rock-city-barns;
    https://blueridgecountry.com/newsstand/magazine/rock-city-barns-disappearing-icons-of-the-blue-ridge/
22. Susan M. Pearce, The Urge to Collect, in Susan M. Pearce (Ed.) Interpreting Objects and Collections, Routledge, pp157-159, 1994.
    This is a subject of serious academic research in psychology– see for example, Nordsletten, A.E. and Mataix-Cols, D., 2012. Hoarding versus collecting: where does pathology diverge from play?. Clinical Psychology review, 32(3), pp.165-176.
23. See The Road Not Taken article in On Landscape Issue No. 306

Défense d’entrée

After some years of wandering and photographing the mysterious Thèze valley in South West France - a valley barely 500m wide and a few kilometres less that its 26 kilometre river - a ‘Défense d’entrée’ (Do not enter) sign and barrier went up in front of an informal path which follows the river to one of my favourite late winter scenes of golden ochres, soft browns and purple-reds. At the same time, a French flag was raised above the fisherman’s cabin in view from the barrier.

This region is often now seen as idyllic for its relatively untouched landscapes of mixed woodland, rocky outcrops, rivers, extraordinary light, and the possibility to explore fairly freely. However, until the 1970s it was an area of subsistence farming; life was very hard and most of the land was used for crops: maize, wheat, vines, walnuts, vegetable gardens (and earlier hemp, unPl colonial industries replaced it).

For centuries, farmers worked small plots of land that covered the hillsides and were separated by dry stone walls, of which many ruins remain. Those who had plots in the valley that bordered the river were bound to keep their part of the river edges ‘clean’ to reduce flooding, and they farmed right up to the water edge to maximise crop yields.

The landscape would have been a very different place to photograph then as black and white photographs of the valley from the early 20th century corroborate. Farming practices and policy have a huge effect on the landscape composition.

Land as Archive

When we photograph landscapes over time, we are witness to landscape transformation, and photographs create visual archives of the land. These changes are constant, some obvious, some less so, and some intangible, as over time, we also learn about places and they become imbued with meaning, difficult to shake off. Practice builds up the personal, not just informative reading of landscape, stories give depth and our own life path figures; the camera moves more into the shadows and the light.

Interviewing neighbours, both in their 70s, who have known each other their whole lives, they tentatively talk about their fathers being deported to work farms in Germany in the second world war. “Your father too? My father too”.

The silence of this generation around the trauma of war is well known and they worked these lands with this silence and with the echo of the hidden places resistance fighters hid out.

In this cradle, we see the effects of deep time and the changes of the last couple of centuries. Geological crevices carved out from millennia-old rivers form the valley where the early trade tracks took farmers to the watermills with their grain, later replaced by a tarmacked road used by the Nazis as they murderously returned north, and we now drive to find the best photographic spots.

This road also enabled the development of an industrial size quarry in the 1930s which replaced the many small quarries that previously peppered the valley. This quarry was controversially expanded just a couple of years ago after debate in the community around job creation and environmental damage. The opening, always a large mouth of geological data, now jaggedly zig zags deeper into the hill.

Oaks, Maples, Hornbeams rise up on the hillsides

As most of the next generation have left for work elsewhere and a European directive has come in to protect waterways with a non-cultivable ‘natural filter’ on either side, trees and bushes have flourished, and new ecosystems have developed. A few areas of agriculture remain, such as a sole walnut grove, some maize for animal feed, and some small poplar plantations, which are noteworthy for their regularity, but this small, beautiful valley has never been so wooded.

Green and red Alders, Willow species serpentine along the gentle river; Dogwood and Euonymus grow in the hedgerows; Oaks, Maples, and Hornbeam rise up on the hillsides, and evergreen Oaks cling around rock faces.

As I have photographed over the years, I have become more attuned to seemingly endless diversity in form and colour. Each moment brings a different set of variables, which in turn affects compositions. A warm, long autumn means the leaves fall late and are unusually lit by the lower winter sun. A particularly beautiful January shines light on ‘bare’ silver lichen-covered trees. This year’s wet weather means summer landscapes are more lush than usual, the strong mid year sun creating radiant streams of light into woodland groves.

The river itself, which shimmers in early morning light, is difficult to photograph as the border vegetation blocks views. This beauty belies the fact that the river is no longer fed by its source as further north there are places where the bed is dry and completely covered by a tunnel of brambles and blackthorn. This may be due to plots no longer being cleared or perhaps because of a mechanical cleaning of the river bed which damaged the limestone floor.

Enormity and the minute is in every click of the shutter

A few weeks ago, I parked up by the large craggy overhanging rocks near the quarry to look West to one my favourite panoramas, an unassuming swathe of mixed woodland that gets bathed by the setting sun so as to bring forth the delicate trunks of young growth and gentle swirls of foliage. It took me a moment to realise, a ‘time-stood-still moment’ of unwilling admission, that a recently planted field of wee poplars was growing in front of the woodland.

It would be around 20 years until I could return to the vista I like to photograph, the time for the fast growing crop to mature and be cut for wood for industry. A non-amount of time and a painful amount of time for me to be cut off from the endless mystery within this area of land.

At a similar time, I went back to the ‘Defense entree’ barrier, slid past - I had made some calls and been told I could ignore it - and walked past the fisherman’s hut. The French flag was on the ground, scrunched up in the muddy grass of the wet spring we were having. The village baker said everyone in the fisherman’s association had fallen out with each other.

The river here curves and drops enough to create quite a noise of rushing water, unusual in its energised movement through and onwards. It will continue past disused mills (saw; wheat and walnut), the picturesque village football grounds, a buried medieval graveyard and fortified tower, and a site of prehistoric finds. Just a few more kilometres and it will reach the Lot river, to then be taken West to the Garonne and eventually out to the Atlantic.

As photographers, enormity and the minute is in every click of the shutter knowing the landscape is in constant flux through growth and decay, human intervention and experience.