The pretty picture
Occasionally, I’ll stop over and visit The Landscapist. Honestly, I’ve not yet found anything that peaks my interest, other than the tagline:
This blog is intended to showcase the landscape photography of photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment.
Mind you, I’m pretty sure that there are people who find no interest here in my blog, either. As for The Landscapist, from my point of view, these are mostly snapshots, running contrary to typical composition guidelines. Not bad, just different.
How do they learn to do that?!
So, what’s wrong with the pretty picture? I think that after constant exposure to the pretty image, we become desensitized to them. We seek higher and higher intensities, more and more colors, more interesting subjects, etc. Also, as this seems to be the microwave generation, where if everything is not presented within 20-30 seconds, our attention wanders.
I think that is partially why I like to step back into black & white from time to time. I just don’t find the same satisfaction with color pictures. It probably is because that is where I started and where my heart remains. There is not the competition for colors. It’s all about the subject. Sure, it requires you to actually think about the subject rather than being wowed by the colors. Also, I see no reason that it should not be pretty, or presented prettily. I don’t think that this lessens its value at all.
So, just because it is not a pretty picture, is it more valuable? Just food for thought.
I think there’s an awful lot of pretentiousness surrounding the issue of photography as art versus entertainment. It’s very difficult to see past all the “should”s that various people impose upon the medium, for their own reasons. In truth, it doesn’t have to be either, all of the time, and to consign yourself to taking only ‘pretty’ pictures, or only ‘meaningful’ ones, is just cutting off your nose to spite your face.
At the same time, you could show a photograph to someone and they might think it’s full of emotion and meaning, then someone else could dismiss that very same shot as being vapid, purely waiting room decoration material. It just highlights the (sometimes annoying) individual, and also changing relationship we have with images, both our own and those of others.
At the end of the day I suppose it always comes back to being honest with yourself. If you’re trying too hard for one or the other, I think something is going to slip out of place and it won’t give you the same satisfaction as just following your instinct.
I also visit there on occasion Paul. The writing and ideas there are interesting at times, but I don’t subscribe to the general pretentiousness that sometimes comes across in the philosophies. Not everyone wants to spend 30 minutes looking in detail at every single image to try to figure out the ‘deeper meaning.’ It is good to challenge the status quo and encourage more in-depth thought about photography, as long as it doesn’t impart more self-consciousness in the process.
I’ll leave fine art and landscape photography to those photographers who love to lug ponderous cameras and tripods around, previsualizing what they want to shoot, or waiting hours on end for the perfect light to materialize. Me, I’d rather travel light and be mobile, capturing images that life presents to me during my explorations; images that can be gone in a heartbeat. Carry a tripod, forget it!
As HCB stated, “For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously.”
John, although I still like the stability of my tripod, I’m finding that I love the spontaneity of shooting without it, whether in the street, or in the garden.
I love the second shot… beautiful moment captured!!!
But I gotto say I’m intrigued by the term “microwave generation” … Which generation comes under this category, for the photobloggers I come across range from people in mid-20′s to people touching 60′s. If you are saying that younger generation has short attention span … hmmm well J K Rowling could hold their attention for 10 whole years with her Harry Potter series… [I am not debating good-bad here]… I am just saying that 20-second attention span does not do full justice to defining younger generation ….
The term “competition for colors” seems to have a negative tone to it … I agree that in some cases it detracts from the main subject matter, but not always … We see nature in colors.. There are some Lakes that are blue, some green, some turquoise … some beaches have silver sand some golden sand … sunset-sunrise have colors from golden yellow to blue-grays … Flowers / butterflies/birds again come in myraid colors … and I like seeing them in colors…. sometimes in B-&-W image, I keep guessing what their colors….and although color photos may not be exact to what eyes sees.. but I get a better idea of how a flower/sunset/beach/lake looks like …
So monochrome, sepia or color … all have their own positive-negative… and I have seen people liking each types … and more people preferring muted tones than loud screaming colors. Most people I see, dont equal intense colors with pretty … I’ve noticed that most people have preference for muted tones, sepia or B-&-W …
All this to define that whats a “pretty picture” lies in the eyes of beholder .. so pretty or less-than pretty … or their value is all subjective terms.
so in the end I’m confused what’s the question and what I have rambled …
but second shot is AWESOME!!!!
Interesting discussion – as usual! I am rather aligned with what John says – I like to go out and capture what I see. I sometimes find myself in what I call documentary mode. I also am sometimes perplexed by what makes “fine art” photography so fine. I guess I will always be a sucker for a pretty picture.
I see your point about black and white although I think that for some of the shots, the true colors would not detract from the impact. I am studying a lot of old black and white photography from the 20′s – 50′s. There are definitely times when I wish I could see the color.
To be frank (maybe blunt): after browsing through the first pictures on the “landscapist”, I face two options (a) either I am simply not developed enough as a photographer / viewer to get the point or (b) many of those pictures are just petty excuses for landscape photos. The difference to landscape photographers that I really admire, such as Ian Cameron or Michael Reichmann couldn’t be bigger.
A landscape photo should touch the viewer in one way or another. And being pretty is (often, but of course not always) a part of that.