Joel Truckenbrod ~ Dusk, Cascade River, Minnesota

In response to Ana's comment: From what I've seen of art-school culture over the past few months, I think there absolutely is an almost superstitious fear of formal beauty. It's a very interesting experience (in a tear-my-hair-out sort of way) to have gone from the NPN-like culture where my photography is considered to be quite ugly to the art-school culture where I'm constantly being beaten up for my love of formal beauty. Both of these extremes seem somewhat pathological. -

Having recently graduated from art-school myself (BFA in painting), I found myself having flashbacks to some of the very same issues. Specifically, the notion of formal beauty was a big "no-no". When pressed, my post-modernist professors would submit that there was nothing wrong with formal beauty (as it is different from "pretty")...But, virtually any work that went down this forbidden road was dismissed - unless something was done in the work that would directly challenge, diminish or (preferably) poke fun at the "beautiful" leanings of the piece. My conclusion was that formal beauty was perceived as a threat and was viewed as part of the visual lexicon of "lower" means of artistic expression. Of course, the irony to the whole situation was that the more I was told how formal beauty was boring, uninspired, cliche, often kitsch, etc...the more intrigued I became with it. Though I my paintings didn't really attempt to confront this "issue" (I actually wanted to graduate), I found photography and began to approach the camera as a way to come to terms with some of these questions that I had. I did this on my own time and of my own ambition, which is probably why it has taken a hold of me more than painting ever did - and why I spend all of my time with my camera rather than my paintbrushes these days. After photographing now for almost a couple of years (and also being outside of the school environment), I feel like I'm beginning to find myself in my photography. That's not to say my many questions have been answered. In fact, more have probably arisen, which is something I welcome. They are of my own choosing though, which seems very important. At some point, the choice must be made to pursue those things that internally trigger us, things that we know hold "truth" - even if various groups and cultural/artistic viewpoints tell us no. Even though my professors would probably be appalled with my change of directions, I have never been more engaged with my artwork than I am now.

urban ku # 8 and a mini-commentary for your consideration

Near Au Sable Chasm on Rt 9 (motel row) in Keesville, NY.

the commentary - After just over a month of blogging presence, it seems that The Landscapist has struck a chord with a growing audience of photographers (primarily) who are interested in landscape photography that has moved beyond the entertaining pretty picture. It's reassuring to know that I am not a lone voice wailing in the wilderness - the interesting comments and mini-commentaries from participants is lending a rich and hoped-for components to the blog. Thanks very much> It gives me the energy to carry this thing on.

As far as I can tell, there is an consensus of sorts emerging around a few salient points:

1. Beauty - other than it's not "pretty", is it "good" or "bad"? Is it something to be sought or avoided? As, Cory Freeman wrote. "I seem to be struggling lately with not wanting to take a picture of something that might be regarded as just a pretty picture. I would like to make an image that expresses more than that."

2. How do you do it? - not technique-ly wise, but rather, as has been asked, "How do you photograph an emotion"? or, more specifically, as Brian wrote. "Maybe we should talk about what it means to have talent in photography(pub's emphasis)...Is it the ability to see scenes in a certain way? Is it the innate ability to "feel" whether a particular composition works or not? Is it the ability to turn the emotion felt in to an emotional image? ???"

3. "talent in photography" - When discussing photography as an art, there is very often, IMO, the erroneous tendency to lump photography into a generic one-word-catch-all of "art". Photography certainly shares some basic similarities with other arts but photography differs dramatically from them in its unique relationship to the "real". I believe this warrants considerable contemplation when discussing items #1 and #2.

Good topics.

Now it seems to me that if you are hanging out around The Landscapist (or other similarly inclined blogs) and pondering these ideas, you are, at the least, on the road to arriving at some recognition - I am not certain that anyone ever arrives at the "answers", which, IMO, is an important part of the process - within yourself of the answers you need to find (or at least pursue) in order to move along your path to more meaning-full photography.

I hope that these topics - but not limited to - are explored more fully by an ever-expanding number of voices here on The Landscapist.

Tidbits

I hope that photography (with its power to portray the real world) can start to move toward understanding, appreciating, and portraying the common wonders of the world, rather than just the special wonders of the world.

and,

It has come to the point that landscape photography seems to exist in a world of perpetual sinrises and sunsets, as though the ordinary experience of living does not in and of itself constitute a remarkable experience.

both quotes - John Paul Caponigro

FEATURED COMMENT: Ian wrote: "I think the sentiments also apply to life in general, the tendency to go through life without really experiencing or appreciating the continuous moments of living, instead focusing on the highlights, the 'sunrises' and 'sunsets' of experience, and trying to forget the lowlights.

publisher's comment - d'accord...

If the publisher chose to be self-serving, he could also include that Ian also wrote, "I think this is one of the reasons that I find your ku's so compelling. To me they capture the experience of being in the moment, that is, they capture what I experience when I am fully appreciating and understanding the landscape that I am at a particular moment part of."

ku # 442 and a commentary for your consideration

Judging by the number of times I have photographed this erratic, it might be said that I have raised it, in my eyes and imagination, to the status of a fetish object.

the commentary (its realtionship to the above photograph is optional) - In a response to my commentary, which stated in part, Many landscape/nature photographers seem to be very focused on a notion of "beauty" which very often becomes little more than another trite example of "pretty picture". Paul Butzi wrote,

"...The trap of falling into triteness lies waiting for us everywhere. Do you have some reason to think that 'pretty' is a bigger trap than 'ugly' or 'poverty' or 'social injustice'? Judging from the work I've seen lately, the bigger trap is that often people are AFRAID to make photographs which show beauty."

my answer - While every photo genre has its trite and cliche-ridden traps, I certainly believe that the landscape/nature genre is overwhelmingly prone to the easy and culturally popular lure of "pretty". If you have any doubt, visit any one of several online nature photography photo forums and witness the neverending parade of repetitious and hopelessly sentimental photographs. These serious-minded amateurs are drawn, like moths to a flame, to a narrow range of motifs and pictorial techniques that when visited and applied over and over again "...knocks the life out of any ideas to which it is applied..." (The Art Spirit - Robert Henri). I would addend this notion to read, sucks the beauty out of any ideas to which it is applied. Beauty, which is most often complex in nature, is trivialized and reduced to the simple and easily digested state of "pretty".

To be clear, let me explain that I believe there is a vast difference between "pretty-ness" and "beauty". To my eye and sensibility, "pretty" is the obvious which sits on the surface of things while "beauty" goes much deeper than the obvious and the surface. True beauty does not reside in the merely pretty.

To my eye and sensibility, beauty is a complex and rich mixture of the real, the hidden (or not so obvious), and the imagined. In the medium of photography with its formal characteristic of connection to the referent (the object of its gaze), I believe beauty is discovered and found, not "made". IMO, the best photography is that created by the keen observer and witness to the "real". Photographers who do not rely on technique but rather on a finely honed (practiced) sense of observation of a referent to which they are passionately and obssessively drawn.

It is these photographers who, no matter how their referent is culturally classified - ugly, mundane, beautiful, pretty, etc. - create photographs of great "beauty".

As far the notion of photographers who "are AFRAID to make photographs which show beauty", I would venture the opinion that perhaps they are really afraid of making photographs which might be judged to be merely "pretty" - a self-regulating temperance that I judge to be a worthy one in the cause of curbing the sentimental excesses of mainstream landscape/nature photography. However, it would be a shame if this "fear" inhibited the photographic exploration of things "beautiful".

FEATURED COMMENT: Ana wrote: "From what I've seen of art-school culture over the past few months, I think there absolutely is an almost superstitious fear of formal beauty. It's a very interesting experience (in a tear-my-hair-out sort of way) to have gone from the NPN-like culture where my photography is considered to be quite ugly to the art-school culture where I'm constantly being beaten up for my love of formal beauty. Both of these extremes seem somewhat pathological.

publisher's comment - d'accord...

Joseph Kayne

This photograph showed up unexpectedly last night in an email with no text other than "Attached is a recent photograph that I made this past October. Enjoy."

I know of Joseph as a photographer of rural America, expecially of barns and barn art - subjects that are normally fodder for bw photography, not color.

Enjoy.

FEATURED COMMENT: David Pamer wrote: "What really makes this photograph work for me is the dog. Especially the fact that, in silhouette he (she?) appears no more real than the horses. A silhouette looking at silhouettes.

publisher's comment - d'accord...(I seem to have something stuck in my throat...)

"urban" ku # 9

Another roadside attraction in Keeseville, NY.

Heading south just past Au Sable Chasm - the so-called "Oldest Natural Wonder In the USA" - there is a 2-3 mile stretch of highway with wall-to-wall faded remnants of a past tourism heyday. Since 1870, more than 10,000,000 visitors have come to the chasm which was intially billed as "The Little Grand Canyon of the East".

The chasm itself is literally a walk through early post Pleistocene geological history, but a walk or drive down the aforementioned stretch of Rt. 9 is trip through the last major tourism rush era - the 1950s. Especially prominent are a host of 50s-era motels, most still in operation, most every so gently time-worn. I have started to photograph this strip of highway as part of my ongoing project to photograph the Adirondacks in all of its many guises.

What I am working to capture is the "place-that-time-forgot/bypassed" look and feel of most of the peopled-parts of the Adirondacks. Tourism in the Adirondacks - a so-called rubber-tire destination - took a major hit in the late 50s as Americans took to the expanding interstates, all of which bypassed the Adirondacks. With the exception of the village of Lake Placid which experienced a brief period of 1980 Olympic's development, virtually all tourism related development came to a complete stop. Many of the grand old lodges closed and were eventually torn down.

Somehow though, most of the small family-run motels managed to survive to this day in one fashion or another. Today, the result is a virtual living museum of 50's-era cultural set pieces spread out through out the Adirondack Park - the largest wilderness in the east, an area larger than the state of Vermont.

David Chauvin from way down south

While wading in the thigh deep soup, I ran across this spent lilypad and seed pod. In years past, the seeds were collected, roasted and eaten.The water level had dropped leaving the pad high and dry above the hyacinths and hitchhikers.

Tidbit

I love this one.

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. - Susan Sontag