Perfection or Excellence?

Matt Lethbridge

I have been making landscape photographs for around 8 years now and I am very passionate about what I do.I really enjoy the creative challenges brought on by working with natural light, especially in variable weather conditions. I have just started to dip my toe in the water with 35mm film photography and I an looking forward to the many challenges ahead.Flickr

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Landscape photography tends to be a solitary pursuit for many of us, myself included. We enjoy being out on the hills or down in the woodland valleys, maybe at the coast with just the whistle of the wind, the sound of the tide lapping the shore or maybe the dawn chorus to keep us company, but when we do meet up with like-minded souls, occasionally something in the ensuing conversation sparks an idea, one that makes you examine not only your photography but that of others too.

This happened to me at the beginning of the year when I happened to call in on On Landscape’s proprietors, Tim and Charlotte. Initially, I called in to talk to Tim about Large Format photography, lens choice, film stocks and metering, amongst other things. As we drank coffee in the kitchen I could not take my eyes off of a beautiful large framed print Tim had on the wall. Entitled "Red Leaves" it was to me about as perfect an image as I've seen anywhere. When I stood up and approached the picture Tim pointed out one or two little imperfections caused by the various difficulties with large format, small depth of field requiring a large amount of swing amongst others. Now I had been studying the picture for quite some time and had not noticed these little imperfections, they had to be pointed out to me. I just continued to enjoy the picture and thought no more about it.