sponsored by ..
Over the last week, I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking through a range of history of art books and various museum websites trying to get a general idea of the historic development of artistic style, particularly landscape representations, to illustrate some of the ideas we talked about in this issues composition podcast by myself, Joe Cornish and David Ward. There are some amazing examples included, non more so in my opinion than the House of the Golden Bracelet painting from Pompeii (high res image in the article). What was most revealing was that, unless you really look for paintings with strong landscape elements, you’d think that humans only really discovered a love for the landscape post-renaissance, but what we’re seeing is the history of art filtered through collectors, curators, etc. In fact, it’s the history of art through a capitalist lens as well. A painting would be a huge investment in time and definitely money as some pigments were worth more than gold. Given this, unless you could sell the final result (or afford to have it commissioned) then it might only exist as uncollectable sketches. I have a feeling that many artists included beautiful landscape scenes in the backgrounds of pictures of important paintings because they just wanted to paint them. I may be wrong, but some of the effort put into the areas of no real relevance to the subject of the painting might just make sense given this context. Whatever the case, it’s been fascinating to dig into and I’m really looking forward to sharing more with you in future instalments.
Tim Parkin
Issue 215 PDF
Click here to download issue 215 (high quality, 130Mb) Click here to download issue 215 (smaller download, 85Mb) more
End frame: Black Lightning by Peter Jarver
I’d never seen storm images like that before, and I wanted to learn how. It took years of time, many disappointments, a few cameras, and a lot of getting wet, to develop an approach that works most of the time. more
History of Art and Landscape – Part One
One of the key aspects of landscape photography has got to be composition. Given our subject matter rarely has a strong internal narrative and the subject rarely has intrinsic emotional value, our arrangement of content within the frame and its emphasis, lighting, etc. are the main thing we have to work with. more
Subscribers 4×4 Portfolios
This issue our 4x4 landscape photography portfolio features are from subscribers: Charles Nyst, Graeme Fielden, John Richardson & Judith Kelly. more
Portrait of a Photographer – Cecil Whitt
Cecil and his work exemplify the mysteries of the desert Southwest and conjure up a wide variety of emotions and ideas including solitude, surprise, serenity, rugged individualism, grit, determination, exploration, and optimism. more
Shoreline
Whether I am photographing at sea or onshore I am always looking for compositions which are defined by unique and often elusive combinations of light, tide, atmosphere and transient weather conditions. more
On Staying Inspired
Even in my darkest and most anxious times, whether prompted by world events or by abnormal brain activity. I go out, even if it takes some effort, and I make whatever I’m experiencing. more
Jack Lowe
Jack embarked on a new adventure, and project called The Lifeboat Station Project. What started as an ambition to photograph the view from each lifeboat station around the UK’s coastline became a homage to the volunteers of The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). more
The Sublimity of Toxic Beauty
As I then read up about the Terminal Mirage 2, 2003, I discovered that I was looking at an aerial photograph of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. more