At 13:03 3/24/02, Winsor Crosby wrote:
I would very mildly disagree in that the landscape is the last
layer for everything. For it to be a landscape it has to be the
subject, not the background. Anything in the landscape becomes a
picture of the thing. A fence or a barn in the landscape is a
picture of a fence or a barn unless it is so small as to be
inconsequential, or just an accent in the picture. But we can
decide to be as loose as we want in our submissions as a group.
And who says that a landscape has to be "nice and scenic"? Isn't
that like not taking pictures of people because they do not look
like professional models who seem to represent the usual notions of
physical beauty?
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
I mildly disagree with the size aspect, and an absolute
interpretation that "Anything in the landscape becomes a picture of
the thing." It depends on how the "thing" is *used* as an object in
the image. Perhaps this is what you meant by "accent" but it need
not be distant background or insignificantly tiny. A landscape is
about the environs in which the photograph is made. Environs
interact with various static (non-living) and dynamic (living)
things (or vice-versa depending on frame of reference). It need not
be purely representational as in a "traditional" Calendar
Photograph, but can easily be impressionistic or abstract, and it
can legitimately celebrate a relationship between the environs with
man-made structures or living things, including humans, that happen
to be there and tell a story about that relationship. Certainly
size can become so extreme the photograph is clearly a picture of
the "thing" because it overwhelms the environment in which it
exists, but that is an extreme.
"What" a photograph is spans a continuum. A boundary line
separating "categories" if one wishes to have a taxonomy of them is,
by necessity, arbitrary. Ask 50 people where the boundaries are and
you will likely get 50 different, arbitrary, answers. Thus you have
my thoughts about it and they are admittedly just as arbitrary.
-- John
And, of course, talking about art or photography is just as
inadequate, though interesting, as talking about music.
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
?
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|