It is likely that everyone reading this article derives some joy from photographic images of the natural landscape and from the practice of photography. If my decidedly un-scientific observations are any indication, it’s also likely that most of you have found your way to this genre of photography through the appreciation of natural beauty that is inherent in most humans. It’s no wonder that most of us intuitively and emotionally respond to natural scenes and phenomena. After all, we are the product of four billion years of evolution, throughout most of which our ancestors relied on instinct alone to tell good from bad, pleasure from pain and safe from dangerous. In time, imagination and creativity served to provide us with the solutions to progressively more complex problems, allowing humanity to rise to a degree of intelligence, prosperity and dominion unprecedented in Earth’s history. Visuals once found conducive to survival became the foundation for our sense of aesthetics; scenes once associated with awe, challenge and opportunity were incorporated into our perceptions of beauty, adventure and spirituality; and the ability to effectively and visually communicate our thoughts and inspiration to others set the stage for our arts.
Photography and the Creative Life
21 Responses
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Joe Rainbow
As Mr Ward says, photography is very much a justifiable art form, the equal of any other. The idea of presenting a personal and meaningful image is the ultimate goal. It felt all to familiar reading your article, following a love of the outdoors to capture it, and then developing into repetition, followed by a sense of revelation and ‘freedom’ of expression.
Life as Art has many essays and books written on it, and also resonates here. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article, and looking through a number of images on your website and in this presentation.
Any Art forms that involve a balance between creativity and craft seem to struggle financially. Pottery, printmaking, glassware, textiles and photography to name but a few, all enter a different financial category to the so called ‘pure’ art forms of Sculpture, Drawing and Painting. There is a sense with the general public I feel, that owning equipment that is necessary in the production of an Art form somehow devalues it. A real shame, as we surely all agree that certain images can be life changing, altering our perception of the world around us and within us.
Thanks for your heart felt and inspirational words.On December 12, 2011 at 5:42 pm • Reply -
Joe Cornish
Just like to add my thanks and appreciation of a fantastic, inspiring and beautifully-written article. Photography can be a confusing career/life/hobby choice at times, being so overwhelmed in the popular view by association with all things mechanical (apologies for paraphrasing Professor Ward!). Courage is needed to pursue photography as an artist (regardless of the argument of whether or not it is an art) and confidence to do so publicly. So thanks Guy for a courageous and confident piece of writing.
JoeOn December 13, 2011 at 1:05 am • Reply -
Thank you Guy for an inspiring and impassioned article. The satisfaction I gain personally from persuing art within the landscape is something which I have struggled to put into words at times, but your clear, thoughtful description is both satisfying and accessible.
It reminds me of the words of the English poet Ted Hughes “Civilisation is relatively new to us so we need to immerse ourselves in the primevil at times” (I paraphrase). I wonder how given this deep need for a connection to the wild that the accepted response became the pretty picture. That is far removed from my experience and memories, we are deeper and more complex in our relationship with the landscape than that.
As for the artistic response that the land engenders within, I can no longer help myself, it has become deeply personal and profoundly satisfying. I no longer struggle with ideas or inspirations its already there, we just have to know where to look – within more than with out.
On December 13, 2011 at 1:48 am • Reply -
Thank you, Guy, for a thought-provoking and beautifully-written article, one of the very best that I have read on Great British Landscapes.
On December 13, 2011 at 10:24 am • Reply -
Thank you so much for these wonderful comments! They are both humbling and encouraging to me.
In one way or another, art is often a response to the currents of its day. As David mentioned, some artists align themselves with the dominant fashions and sensibilities, while others defy them.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the courageous departure from the political and social shallowness of Classic art, initially in the form of Impressionism, ultimately evolved into the sterile and purposeless art of the Postmodern era. As our world became more cynical, more violent, and more industrialized, so did art. Beauty fell out of favor and the value of art became its monetary worth rather than its ability to, as Picasso put it, “wash away from the soul the dust of daily life.”
As artists we sometimes have to choose sides, and everything in my being tells me that beauty still matters, and is what I hope to convey and make a stand for in my work.
As we’re sharing quotes, I’ll add this:
“With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every
power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.” –Norman MailerHere’s to beauty!
Guy
On December 13, 2011 at 2:13 pm • Reply -
“Here’s what you would not have seen had I not shown it to you, even if you were standing next to me”
that’s it in a nutshell, and my sole (or soul) reason for producing images – thank you for a great article
On December 13, 2011 at 3:42 pm • Reply -
As someone who is motivated by the history in a landscape I’m glad to see you describe landscapes as having ‘stories’ to tell. It also ties in nicely, I think, with Dav Thomas’s recent article on spending time with a print.
Thanks.On December 13, 2011 at 6:57 pm • Reply -
jonb
There’s a quote from Winston Churchill; “without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd…” he goes on to say “…without innovation it’s a corpse”, but the first part strikes the deepest chord with me. I take innovation as a change in approach more than ideals.
The overriding ‘tradition’ of art, for me, is essentially that beauty and our emotional response to it always leads us – the shepherd of our creativity. It’s the reason we create in the first place isn’t it? So how can it not be the essence of our work unless something has fundamentally gone wrong along the way, not just in our thinking, but in our being?
The reason I love landscape photography so much is because in practicing it we’re following in this tradition of expressing the human spirit in relation to our very beginnings – where we came from. We’re almost direct descendants of the people who made those paintings in Chauvet Cave, which aren’t just depictions of animals, but purely emotional responses to vision – the movement, the form, the fluidity of line – are all translated onto those walls in the same way we try to ‘capture’ it (for lack of a better word) on film or the sensor.
I think the sheep have dispersed for so long, that they’ve forgotten where they were going in the first place. ‘A return to beauty’, as the brilliant David Ward has put it, is simply a remembering of why we create and in turn remembering who we are.
On December 13, 2011 at 8:18 pm • Reply-
Thank you, Jon! Your last paragraph above is perfectly stated.
Another wonderful quote worth mentioning along these lines is from Albert Camus:“A man’s work is nothing but a slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”
Guy
On December 19, 2011 at 6:56 pm • Reply
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Thank you Guy for this most profound article. That simple statment from you also quoted by David Higgs above: “Here’s what you would not have seen had I not shown it to you, even if you were standing next to me” really is the guiding light that we should all remember. It goes perfectly with what one of David Ward’s co-leaders said to me when he checked one of my compostions: “nah – that’s too obvious”!
These two thoughts will stay with me on all my photographic ventures. Regards, AdamOn December 18, 2011 at 12:10 pm • Reply-
I agree with this aspect of the article to a point, but there are other reasons why people value an image or print. The freedom to explore and absorb, the opportunity to empathise with a subject, the time to somehow step into the frame. They don’t contradict this article or the following thread, nor do they preclude seeing in a different way, but they’re worth remembering all the same.
On December 22, 2011 at 3:41 pm • Reply
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Does monochrome or b/w have a place in landscape photography?
On December 19, 2011 at 5:46 pm • Reply -
I’m often intrigued why a person ‘needs’ to be an artist. Guy, you do articulately touch on the risks and advantages in your passionately written article and I fully recognise and commend anybody to explore, experiment, seek a more spiritual balanced life in the pursuit of crafting a personal vision.
But, I still haven’t yet fully unpicked the personal psychological reason as to why artists ‘need’ to show that work to others. I often wonder if I too quickly jump to the assumption that it’s an insecurity, but I hope you will forgive me for this if you spend a few hours trawling the social networks, with their flashing badges and in your face self-publicising. Anyway I digress, I’m still puzzled where this ‘need’, (especially amongst the relatively psychologically balance), is coming from? I wouldn’t wish to assume that for others and instead ask that open question, but first ponder a few ideas in the form of questions. Do artist have a desire to receive accolades due to our competitive culture? Is there a deep ‘need’ from an evolutionary or spiritual calling? I’m now wondering why I need to write this…err…Am I just highlighting my own desire to fulfil that ‘need’ from an overly critical childhood?
Anyway quickly moving on… The thing that often troubles me about this ‘need,’ is the fact that any deep need seems to be a negative. Or it’s that just me, I can now think of other needs that are evolutionary (im sure you can guess), but the need to show others your work isn’t necessary to receive the benefits that Guy mentions here.
Anyway, today is going to be perfect weather and I’m on holiday, so I ‘need’ to spend some time in nature away from this laptop…
Have a great Christmas everybody, cheers Jason.On December 20, 2011 at 9:26 am • Reply-
Jason, that is a question we don’t yet have an answer to. Some scientists try to approach it from the perspective of social evolution; others will tell you there’s no such thing as social evolution and that there’s a Darwinian reason for it. You may want to look up a series of books on the topic by Ellen Dissanayake who had been studying exactly that for the last two decades.
Science aside, I think that by using the word “need” you set yourself up to receiving the wrong answer. In an era where most of us do not need to worry about essential survival on a daily basis, why do we need love, sports, coffee, or music? The answer is: we don’t. We want those things, sometimes even crave them, but we don’t need them.
Knowing that we don’t need art actually makes the topic much more interesting. If someone could state unequivocally that we need art to meet a certain material need, that would be the end of it; but it isn’t. The far more interesting question is why are we so profoundly affected by it (as both creators and consumers)? Why is art such a big part of human history and experience but not other species’? Could we have accomplished what we have without it? Would our lives be less rewarding or comfortable if we didn’t?
Somehow we instinctively know we need beauty, and not just in an abstract or indulgent sense. Marketers will tell you that products live or die by the art used to promote them. Physicists will tell you that the first test for the truthfulness of any theory on any scale is how elegant it is. Philosophers will tell you that art is among the most noble pursuits of life. We may not know why, yet, but we do know there’s overwhelming evidence for it being true.Guy
On December 20, 2011 at 1:49 pm • Reply
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Pete Hyde
Many thanks Guy for a very thoughtful and thought provoking article. I may have been late in getting round to reading it, but I can assure you I will return to read it again the next time I question ‘why do I do this?’. You once wrote “Being creative is a result of an inspired state of mind” and your work, (along with that of other contributors to On Landscape) gives some of us that inspiration. Thank you.
On December 24, 2011 at 5:44 pm • Reply
