‘A man altered landscape’

New topographic was a term created by William Jenkins in 1975, used to describe the style of American photographers. Including photographers like Robert Williams and Lewis Baltz who all had a similar style of light contrast black and white images of landscapes with new industrial work and areas that were just nature before being built up.

What was it a reaction to?

New topographics was a reaction to the irony of idolising the beautiful landscapes, like in Ansel Adam’s work in comparison to what we see every day and how in fact everything was becoming a lot more industrial and torn away from just nature. It was a contrast to landscape photography as it was known reflecting how quickly the world was urbanising around us without us even noticing.

What is a new topographic?

To be basic it is a photo or a series of photos in black and white of urban areas. However there are smaller details within each shot that is important to the idea of new topographic, each one is in black and white historically as it allows for the simplicity of some of the shots to seem more impressive. Using low contrast often allows the images to feel hollow and empty linking the stunning landscapes being eaten away at by urban industrialisation to the simple photo. Most new topographic will commonly have some sort of nature in the image, whether it be a perfectly cut lawn or unruly mountain range, juxtaposing the rest of the image which has buildings and human involvement of some kind. Unlike Ansel Adam’s work which aimed to inspire and interest people with hints of romanticism, the new topographic movement strays away from being romantic and instead the shots tend to be bleak and foreboding with the future of America’s nature and how it was becoming more and more mundane and built up.

Ansel Adam’s Connection to New Topographics

“I don’t like to think there are ugly streets in America, but when it’s shown to you—without beautification—maybe it tells you how much more we need here.”  This was a response to ‘the Installation view, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape, 1975, George Eastman Museum’ it describes new topographics very well. As the movement pulled away from Ansel Adam’s style of big, beautiful dramatic nature scenes with a style of romanticism people started to realise that even though, America particularly, has some stunning landscapes and breath taking views that in fact that wasn’t the reality of most of the places. It was also a clear difference to Adam’s style of differentiating nature from people where as new topographics pull both nature and human/human construction into one image. “At first it’s stark nothing, but then you look at it, and it’s just about the way things are.” New topographics showed the real America and what was the reality of what many people saw every day in comparison to Adam’s work that helped people escape and almost live in the naivety that we all appreciate nature and it’s strength just because we have seen a couple of stunning photos.

Formatting New Topographics

The photos are often filled frame, common place captures. However it always has an unfamiliar look to it as a camera can capture so much in one photo that would take the human eye and brain a few minutes to register all of the same things and even then not notice things we see everyday at all as we tend to pick up important details, bright colours, loud noises etc, but in a photo we do the same first taking in the bright colours, high contrast or unusual shapes. the difference being we also see so much more as we are only looking at one scene without any other option. This is quite interesting when looking at the style of the photos, being deadpan and removing any things lie horizon lies that would make the photo more impressive than what we would see if we looked past the scene everyday. This is why a lot of the photos use harsh lighting in the middle of the day as that’s what we seen when we walk past a scene.

Typologies

Typologies are a grouping of similar photos in a grid pattern. Often used for documentary, pattern and similar subject photography, it has a distinct look to it and is a great way to display multiple shots at once. Often used in the new topographics style as it can showcase the similar architecture and built up world around us.

Hilla and Bernd Becher

Hilla and Bernd Becher were a husband and wife photography team who made the typology style what it is today. They took photos of industrial architecture but specifically industrial architecture that was disappearing over time, forgotten about. The duo first started working together in 1959 after meeting in 1957 in Kunstakademie Düsseldorf the academy of fine arts in Germany. Bernd always trained in typology and fine art and Hilla a commercial photographer, combining their efforts created the pieces of their work we know now. From travelling around Europe and North America we now have images of the the long forgotten water towers and many other what would have been essential parts of daily life no one else noticed until put in a typology by the Becher’s. This really started the mainstream use of typologies all over the world, continuing to develop over time.

What is a HDR image?

HDR stands for high dynamic range, which place in between the lightest and darkest contrasting parts of a photo. A HDR image is a final product composed of multiple shots that have used exposure bracketing to create a final product that pulls out the best colours in all of the images combined. You create a HDR image by using exposure bracketing. (as explained below)

When are HDR techniques used?

HDR is used when photographers are struggling to capture all the details and colours of a scene correctly so they use exposure bracketing, taking multiple photos using different exposure settings and then using technology to merge all the photos together making a HDR image. This creates the best result of all the shots pulled together, leaving a well saturated, balanced contrasting image.

Exposure Bracketing

Exposure bracketing is where the photographer will take multiple shots of the exact same scene altering the settings each time to get different exposures of the same image. This can also be done on the camera using settings so the camera will do it automatically. This means the photographer ether has many photos to pick from in the editing process or they can create a HDR image merge which will combine all the shots and create a best fit image for all of them.

How to Create a HDR image on Lightroom

Gather all shots in one row and selected them all using the shortcut, clicking on the first image then pressing CTRL and clicking the last image.

Once all the shots are selected you right click and select photo merge.

This option will come up before the images are fully merged allowing you to pick the amount of deghost for the final image.

It will allow you to see what and where the deghost effects as in this photo especially in each shot the waves were slightly different so if I changed through each deghost amount setting it would show the different details that changed. Once the deghost amount is selected press conform and then the image will create a HDR version.

Edit One

In this one you can see how it has increased the blue colour for the sea and brought back the clouds from being washed out but kept the rocks light enough to be seen and the details and tonal changes within them to be seen. Therefore creating an image much more similar to what I had seen when taking the photo.

Additional Editing

I felt this photo would benefit from further editing, using the adjustments tools and the brush tools, bringing out the sky and cliffs details in more depth.

Edit Two

For this edit, I started by using selecting two base images and then using the HDR photo merge.

This is my second edit, for this one I used the same process but I chose to use the high setting on the deghost as it helped produce more detail in waves and added the splash back onto the rocks. I worked out which bits the different settings of deghost changed by using the deghost over lay filter.

Final Photos

This technique was useful to learn and the exposure bracketing was a new technique I hadn’t tried before. I am very happy with the results, I was limited on the day as it was very bright and I didn’t have a lens hood, this meant a lot of my photos looked similar even when reducing/increasing the exposure. The results while being slightly unrealistic in terms of saturation it does follow the HDR style.

Edit One

For this edit I made sure to make the rocks stand out in the dark grey sea as I didn’t want the imagine to appear flat. The harsh horizon line adds depth to the image and well as contrast from dark grey of the sea to light grey of the sky. By then using the brush tool I make the pure white less luminescent and instead just pure white. This helped add more detail back into the waves.

Edit Two

For my next edit I made sure to make the rock face bold as it is the subject of the photo, the waves I kept lighter with white to reflect the zone system. By decreasing the exposure I increased the details in the waves which had been washed out by the bright light. I then again used the brush tool to add contrast to certain points of the photo adjusting the settings each time to create distinct tonal separation.

Edit Three

This shot isn’t my strongest so I chose to just use basic editing of the contrast and shadows mostly after using the Adobe monochrome auto settings to increase detail in the rock and bring back the waves details that had gotten washed out with over exposure.

Edit Four

This photo just needed the exposure reducing to get the dark sky and the highlights increasing to get the white flecks of rock to show up and contrast with the otherwise similarly coloured bracken on the left side of the photo. The editing helped the shapes and lines in the image stand out making for an interesting but natural looking photo with depth.

Edit Five

Edit Six

Edit Seven

For this edit I wanted the lighter rock to show up more. To create this I used the black and white setting and then used the adjustments tools to create the contrast I wanted before adding further depth and contrast with the brush tool.

Edit Eight

For this photo I used the Adobe monochrome and the adjustments tool. After that I then used the brush tool with a low exposure adjustment to make sure the clouds stood out and the sky wasn’t washed out creating the high contrast, dramatic photo.

Edit Nine

Best Final Photos

Edit One

For this edit I wanted to keep the green grass and the orangey tone in the background as it contrasts very well with the lighter sage coloured moss on the broken branch. I just adjusted the exposure to bring out the colours in the photo and then used the other adjustments to balance the images colouring.

Edit Two

Edit Three

Final Images

Evaluation

From this photoshoot I had three good photos, I found I liked these three photos as they all had a lot of textures and showcased the damage caused by the storm on a small woodland area. I like how all three have the same tones and colours, this was because I made a conscious effort to match the colours when editing I think this helps keep the idea that all three photos were from the same location which was important as I wanted to show how much damage had been caused in only a tiny section of the island. I don’t however think this is a very strong photoshoot as I don’t think it captured the intensity of the damage nor are the photos particularly in a romanticism style. I have redone this shoot in a different location as I did like the textures created by capturing the fallen trees as I think that does provide some context of the severity of it and creates interesting photos but I chose a location I could compose the photos differently and showed a wider expanse of land.

Plan

These are the settings I used for most of the photos. With a low iso and high f stop with a shutter speed that will capture the photos quickly enough to be in complete focus without having to compensate with the iso.

The contact sheet above contains all the photos from this particular location. I have used green to mark the best photos and yellow to mark ones with possible potential, and then red for any shots that I don’t like. Along side this I have used a start rating system to give me an idea of the best photos and the ones that have possible potential.

Edit One

I have used the adobe monochrome setting to help produce this high contrast black and white image. Inspired by Ansel Adam’s work I have increased the contrast by using a variety of adjustment settings. I wanted to create a visible difference between the tree tops and the trunks/ground with the tops of the trees being a lot lighter it has highlighted the interesting patterns and vastness of the landscape. I kept Adam’s zone theory in mind looking for the pure white and pure black and the other 9 grey colours in between.

Edit Two

Moving onto my next edit I started by changing the adjustments under the adobe monochrome settings and then moved on to using the brush tools. It took a couple of attempts to achieve the results I wanted. I started with a small brush size and and way too low exposure on the brush settings, after trying a couple of different adjustments I settled on a minimally low exposure adding depth and shadow to the highlighted areas. This stopped any harsh or visible editing lines while adding further shadow that the normal adjustments could not.

Edit Three

This I think is one of my best raw photos from this shoot. So to edit this I made sure I highlighted the best parts that were naturally lighter like the light green grass. I started by again changing the image to Adobe Monochrome and then looking to use the adjustment sliders to increase the contrast before looking at increasing things like the texture. I increased the texture to add more detail back into the image as it was a bit flat when I turned it black and white.

Edit Four

Removing the electrical box

This photo was flat and boring before as while the green and brown colours were accurate the sky was over exposed. I started by doing the same with changing it to Adobe Monochrome, and then adjusting the sliders to increase contrast. This did improve the image but it didn’t do enough so I then went onto using the brush tool again to add depth into the sky, bringing the texture and shape of the clouds back into the image.

Edit Five

Pure Black

Example of range of colours in Adam’s ‘zone theory’ I have in my photo pure black and then around colour 9 on the chart of light grey.

This is the final photo I edited for this shoot. I liked how the trees went up the hill and wanted to again repair the clouds so they were truer to real life. Repeating the same process I did with the other photos and then using the brush tool to create a deeper black in places and a softer grey. I then used the eyedropper tool to see how different I to the contrast and I manged to get pure black and close to pure white including a range of the scale of colours, in the zone system, in between.

Final Photos

Ansel Adams

A man often considered to be the father of modern landscape photography with his famous work. Being born in 1902 he grew up in California in the sand dunes amid the golden gate. As he grew older after his family being largely effected by a volcano his father helped him pursue his creative roots and ideas even when not fitting in at school with a more traditional style of education. Progress in school until he gained a ‘legitimising diploma’ and soon after spent the majority of his time outdoors hiking, climbing and observing what was on his door step. However his photography career did not begin here so much as he taught himself to read and play music quickly becoming his occupation until he gave it up for photography, not after having learnt many important lessons of planning and patience from the music. He ever strayed too far from home, with where he ‘love of nature was nurtured’ in the Golden Gate. As his love for photography progressed using the Brownie box camera his parents gave him, he joined the Sierra Club in 1919 looking after their memorial cabin located in the Yosemite Valley in which he spent four summers growing and learning while meeting fellow conservation enthusiasts. This club gave Adam’s so much of his life not only did he meet his wife during his time there but it was essential to starting his photography career, starting with his first publishing being in the clubs bulletin. As time continued to progress the clubs yearly month long trip during the summer, quickly grew in popularity with having up to 200 attendees. Adams now being on the board of directors for the club as well as now being the trip photographer/artists, he strayed further from a concert pianist and realised he could make a living off of his work. The most life changing year in Adam’s career was 1927 when he took his first ‘visualized’ photo which became what he was known for and how he created all of his work. he only grew in popularity and fame from here as his work grew and began being featured in more and more shows all the while his new techniques and talents shone through and taught so many others. Later on in his career he met Edward Weston , who himself is a hugely important and influential photographer. This pair was quickly noticed by Group f/64 who did so much for the duo presenting shows of their work together and helping Adam’s have his first solo exhibition in a museum, although this group did not last long they brought a whole new idea to ‘straight’ or ‘raw’ photography works and looking at photography as though it what the eye would see. Time went on and Adam’s was forced to do more and more commercial work but even for this he had an unusual talent for this as well but he felt it limited his creativity that the entire reason he started photography in the first place. Adam’s was revolutionary not only for his creativity but he was a master with all the technical sides of camera, he developed the ‘zone’ system that is still used and completely changed how other photographers looked at their own work and his. He was looked up to greatly in a lot of other aspects of his life, whether it being his social company or his sheer passion for the environment and preserving it.

Visualised work

Left red filter, right yellow filter

In this example he used visualising to realise the morning sun and the yellow filter didn’t fit and in fact he went back the same afternoon and used his knowledge and picturing of the area to realise he needed to use the red lens filter achieve what he saw and pictured.

A useful technique even now, nearly 100 years later, Adam’s created was the visualisation technique. Involving the practise of imagining the final outcome of a photo before it was taken. By imagining the complete outcome of a photo before it was taken allows the photographer to slow and down and get a specific result rather than a lot of mediocre shots that we are all guilty of doing with modern cameras. Adam’s referred to this as creating with ‘the minds eye’ forcing the brain to pick and focus on what you actually want to capture by using your mind to select the most important parts of a scene according to your own eye. This helps photographers frame an image and see the see the composition before taking the photo. Accuracy to the naked human eye is so important to capture the mood and atmosphere, particularly in Adam’s case the vast parks and natural scenes were imposing and bold but taken wrong they could seem flat and uninteresting. (as the example above shows) Adam’s felt that photography was not all too different form the composition on a musical score, ‘where if the photograph was created just right, the final print should serve as a grand performance of the feeling behind his subject.’ Personal emotional response to the scene you were photographing was essential to creating an accurate, good photo. However he did feel that he often failed to convey the same impact the environment had on him in his photos, even with his photos being as impressive as they are with grand, imposing landscape filled with inspiration and romanticism.

How to use visualisation

-Pick the most impressive subject in your frame

-Choose what you put in the frame, what will look most impressive?

-What do you want to create?

-Consider lines and shadows, how do they meet?

-Look at angles, how can you compose the best photo that all the angles complement each other?

-Work with the light, where do you want the shadows and highlights?

-Consider the shapes the scene naturally creates, what grabs the viewers attention the best?

Zone system

The zone system was created by both Adam’s and a fellow colleague. This was a major breaking point in his career, as his work before hand was not what he actually wanted to create. Along with his visualisation technique this created his best work. The first example of this was the Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California image (as pictured above) taken in 1927 this quickly became Adam’s most famous piece of photography at the time and from then on he always used the two techniques. The idea of the zone system is to divide the photo into 11 different areas or ‘zones’ one for each section of the colour scale he created 9 grey tones and pure black and pure white which is rarely seen in landscape photography leaving the 9 different greys to use. This developed into Adam’s basic rule of develop for the highlights, expose for the shadows. This helped him create his dramatic works with bold dark grey completely contrasting the stark white and light greys. While his zone system doesn’t fit modern day photography and cameras perfectly the basic principles of it are still very useful, teaching, improving our photography a great deal. However Adam’s base rule of, expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights, with modern day cameras and technology is the opposite we need to make sure we aren’t over exposing images and instead it is much better to under expose an image as then it is still recoverable. Similarly to how an over exposed image on film was better recovered than an under exposed one.

Image Analysis

Although I have previously mentioned this photo in this post, it still remains my favourite of Adam’s work. Essential to Adam’s development as the photographer we know him as now this was his first photo using his both visualising and the zone system. By combining the two techniques he has created this dramatic, foreboding photo that simply takes peoples breath away and is a large part of the sublime in romanticism. This particular version of the photo was taken using the afternoon sun and a red lens filter after failing to capture what Adam’s pictured when he saw the scene as earlier that day. The stark contrast makes this photo interesting to the viewer, from colour 11 pure black (on Adam’s zone scale) to colour 1 pure white this photo has it all. The sheer face of the Half Dome paired with the sloping landscapes creates this feeling of adrenaline and admiration for the scene that is the Yosemite Park. Interestingly enough at the time Adam’s hadn’t yet defined the zone system and this was the photo that became the image that helped him name his techniques of photographing from feeling.

The photo starts with having ‘pure black’ in the top left corner with a small fade into lighter grey form the light hitting the rock face of which some details within that are obscured by the deep colour. As the photo continues downwards the juts and rough texture of the rock face become more apparent as the colour lightens up into a soft grey. Just below the rock face the ground is coated in ‘pure white’ with a smattering of dark grey shapes form the trees poking through the snow. The actual rock face itself has two parts the majority of the large part takes up most of the frame having a gradient of colour from ‘pure black’ to soft grey as the photo continues downwards. Curving at the top contrasting the dark colours with a soft line the rock gets rougher and shaper as the gradient lightens downwards. In the bottom right corner of the frame there is a smaller rock face breaking up what could have otherwise appeared a flat image. This smaller rock face is a lot lighter in colour even having some ‘pure white’ blending nicely with the background coated in snow.

This particular image was special for Adam’s as not only did it make the photographer we know now, help create his two world known techniques but it also was used by the Sierra Club to campaign for the environmental movement and the protection of the Yosemite National Park. Of which was incredibly special for Adam’s having created his life and career in the particular park. I think the image the love Adam’s had for the park incredibly well but also the respect he had for it, the vastness of of nature and absolute power nature has over people. Similarly to the romanticism movement and the sublime, Adam’s captured the power and force of nature itself, simply how small we are in comparison.

For this genre I’m going to start by looking at the damage storm Ciaran caused to Jersey’s landscapes. This heavily links to a Romanics idea of the sublime. The idea that man could be so easily over powered by nature.

Manmade Structures Damage

The storm started as what would be a normal winter storm in Jersey, however as it got closer it was quickly realised that in fact maybe it would be the worst the island had faced since the storm in 1987. As pressure and unknown built up people prepared for what could be a bad storm. However it was quickly realised that in fact, this was an awful storm that later was upgraded to a tornado as winds hit around 100mph tearing through the unprepared island. While this was November 1st the lasting effects are serious, peoples houses got destroyed with roofs being ripped off, cars ending up at the other end of driveway, hail stones the size of golf balls. Many buildings, including schools were closed for weeks after and even now don’t have full access and won’t for some months repairing and restoring the property. However on top of the manmade structures that suffered damage sadly it is estimated over 20,000 trees were destroyed during the storm from new whips, to trees with hundreds of years of life.

Natural Landscapes

Within a small island it is important having an ever growing population, that we look after the natural environment around us. By protecting trees and wildlife we keep essential resources in keeping CO2 levels lower and keeping a good environment. Sadly during the storm we lost approximately 20,000 trees, many of which are still left where they fell. This not only effected the natural environment but had a hand in forcing school closures as many roads were blocked completely. This also effected the much loved footpaths all around the island some of which have only recently been reopened, still damaged but useable now.

Photoshoot Plan

The Hay wain is by far John Constable’s most famous and well loved painting. Originating from one of his summer series of paintings, it is now displayed in the National Gallery in London. Picturing a rural scene in between Essex and Suffolk, on the river Stour which boarders Essex and Suffolk, essentially separating the two. The scene shown could have easily been created from imagination, however it is known that in fact the house on the left is a neighbours house as the Constable’s fathers’ house was just out of the frame, which was on the banks of the River Stour. Willy Lott was the neighbour and was a tenant farmer, more than likely the one pictured in the painting. The horse and cart were used as transport and for farm work, but in the heat of summer it was common for the horse and cart to be led into the river for the horse to drink and for the iron on the cart wheels to cool down after spending all day in the summer heat. Interestingly enough, Willy Lott’s cottage still stands undamaged today but none of the trees in the photo exist in modern day, which links perfectly with what romanticists were trying to ‘warn’ people about in their love and need for nature over urbanisation. This is greatly linked to the romantic movement as it was the beautification of nature and seen as the ideal. However this is not likely true with the farmer likely working dawn till dusk. This brings it back to the point that the entire Romantic movement was predominantly originated by those of a higher class and with easier lives fantasying about the ‘simple, happy country life’ believing people who were poor, were happier even though they had significantly less money, time and freedom. He was revolutionary in many different ways for example, he was one of the first people to paint trees green as previously landscapes were done by people living in the centre of the industrial revolution with smoke and smog instead of green trees they just reflected colours they saw everyday. He did this by not only having his won memories of the landscape but he also got people to send quick sketches of parts of the scenery as he was working from his own sketches and memories. He went against the time period even more by instead of being detail originated which was what was deemed as correct for the time, with some amazing artists painting each individual leaf etc, Constable used expressive brush strokes and close to mark making techniques to create this painting in a very short space of time. The brush marks instead of precise detail show the passion and emotion put into the work, like a flurry of homely colours and patterns appealing on the page rather than a more documentative art style. Constable even put the workers in the background to further how the beautiful the place, again contrasting the time but fitting in the romantic idea with most farm workers being drawn to the bigger cities and being replaced with machines instead. Having originally studied weather and Meteorology clouds were a large part of Constable’s work, in this one particularly with it’s name actually being ‘Noon’ (rather than ‘Hay Wain’ as we have come to know it) links to the romantics movement with the dramatic and important weather changes. However it is also great for the modern day historian’s as with his background and the painting name, Constable was more than likely and reflected throughout his work the clouds and weather gave an accurate idea of what time and season the painting depicted.

Romanticism

Romanticism was an era in which people started to appreciate nature and revolt against the urbanisation of the world around them. While in literature the time frame differs slightly, in art the romanticism era began in the late 18th century/early 19th century this was around the time that the industrial revolution was changing the natural world and country side people were used to. Along with this the introduction of scientific explanations and research of nature started to appear. This added to the start of the romanticism era as people, Like Edmund Burke, who wanted people to still be in awe of nature while still being scared and afraid at the sheer vastness of it. This was a similar feeling to a modern day adrenaline junky. As the era continued to develop and appear it was also used to revolt against social norms at the time with it being the age of enlightenment, which is to favour reason and scientific reason instead of blind faith and superstition which came from religious backgrounds and held the power of nature in high regard. Freedom was created within this era as it allowed people to express their love for things (nature) with no reason again breaking the progressive movements into the world around them, giving people an escape from modern realities. This is still common now- people using nature as a means of escape and a break from the ever developing world. Typically in older works of this era it also depicted women normally in the middle of a battle field, waving flags or looking mis places this was that start of the idea of things being out of place in such a terrifying place that in fact beauty is domineering in the environment.

Characteristics of Romanticism

The main traits seen in romanticism work, whether it be photography or art, are that they show things against all reason, like a unbelievable storm with people just standing watching it, tiny in comparison. The work tries to produce a strong emotional reactional over anything rational and reason based. To create this the producers of the work use dramatic imagery, in art particularly it was large storms, where as in photography it can be similar things (imposing weather conditions) but it can also be sheer cliff faces, the vast expanse of fields anything that is imposing and dramatic causing awe in the viewer and slight fear rather than immediately jumping to reason the work. The work askes people to search for the subjective truth which is opinion based than than logical reasoning, this celebrates the individual rather than rewarding following and industrialisation.

The Sublime

The sublime is a very subjective and personal idea for each person. Often used to describe food when food is amazing. However for the romantic movement ‘sublime’ means an array of things from terror, fear and danger to soft, beautiful and powerful which actually falls into both definitions.

The Sublime in Romanticism

To differ the most common idea of ‘sublime’ as for a romantic, sublime can be used when nature over powers man. When man in puny in comparison to the strength and size of the nature, an example being big storms. This was common in older landscape paintings, if there was a person, people in the painting they tended to be tiny in comparison to the nature around them. This has carried on throughout history to modern day, where people in the face of nature are common, dramatic photos.

Edmund Burke

Burke’s prominent work was in the late 18th century just as the French revolution began and places became more urbanised. While this was happening it was also the age of enlightenment where people tried to explain everything, however Burke wanted to just prove you can like nature just because of its emotional impact, saying that Burke went onto become incredibly important to the sublime in Romanticism.

Burke an Anglo-Irish statesman who was also a philosopher. Spending most of his career in the UK, while born in Dublin and spending most of his career in the UK he was an MP between 1766 and 1794. He published multiple books one being, Reflections and revolution in France in which he became the modern founder of conservatism in 1790 in which he showed his mistrust in the rationalism of French Revolutionaries. After and during his time as an MP he criticised the British Government for its treatment towards Americans as well as wanting to express the importance of manners and religious institutions for ones own soul and morality. He is often linked to the sublime and romanticism because he produced the book ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’ in 1757 which was the base for the English romanticism movement as it was a description of the sublime and what counts almost like rules and regulations for the sublime in romanticism. This gave English romantics a reason and proof of their movement. As Burke’s career continued he stayed as a modern empiricist philosopher, which is when people believe our knowledge of the world has come from sensory experiences, completely contrasting the idea of rationalists thoughts. Burke chose to, as common among empiricists, use scientific method to explain different uses of our passion and used he evidence form his science experiments and studies to explain the power of the sublime.

Burke’s Thoughts on the Sublime

Burke thought the idea of pain was much more powerful than those of pleasure, and that in fact the strongest pain of all (terror) was the fear of death. Saying this the sublime isn’t entirely our ‘bad’ emotions so much as anything that ‘overwhelms our faculty of reason’ making us incapable of thinking rationally. This meant he concluded the sublime was our biggest and strongest passion. Interestingly enough Burke believed that painting was inferior to poetry as he though painting tried to harness a huge idea into a clear representation but he thinks they always fail.

Edmund Burke and the Sublime

Introduction to Landscape Photography

Landscape photography the word itself comes from the Dutch word landschap, which originally meant “region, tract of land. Now a very popular genre with many different variations but it has not always been this way. In fact during the earlier time periods it was one of the lowest ranked art forms (before it became a photography genre). However as time went on into the 19th and 20th century and as the industrial revolution progressed the up and coming genre developed into the genre we know today, as people wanted to document the land before it got changed and built up.

What is Landscape Photography?

Landscape photography is a documentation of the natural world around us. Landscape photography is capturing an image that embodies the spirit of the outdoors. It carries a sense of being there to see something incredible. It’s a genre you cannot limit the definition of that the entire point is to capture something beyond limits.

Landscape Photographers

David Noton – A travel and landscape photographer having grown up in different countries and now travels full time photographing all over the world while publishing the f11 photography magazine.

Ansel Adams – A photographer who started out in one special place, now featured in a lot of his work the National parks in America. He was the first major landscape photographer pioneer, leading and inspiring photographers of his generation and ours.

Galen Rowell – Colours are a huge part of his stunning work, Galen actually took up photography to document his climbing escapades. This led to him coining the term participating photography which, means the photo is defined by the athletic ability of the photographer.

16th Century – Albrecht Altdorfer

Altdorfer was a prolific printmaker, but he produced only nine landscape etchings, which date from about 1518 to 1522. These prints were the first ones to celebrate the landscape alone without having a religious or narrative background. This particular one is of the Alpine Vista and the mountains around it. Probably produced for a niche buyer looking for something unusual for the time. This was created in the Renaissance, in which the ideas of humanism, naturalism occurred with creating many ideas still influential in our modern day work.

17th century – Nicolas Poussin

During the 17th Century, we saw the rise of Classical Landscape art. These landscapes were influenced by classical antiquity and sought to illustrate an ideal landscape recalling Arcadia, a legendary place in ancient Greece known for its quiet pastoral beauty. The classical landscape was perfected by French artists Nicolas Poussin. Poussin, who in his early years focused his talent on history painting, came to believe that landscapes could express the same powerful emotions as the human dramas depicted in history paintings. From that point on, he worked to elevate landscape to a higher status.

18th Century – Pierre Henri de Valenciennes

Through both his artistic practice and his theoretical writing Valenciennes holds a position of considerable importance in the history of landscape painting of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. By painting oil sketches from nature out-of-doors. This working method became a cornerstone of landscape painting in the nineteenth century, he also taught this method to his own students, believing it was the best way to learn how to use paint.

Romanticism period- emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past and nature, preferring the medieval over the classical.

19th Century – Theodore Rousseau

Theodore Rousseau was a French painter made famous for his unique landscape works and how it developed the art and photography world. He ran the Barbizon school of landscape painters, after discovering his love of nature and becoming one of the first painters to go into nature directly to paint it. At the time his work was considered unfinished but instead he wanted to keep the paintings this way, a direct observation of nature, this later helped create the landscape movement. His work used the use of natural lighting (within the painting) to highlight different elements in nature.

20th century – Ansel Adams

Adams work was the next biggest development in landscape photography, his work forced the development into the modern day style. Swaying away from painting and too using a camera to capture high contrast black and white images perfectly accurate to nature and real life. Most of is work including the above captures the Yosemite national park, a place Adams was passionate about and campaigned through his work about looking after throughout his life.

Modern Day – 21st Century

Into modern day with the introduction of social media and high quality phone cameras landscape photography has greatly changed and become largely more common. The bonus of this is there is many different and new types of landscape photography, from documentary to creating art like work for presenting. However we have never strayed too far from using photography to document the beauty we see in nature and while there are many different styles now and many different techniques to use it all comes down to a well composed, balanced image.