FYI

There is some important info about me and The Landscapist in an update on urban ku # 141. You might want to check it out.

Comments

[Martin Doonan]

Good words, I think. When I first starting dropping by some months ago I found The Landscapist difficult/challenging. Over time it has stimulated my thought, now I real feel connected to what you are trying to do. This blog, more than any other place i think, has made me think about the "what" of my photography. Many others have me think on the "how" but none come close to your site for thoughts on content.

[Eric Fredine]

I think anyone who looks at a lot of photography will recognize recurring patterns. All genres (and I'm thinking of genre in a very broad and inclusive sense here) have a tendency to regress to certain patterns.

I've concluded that most photographers (myself included far too often) tend to want to explicitly achieve too much. We all try too hard to represent grand, universal themes. (Natural beauty! Suburban alienation! Environmental destruction!) We overthink it. We end up adopting (often without even knowing we're doing it) tired, but easily recognized tropes.

Better to simply focus on trying to portray an authentic response to something we understand. Something we have a personal relationship with. And perversely enough, if you do this well you'll actually do a better job of truly illuminating something more universal.

Cheers,
Eric

[aaron]

quoting eric -
"Something we have a personal relationship with. And perversely enough, if you do this well you'll actually do a better job of truly illuminating something more universal."

I love that whole paragraph. I sometimes stray from my work and think too much about telling the world something, when really my work with coming to understand my past, and myself. Basically setting scenes with myself, who I have a personal realationship with. Whenever I overthink a shoot, I don't love the results. But if I just walk on a scene and "feel it", I end up with something satisfying as well as appealing.

well said eric.

[aaron]

I was thinking faster than I was typing... this should've read:

when really my work began with me coming to understand my past, and myself.

[Eric Fredine]

I know what you mean Aaron.

All my 'worthy' photographs are always the result of a pure, honest, instictual response to something that has some meaning to me.

Interestingly enough I was thinking that what makes your photographs work is that connection to you. A 'set-up' photograph can be just as authentic as a 'found scene' provided it has an honest relationship with some instinctual feeling.

For me there are at least two barriers to realizing these instinctive responses. The first is that we all walk around with a vast number of templates of imagery that define 'good' photographs. We end up making photographs that imitate the forms of these photographs (or photographers) that we admire. But they are really someone else's photograph.

But the other barrier is immitating the form of our own photographs. I've often found myself guilty of trying to replicate past successes (as defined by me) -- rather than responding to and photographing what's there in front of me (and my honest response to it). This is more subtle, more insidious and even harder to root out!

Thanks,
Eric

[Matt]

Great words on that updated post. Sometimes I totally disagree with what you say here..but everything that you say makes me think and haunts my mind when I am out shooting. I consider that a good thing if for no other reason than it kicks that thinking process into great. I wouldn't say that your words have changed my process, but I would say that your words have sparked a long running internal discussion that has totally changed my view.

Eric.. I couldn't agree with you anymore..you said it perfectly. What you said is going up on the board next to desk as things to remember.