The sky is a clear, featureless blue. Not a cloud anywhere to interrupt the monotone monotony. And yet, despite the obvious lack of obstructions, the sun is shining wanly on the land and sea that surrounds me. The spring colours aren’t vibrant. They’re washed out, desaturated almost. I’m wandering out of the house slowly with my old dog. At a pace we can both manage.

I don’t have a camera slung over my shoulder. My camera used to be a permanent fixture. Part of my body, my soul. Not so much a piece of highly engineered metal and glass but flesh and blood. As much a part of me as my heart or my lungs. Why haven’t I taken the camera out with me this morning? I don’t know. Tiredness perhaps. Not that I’m burning the candle at both ends. These days are long since past. I’m weary from travelling backwards and forwards across the country on one family errand or another.

But as I wander slowly with the dog, we’ve meandered down to the little beach that runs along in front of our house. I’ve let the slow moving dog off his lead now that we’re on the soft sand. There’s no one in sight. He has his little slice of heaven all to himself. And all of a sudden he’s no longer slow moving. He’s running like a rocking horse, the same sort of motion, head up, then bottom up. Bouncing. Mouth open in a big, slathery grin. And I can’t help but smile at him.

And as I smile, I notice the patterns in the sand. Left by the outgoing tide earlier this morning. The patterns are beautiful. That soft light I mentioned earlier is showing them off perfectly.

I lift my head and look up from the sand. Staring out to sea. Clisham, the tallest mountain on Harris, is clearly visible above the distinct outlines of the Shiant Isles. There’s a silveriness on the horizon. A dividing line between the distinctly different blues of sea and sky. I’m not sure what that line is. A slight hint of mist perhaps, or maybe it's just a calmer stretch of sea. I don’t know. And I’m not really interested in knowing.

All I know is that my shoulders have dropped slightly and my breathing has slowed. My brain's working easily again. It's thinking about how I can capture these quiet little moments of beauty. That marriage of heart and head, thinking about how I would capture what it is that I see in my mind's eye. A reminder to myself that it was always the landscape itself that inspired me to pick up a camera in the first place.

Photography has never been a cerebral exercise for me. I’ve no great technical expertise. My processing is rudimentary at best. My photography is more to do with bringing a little peace to my soul. Putting a smile back on my face. I was at a wonderful photography festival in Germany last year, where I was one of a number of speakers at the event.

Several of the photographers talked about conservation, and some showed some harrowing images. They were very moving talks. Very worthy talks.

And in a way, I felt slightly guilty when it was my turn to stand up in front of everyone. All I did was talk about myself and show some pretty pictures of my local landscapes. Some big views and some little ones. But. Perhaps before we think about saving the world, we need to think about saving ourselves first.

,

I’ll declare an interest upfront: I like trees. Trees do good stuff for our environment, they lock up carbon, improve air quality, prettify our towns and cities, and support a myriad of animal and insect life. They also provide building materials, heat our homes and provide the paper for our books and currency… Without wood we would have no Stradivarius violins and cellos, and a host of other instruments. Many of our first infant sleeps are in wooden cots, and our final long sleep is in a wooden box. That’s why I like wood. And trees. And after five years apprenticeship, became a carpenter.” ~John McPherson, 2013¹

If you go back through the more than 300 issues of On Landscape (and the various volumes of the Natural Landscape Photography Award and Landscape Photographer of the Year), there are really rather a lot of images of trees². Some highlights include the Eden valley trees in mist by Mark Littlejohn³; the images of the Fontainebleau forest by Francesco Carovillano⁴; the forests of the Taunus Mountains by Xavier Arnau Bofarull⁵; articles on the Scots Pine, Birch and Rowan trees by Tim Parkin himself⁶; the winter trees of Zion by Wayne Bingham⁷; and many others. Trees are also a frequently recurring subject in the 4x4 series; evidently, they are a pretty popular subject for many landscape photographers.

Looking more widely, photographic images of trees have a long history. A 2018 Exhibition at the V&A Museum in London (Into the Woods: Trees in Photography) was held to mark the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the Forest sealed in 1217 by King Henry III that restored access to forest lands that had been previously used exclusively as Royal Hunting Grounds⁸. The book of the exhibition⁹ provides a useful survey of images of trees from the very earliest days of photography. As early as 1857 the V&A staff photographer, Charles Thurston Thompson (1816-1868), was sent by the Director of the Museum, Henry Cole, to record images of the trees on his estate at Albury Park in Surrey. In the 1860’s Edward Fox (1823-1899) had been taking pictures of trees from the same point in different seasons. A catalogue of 183 images of different species of trees taken by Henry Irving¹⁰ were purchased by the V&A between 1899-1905. Such images were sold and made available in the V&A Library as a resource for artists, providing a basis for realistic illustrations. In France, the celebrated photographer Gustav le Gray (1820-1884) took images of trees at Fontainebleau¹¹ as well as his well-known seascapes. As photography struggled to be recognised as an art form, the pictorialists (such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, C. H. White, A.L. Coburn, and William A. Cadby) often made extensive use of dark masses of trees and woods in their work.

Some trees have inevitably become somewhat stereotyped as images: the cherry blossoms in Japan¹³; the tunnel of twisted beech trees at Stranocum in County Antrim¹⁴; the dead black trees backed by immense sand dunes at Deadvlei in Namibia; the minimalism of winter trees standing in snow¹⁵; the ancient bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains of California with trees up to 5000 years old¹⁶.

Those are still not the oldest trees, however. It is estimated that the Pando grove of quaking aspens in Utah may be more than 9000 years old. This is also thought to be the world’s largest tree in that it consists of about 47000 male clonal stems with a shared root systems and covering an area of about 43 ha¹⁷. The UK's oldest tree is thought to be the Fortingall Yew in Scotland, though the estimates of its age range from 1500 to 9,000 years¹⁹.

And talking of stereotypes, there are also the widely reproduced autumn/fall colours of the Aspens, particularly in Colorado and California¹⁸. Well-known Aspen photographers include Ansel Adams and John Sexton (in monochrome ) and Christopher Burkett and Peter Lik (in colour²⁰) and, more recently, the On Landscape contributors Matt Payne²¹ and Charlotte Gibb²². There is also a recent Kozu book by Adam Gibb entitled Aspen²³. The theme is so popular that guides to the best Aspen sites in Colorado and other states can be found on the Internet²⁴. Back in the UK, books can be found describing exceptional trees²⁵ as well as species guides. There is also, it seems, an award for tree of the year²⁶.

Much has been written on the composition of taking images of trees. This requires reducing the three dimensional complexity of a tree or groups of trees to something that creates interest in 2 dimensions. Notable articles include those by Tim Parkin and Dav Thomas²⁷ (who also produced the book With Trees²⁸).

It helps to have not too much sun, so as to avoid too much contrast, and some mist in the background to make the foreground trees stand out more, apart from that it seems that pretty well anything goes.

This can be seen in the works of single photographers, such as Lee Friedlander in his (monochrome) images in the books Flowers and Trees from 1981 and Frederick Law Olmstead Landscapes in 2008²⁹. While known for his innovative framing and composition Friedlander seems to revel in the complexity of mundane “thickets”, and it is sometimes difficult to see what might have attracted his eye in some of the images. Another notable photographer to revel in the complexity of groups of trees and thickets is Jem Southam in his Painter’s Pool series³⁰.

There are now so many images of trees as a sub-genre of landscape photography that it could be argued that they have become a little boring, even if excellently lit and excellently framed and with mist in the background. However, I am hoping that this might perhaps be another example of how images that to many people would be seen individually as boring postcards might become more interesting as a series (see my first Boring Postcards article for On Landscape in Issue 316³¹). The Friedlander and Southam images are drawn from such series, even if individual prints have also been collected.

Thus, following such celebrated examples, I will take the risk of presenting another (and assuredly last!) series of Boring Postcards, this time in monochrome and taken at the edges of Swiss forests where there are often complex thickets but also areas where the trees and understory are actively managed.

They are drawn from a series of images in 6x12 format, all of which have been taken while walking through the Swiss countryside, mostly in the plateau region, but also in the Jura, pre-Alps and Alps. Switzerland does not lack trees below the treeline, even in more agricultural areas.

There are many copses, woodlands and forests revealing their edges as the walker passes. This then results in a plethora of choices for such a series, and the need to decide on what makes a happy composition (especially when that mist is lacking!). In thinking about this there does not seem to be a simple answer but searching out compositions has the advantage that it can inspire focus on your surroundings as you walk³². Some have an element that stands out; others do not. Some have foreground interest and depth, others a rather flat plane. Some are rather complex, others have only relatively simple elements. It seems that indeed anything goes (or at least you can decide for yourself if any of the compositions work for you or whether, as with any collection of Boring Postcards, you just quickly swipe to the end). As before, this is only a selection of the images, more may be found here³³.

References

1. In comments on the exhibition Among Trees of the photographs of Iain Sarjeant as reported in issue 47 of On Landscape at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2012/10/an-exhibition-iain-sarjeant-among-trees/
2. Searching on “trees” in On Landscape” brings up at least 500 results including Tim Parkin’s Composition Photographing Trees - https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/05/composition-photographing-trees/
3. E.g. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2015/08/an-approach-to-composition/; http://marklittlejohnphotography.com, especially the Secret Life of Trees and winter in the Eden Valley galleries
4. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2023/12/voices; https://www.francescocarovillano.com
5. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2023/11/where-the-trees-live/
6. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2016/02/the-scots-pine ; https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2016/09/birch-tree-landscape-photography; https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2016/11/rowan-trees-photography/
7. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2020/08/winter-trees-zion-national-park
8. See the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_Forest#:~:text=The%20Charter%20of%20the%20Forest,in%20force%20for%20centuries%20afterwards.
9. Book by Martin Barnes with the same title, V&A Publishing, 2019.
10. Not much seems to be known about Henry Irving. The V&A cites records from the Royal Photographic Society that suggest that he lived in Lancashire in 1899 and moved south in the early twentieth century. He was based in Horley, Surrey, until around 1913, when he is recorded as living in Letchworth, Herts. He exhibited at the RPS between 1899 and 1915. He took many images of trees in the counties around London.
11. For more about the history of Fontainebleau, see the 2017 article in On Landscape by Herbert Ascherman at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2017/05/forest-de-fontainebleau/
12. For example, some of the images of Shinzo Maeda in his book Trees and Grass were published by Taschen.
13. Known as the Dark Hedges and apparently now made famous by appearing as the King’s Road in the Game of Thrones series
14. Such as those of Michael Kenna in Japan and Korea and the first part of the book by Abbas Kiarostami, Images Still and Moving, published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2012 https://www.hatjecantz.com/products/17198-abbas-kiarostami
15. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Bristlecone_Pine_Forest
16. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
17. According to Wikipedia, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortingall_Yew
18. Searching for “aspen in fall images” results in 37,700 images on Istock and 14534 on Getty Images.
19. For example, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/53646; https://www.moma.org/collection/works/50417 and the John Sexton book Listen to the Trees published by Bullfinch Press in 1994, http://www.johnsexton.com/Listen_to_the_Trees.html
20. For example, https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2021/10/christopher-burkett-radiant-mountain-aspen/
21. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/01/matt-payne/; https://www.mattpaynephotography.com/gallery/aspen-tree-photos/
22. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2017/06/charlotte-gibb/; https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2017/05/endframe-dancing-aspen-charlotte-gibb; http://www.charlottegibb.com
23. https://www.kozubooks.com/books-new/aspen
24. For example, https://www.mickeyshannon.com/articles/colorado-fall-colors-photography-locations;
    https://www.randybottphotography.com/gallery/colorado-fall-color; and even in Forbes magazine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyanas/2024/08/19/top-places-to-see-autumn-colors-in-colorado
25. E.g. https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-great-british-tree-biography-50-legendary-trees-and-the-tales-behind-them-mark-hooper?variant=39880371634254 ; https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/50-great-trees-of-the-national-trust.html ;
26. The Skipinnish Oak was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of 12 organised by the Woodland Trust.
    https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/tree-of-the-year. It is interesting to wonder how the votes might have been influenced by the images shown for each of the shortlisted trees (though there are no links from the shortlist to images now). The Woodland Trust also maintains an inventory of ancient trees in the UK (209,000 so far) for which submissions are invited. The Skipinnish Oak will represent the UK in the European Tree of the Year contest in 2025.
27. See Tim Parkin’s Composition: Photographing Trees (https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/05/composition-photographing-trees) ; and Dav Thomas Seeing the Wood for the Trees (https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2013/05/seeing-the-wood-for-the-trees);
28. Dav Thomas, With Trees, published by Triplekite Publishers in 2013. (https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2013/07/with-trees)
29. Frederick Law Olmstead (1822-1923) was an American landscape architect famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux, including their first project of Central Park in New York see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted. Lee Friedlander was first commissioned to photograph the parks in 1988 but continued the project for more than 20 years.
30. Jem Southam, The Painter’s Pool, Nazraeli Press, 2007, see also https://hymancollection.org/bodies-of-work/jem-southam-the-painters-pool/
31. https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2024/11/boring-postcards
32. See my article on walking at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2024/06/the-road-not-taken
33. This is a Blurb print-on-demand book that can also be found via the https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/12206848-les-bords-de-la-for-t website. All the images can be previewed for free.

The mind - with its sometimes harrowing complexity, contradictions, and chaos - is very much not a stable entity. This is not something we can change. When we look for it, or even when we don’t, we can feel that impermanence within and without, inside of us and in the environment we exist in. We wade through a thick, inescapable reality that is too thin to grasp but too thick to run through, only vaguely aware of the universe of changes occurring to and around us every moment.

Though it can be destabilizing to think of ourselves as untethered, malleable, and inconsistent when we are usually desperate for the opposite, the greatest powers within our minds are accessible only through the process of change. As the world changes, we change, in turn changing the world as we experience it, leading to even more internal change - and all of this happens without direction or control in the mushy core of our heads.

Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to restructure and change itself based on new stimuli and experiences, is a biological necessity to manage and channel the inherent chaos and unpredictability of the external world towards greater potential for surviving, reproducing, and, eventually, dying.

It follows that the brain can be thought of not only as a mediator of experience but also as being a product of it. In the philosophy of mind, this is called externalism: the idea that the conscious mind is the result of what is going on inside and outside of the brain (this may sound fairly obvious, since most of us don’t think of ourselves as totally separate from the not-us); the opposite view, internalism, argues that all of the mental processes we experience are determined only by what happens inside the brain.

As nature photographers, it’s difficult to accept that everything that we experience - those elevated emotions of awe, inspiration, wonder, mystery, and joy that can appear while exploring beautiful natural places - are generated illusions of the brain without reference to a physical reality outside of us (what internalism argues); we tend to experience things as an externalist might: our minds and bodies creating reality and meaning through a participation with the environment.

Within externalism, there is a theoretical progression from passive to active participation. A passive externalist recognizes that the external environment affects the contents of consciousness, that we are influenced by the environment. The active externalist goes one step further and says that the external environment can actually be part of our minds. Andy Clark and David Chalmers coined this active externalism in a landmark paper called “The Extended Mind”, putting forward a hypothesis that the realm of the mind can extend from the brain and body to the external environment, that the mind can be thought of as being physically manifest in the outside world.

Not to be confused with panpsychism - the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality - the Extended Mind Hypothesis has certain requirements or conditions that should be met before one can consider one’s mind to have satisfactorily and categorically laid nest beyond themselves.

Calculators, maps, watches, even cameras, can be part of our minds because we use them as if they were part of it, reliably, intuitively, and constantly, engaging with them to create an ”extended system, a coupling of biological organism and external resource,” according to the now-famous paper. Our major cognitive system, the brain, expands outward and adds additional tools and processes to its repertoire, allowing us to reshape our minds and have new (or sometimes replicated) mental experiences via the environment that we interact with. A coupled system is created through a reliable and reproducible process that, over time, becomes so intuitive that it is effectively a cognitive process in and of itself. According to the experts, the requirements for this are: functional equivalence: the external resource must function in a similar way to internal cognitive processes and should be directly involved in the process; accessibility and availability: the external resource must be readily accessible and available to the mind when needed; reliability: the process must be repeatable and the output trusted as being accurate or representational; intentionality: there must be an intention to use the external resource as a part of the cognitive process.

As the authors explain, “If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of the cognitive process.” In other words, if we replace or add a cognitive process (e.g.. doing multiplication) through the environment (a calculator) that we could perform ourselves (assuming one could, which for me might be a stretch), then the cognitive process of multiplication now lives partially outside of the brain (in this case, the calculator).

The calculator performs a cognitive process - multiplication - and is able to give the same output as a purely in-brain version of the process would produce; the only difference between an extended mind and a non-extended one is the location of the cognitive process - if there is a cognitive step done using an external-to-us resource then, congrats, your mind is now extended. A cognitive process can be as simple as moving your arm or as complex as abstract thought. All of this is, of course, fairly obvious. Every day, we use tools that warp and extend our minds in a multitude of directions: computers, cars, instant messaging, digital maps, and all kinds of software. Though our minds are not in everything, they are exploring further and further than ever before.

The photographer’s extended mind means that our photographic resources - the camera, lenses, tripod, etc - can transcend, through an investment in the combination of time, conscious effort, and practice, from a mechanical tool to, in the literal sense of the words, a part of our minds, stretching into the environment through our (camera) bodies. How does this happen, and when do we know if our minds have extended into our cameras? And most importantly, why does this matter at all?

Going back to the four requirements of proper extension (functional equivalence, accessibility/availability, reliability, and intentionality), we can see how this translates to the experience of making images. The camera is performing a function that the human eye is known for: directing and processing light; if you are like me, the camera at times is too available/accessible; and modern technology has made cameras exceedingly reliable too; which means that the main thing we need to focus on is our intentions in using our cameras. There is no wrong intention, generally speaking - the important thing is for there to be some intention at all. To intend to use a camera as a part of our mind is where a mechanical process has the potential to transform into a creative one, depending on what parts of your mind you are extending. Whether we are attempting to record the external (“capturing a moment”) or we are attempting to record the internal (“expressive photography”) does not determine the extent or success of the mind’s extension, but only demonstrates what is being extended from the brain to the camera. It is important to be aware of our cognitive objectives. Are we using the camera to replicate sight, or to be able to have a vague re-experiencing of this moment, or to translate meaning from the things that we see? For most of us, the answer may include all of the above. For the artist, the priority should be the latter - the observation and translation of internal meaning from external experiences.

Regardless of intent, the camera, like any other human tool, reaches its maximum potential for action when a user can wield it with the charm of intuition, when the four requirements merge.

An intuitive relationship, whether with an inanimate object or with a person, is one where the thoughts about the relationship - about what one should or should not do, about the consequences of actions, about right and wrong, about the value and meaning of the relationship - dissolve into a bright abyss of confidence that cannot be manufactured but which must be earned via the virtues of patience, persistence, and open-mindedness.

Over time as one becomes more familiar with the intimate nuances of the not-you and the physical-intellectual-emotional connection inherent in any relationship, the internal struggle and fight to make sense of it all slowly erodes, and so do the doubts and confusions and expectations and frustrations that we sub/conciously harbor inside of us. The result is that the not-you ends up becoming a part of you, in a sense. It is part of your nature because it does not require you to deviate from what your body and mind know to do; directions are unnecessary. Of course this all sounds exceptionally straightforward, but as anyone who has invested in themselves to this degree knows: it’s not easy, and it’s a lifelong pursuit. And the harsh truth is that no matter how patient, persistent, and open-minded you are, how much you practice and invest, there is an asymptotic illusion called perfection that teases and motivates. “Practice makes perfect,” they say, wholly deceptively; what it does make is intuition, and that is good enough.

Just like how we don’t have to think about how to breathe, how to blink, how to swallow, how to laugh, how to digest, how to cry, or how to walk, we should not have to think about which buttons do what or what will happen if we press the shutter. This is how our biological system becomes coupled with our camera: we repeat certain motions - this dial controls shutter speed, this one aperture, that one ISO; and this button means I make a (usually) mediocre image - with predictable results. At a certain point, we know not only what the dials do and how to use them, but we don’t need to expend any resources to remember these facts. It all starts to become second-nature, and then first-nature. Our mind is in the process of entering the camera, but is also quietly busy, as it always is, changing itself.

The reason the dials are so familiar that we don’t have to consider them anymore goes back to our good friend, neuroplasticity - all of our experiences, whether familiar or completely foreign, pass like a rushing of water over the contours of our brains, creating and destroying rivulets and channels that determine much more than we dare to admit, directing thoughts and behavior and the mind-shatteringly diverse set of actions required to maintain a functional, living body. This is how we become who we are. Whether an experience elicits a misty drizzle or a downpour over the landscape of the mind is complex and, for now, mostly unknowable; but whether a channel is created by one intense experience or by the aid of practice is secondary to the consequence of the changes themselves. And suddenly, intuition is born and the channels and rivulets of a particular set of actions become so deep that information flows uninterrupted from our cells to our environment.

Beautiful and helpful though it is to know that we have the capacity for change built into us, the flip side of this reality is that some patterns, once they have been set by an endless mist or by a downpour, can be stubborn. For an artist, this is dangerous territory: the frightening and despised land of conformity, of habitual thinking, of stagnation. This is why practice, though it is critical to reach intuition, should be intentional to some degree, as it can be easy to practice patterns of behavior or thought that are less than useful or that are counterintuitive to one’s own goals. The point is, again, that we should be aware of what it is we want to expand into, our cognitive objectives, and that the process of intuition is natural but, thankfully, malleable. We can, it turns out, become what we want to be.

The question then becomes: what do we want to be?

Another startling revelation emerges after enough investment in the practice of photography: our minds are being shaped by the camera in return. We begin to see the world differently, like we are somehow part camera, our mind projecting images as though the eyes have adjustable shutter speeds and apertures of their own, influencing what we notice in the external world and what it means to us; a coupled system, a reciprocal influencing, an extension of ourselves. Eventually it starts to feel like we aren’t using a camera at all, like the camera is a physical extension of the hand, mind, and eyes. And through composing with the camera, which is now just a mechanical addition to the body, our minds can extend further still, seeping out like smoke towards the world: moving towards the trees, rocks, grass, water, leaves, mountains, and more, simultaneously expanding and destroying the self through the construction of meaning, revealing what can only be found inside each of us. We become closer to everything that isn’t us by stretching out as far as we can go, further, maybe, than we thought possible.

Through the creation of meaning - through our images - we can extend our mind a little further, to other minds. We offer, if accepted, a peek into our minds, narrowing the gap of understanding between fleshy universes, both minds extending toward each other. That is part of what makes art, and photography, so valuable: the ability to expand yourself just that little bit further, to be seen a little bit more clearly, in return seeing yourself more clearly too.

Again the question tantalizes and begs: what will we see when we become more clear?

[One may] discover how new and beautiful the familiar can be if we actually see it as though we had never seen it before. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

The local is the only universal, upon that all art is built. ~ John Dewy

In Part One, I offered a roadmap of sorts that I suggest could lead anyone to artistic discovery in expressive image making and creative engagement generally. Here, I explore my journey along that map through my relationship built over years of engagement with a nearby wildlife refuge.

Engagement with Place and Place

Joe Cornish in his masterful Scotland’s Mountains, A Landscape Photographer’s View, described his engagement with Scotland’s “heart and soul . . . its mountainous landscape.” In his introductory essay, Cornish explains that, with respect to his image making, “My goal has been a feeling for place, for mood, depth, intimacy, grandeur, beauty.”

His approach to achieving this goal included an examination of his relationships with those places, professing that “I have tried to learn from the mountains, to make pictures that reflect, even in some small degree, their heart and soul (or perhaps more truthfully, mine).”It was through this exploration of and communion with “a landscape both complex and beautiful,” that Cornish explored the edges of his own image making form. He confessed that his exploration of the “wildest edge of edges” had an impact on him and his image making, admitting that “On the way, I have discovered a new level of patience, application and acceptance to fulfill my ideas of what makes a picture,” substantiating with these words and his magnificent images Galen Rowell’s conclusion that “The most interesting parts of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.” Or known meets unknown.

One foundational aspect of form in expressive landscape image making must be place. Place is typically integral to most of the outcomes we landscape photographers seek. Even for intimate landscape images, Place has its place. Ultimately, we strive to present to the viewer our interpretation of, engagement with and emotional responses to the places we go, whether or not we reveal or make recognisable those places in our images. We do this, in part, in order to arouse in the viewer an engagement with and an emotional response to an image—their own interpretation of our experience in that place.

We do this, at a basic level, to transform an image from a deliberate documentary representation of a place into a presentation of our intention to create something more, that is, to make art. Critical to best achieving the presentation of our interpretations to a viewer, image makers must, at a fundamental level, unreservedly engage with the places in which we work. In order to foster and grow our relationships with the places we go, that engagement must go beyond that afforded merely through the intermediaries of camera and lens. As Cedric Wright put it, “to try to cover the relationship of photography to our serious reactions to nature” remains “the most important considerations” when image making. As a result, our relationships with Place and the places we go warrant diligent and continual examination.

Place is a cornerstone of the form that circumscribes, fundamentally, all outdoor expressive image making. Though exceptions abound, as a documentary instrument, the camera must adhere to a certain, if not nearly comprehensive, fealty to the “reality” of what is encountered on the other side of the lens. Of course, that fealty is fundamentally informed by “how film sees the world” so to speak—a foundational aspect of form. However, because of that fealty, we are bound to a considerable degree within the “reality,” that is, the form, of the places we encounter when image making. From the scenery to weather and atmosphere, to the topography and accessibility, to seasonal changes of rebirth in spring, summer’s boom, the decay of autumn and winter’s icy deprivation, these aspects of place literally frame our efforts.

For those of us who, over time, visit and revisit the same places again and again, we do so in lockstep with the incessant march of entropy, where blemishes of time appear and leave scars that add or take away from the character of the face of the land. Even after we leave with our data, analog or digital, we are bound by the place from which it came as we move to the next phases of attaining the outcomes we desire as image makers. While processing an image one may be able to remove or even add features and qualities lacking in the field, we certainly are not afforded the latitude of J.M.W. Turner or Richard Wilson or Thomas Cole—or any other landscape painter—and must adhere to a relatively great degree to what was or was not present in the field. Exceptions abound to this statement and the degree of allegiance to the “reality” of any given place any image maker carries through to the final image, print or digital, is a wholly personal aspect of form.

Nevertheless, Place is more than the physical space—the landscape—from which we build images. Place encompasses all that is beyond the lens at any given time—including the image maker—and includes one’s relationship and engagement with those places, beyond that of mere image making. It involves not only those things listed above that you can see, but the history of the place, the uses put to it, if any, and any threat or benefit those uses pose to a place.

Place for the expressive outdoor image maker includes the smells and sounds encountered and the feelings evoked in that environment at any given moment. It also includes the image makers engagement with the creative process when in a given place. It even includes and is shaped by our hopes and the purposes we bring to a given place, the expectations laden in those purposes and the outcomes we desire from engagement with the creative process while in that place at that time.

Creative engagement with a place encompasses one’s ability and desire to leave or bring with them into the frame, into the image, their expectations, thoughts, emotions, sentiments and history—photographic and otherwise—with that place. In expressive image making, the importance of the attributes of any given place to the process and the outcome achieved are, to a relatively great degree, up to the image maker and the circumstances they face when setting out to make images. All these and more encompass the essence of Place in expressive image making. This process, this engagement with Place is part and parcel of the form that must be examined, made familiar to the point of intimacy, and that we must strive to master in order to push our photography to the realm of magic beyond the “wildest edge of edges.” But how? The inimitable nature writer Barry Lopez, in his short essay A Literature of Place, provides a wealth of insight into fruitful engagement with Place and the places we go.

Lopez was “a lyrical writer who steeped himself in Arctic wildernesses, the habitats of wolves and exotic landscapes around the world for award-winning books that explored the kinship of nature and human culture.” Author of the acclaimed Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, Lopez, in A Literature of Place, submits that,

If you're intimate with a place, a place with whose history you're familiar, and you establish an ethical conversation with it, the implication that follows is this: the place knows you're there. It feels you. You will not be forgotten, cut off, abandoned. . . . How can a person obtain this? How can you occupy a place and also have it occupy you? How can you find such a reciprocity? The key, I think, is to become vulnerable to a place. If you open yourself up, you can build intimacy. Out of such intimacy may come a sense of belonging, a sense of not being isolated in the universe.

Significantly, with respect to my efforts concerning engagement with Place and the places where I make images, Lopez adds that,

A succinct way to describe the frame of mind one should bring to a landscape is to say it rests on the distinction between imposing and proposing one's views. With a sincere proposal you hope to achieve an intimate, reciprocal relationship that will feed you in some way. To impose your views from the start is to truncate such a possibility, to preclude understanding.

This is a frame of mind I try to bring into my relationships with and my work in all places I visit including Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area, where the images included here and with Part One were made. Poland Brook is an area I have visited scores of times since I first went there in the summer of 2020, only a fraction of which outings resulted in any effort at image making. For me, it has been the feelings and emotions evoked when in places with which I have forged such relationships that I have been drawn to most of my life. When in them, including Poland Brook, I pursue the vulnerability Lopez speaks of so as to build an intimacy and form a reciprocity that can only serve to enhance my experience and find “a sense of belonging, a sense of not being isolated in the universe.”

Beginnings

It is Lopez’ belief that “a human imagination is shaped by the architecture it encounters at an early age.” He notes that “The visual landscape, of course, or the depth, elevation, and hues of a [land]scape play a part here, as does the way sunlight everywhere etches lines to accentuate forms.” For Lopez, the visual landscape’s role is not singular in the development of one’s imagination from an early age. “The way we imagine is also affected by streams of scent flowing faint or sharp in the larger ocean of air; by what the North American composer John Luther Adams calls the sonic landscape; and, say, by an awareness of how temperature and humidity rise and fall in a place over a year.” If we credit Lopez, my imagination was molded by the fact that early in my life, before, at the age of 9, a family move entombed me in the confines of an urban landscape, I encountered the rural settings in which my family lived both in upstate New York and later in the northeast corner of Massachusetts wedged between the New Hampshire border and the Merrimack River.

From my earliest memories, we lived in a farmhouse on a nonoperational farm in the rolling countryside of Stillwater, New York. On three sides of the house were unmanaged fields overrun with thickets of bramble amid overgrown grasses, weeds and wildflowers. The fields were peppered with dilapidated outbuildings, a mouldering bulldozer and a very old car somehow embedded, upside down, in a small, dirt cliffside. Beyond, the farm was bounded to the west and north by acres of forest through which a fire road edged with blackberry bushes led to Plum Creek.

To the south, an unruly meadow lay, submitting only to our rowdy play and to the yearly visits from the hay tedder and baler—the bales scattered like throw pillows across the field, the only produce the farm yielded. Below the meadow, cutting into the hillside was a gravel pit, strictly off limits to me and my brothers—a rule we broke, jumping from the grassy edge to slither down the soft sandy expanse exposed by excavation. During the summer, in an undulating field across the street stood an army of cow corn, arrayed in a formation as organised as any battalion, frozen in a march that would cease only with autumn’s scything.

My earliest memories come from this place, the “architecture” that I encountered during the reverie in my wandering and play with my brothers in the expanse of the terrain surrounding our home, shaped the imagination that shapes my image making today. Hour upon hour we roamed, and we rambled, wholly unsupervised living in the only house for miles on a street with few passersby. Summer play, bounded only by our imaginations—and the road running by our house—was embroidered with the sonic landscape of birdsong. The rhythmic “cheery, cheery, cheery, cheery, cheer, cheer” vocals of the American Robin, ever accompanied by the chirpy, “see bee, see bee” backing of the Black-capped Chickadee and the melancholy croon of the Mourning Dove’s “hooOOA, hoo, hoo, hoo.” And from the balcony of the upper branches of the Sugar Maples sentineled before our home, the heckling of the Crow’s “caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” rounded out the soundtrack to our juvenile melodrama.

Scents varied from season to season and place to place in the acreage we wandered, our sensory experiences defined by where we went, when we went and what we did in the land. Loam and an earthy, damp heaviness scented the air in spring from soil upturned for the corn’s impending procession, an aroma that returned more pungent with fall’s decay. The appearance of sweet grassy aromas in the spring and summer morphed into a sharpish, woody tang wafting in the air after the fall reaping of the little bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass in the meadow to the south of our house. Summer brought fragrances of golden rod, common milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace, whose subtle aromas demanded from me the same intimacy of a flitting Monarch butterfly in order to appreciate their elusive scents: licorice, a delicate vanilla and a fresh carroty smell, respectively.

After a summer rain, a concoction of moist freshness spiked with the electric tang of ozone permeated the air, greeting us as we bolted from the confines of the house. Winter’s knife-sharp cold scraped our nostrils with an astringent paucity of odor that amounted to an aroma as distinct as any, escaping our faces in an atmospheric vapor.

When we roamed the edge of the yard to the north in summer, we were greeted with wild rhubarb’s “tart, zingy and sharp, at the same time refreshing, sweet, fruity and green” scent, bringing teacups of sugar to dip our freshly plucked stalks, cutting its overbearing tang. When we surreptitiously explored the upturned sedan, embedded, inverted in a small dirt cliffside, we were assaulted by decay’s overripe perfume—clammy, loamy and cloying in the summer; shrill, strident and claylike in the winter.

Undoubtedly my imagination was shaped by these surroundings, by the “architecture” I encountered outside my door. But it was one incident in particular that took place mere steps from that door that has left an indelible mark on me, becoming a runestone stood in my imagination to this day, inscribed with the otherworldly wonder, magic and majesty that one may encounter in even the most familiar and ordinary of places. It was Easter Sunday. I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. We boys glumly readied for church, the delight of leaving church with a memento of a woven palm cross the week before a distant memory, the doldrums of a lengthy sermon in the offing. As we boys dribbed and drabbed out of the house and onto the porch, waiting for our adult subjugators, a cool springtime air, fragrant with the season, and laced with a foggy mist, blanketing the countryside, rendering much of it hidden.

As we stood on the porch, shuffling our feet and fidgeting with tight collars and clip on ties, we heard a distant, rhythmic rumble, soothing in its cadence as it neared, its source concealed in the haze. The rumble became ever louder hinting at menace and intrigue to my young mind. I walked down the porch steps, stood in the gravel driveway, and stared into the blank face of fog as the rumble neared. Like lightening incongruously following thunder, the approaching roar entered my body through the soles of my feet, surged upward, through my tremulous legs and set up shop in my stomach, fluttering the wings of butterflies uncocooned. Mere feet from where I stood, the mist was split by the regal muzzle of an unbridled horse, its wild main flailing over a brindled, bobbing neck. Like chiseled marble in motion, its muscled haunches clenched a tail that thrashed in front of an ensemble of cohorts—a conductor’s baton leading an orchestra of chaos. Frozen in place, rooted as a runestone by a grave, the string of horses, too numerous for my young mind to comprehend, split and flowed around me like rapids around a stone, all force and brawn in roaring, cacophonous movement, regimented yet frenzied, sublime and unconstrained by even the hint of domesticity, disappearing into the fog once again.

Even though I cannot doubt now that those horses, surely fewer than I believed then, were steeds of a local farmer escaped from a nearby stable, the legend of the wild horse stampede engulfing me on a foggy Easter morning remains as a reminder to expect the unexpected even in your own yard.

A reminder to remain open to what is offered in the rumble of the unseen that approaches in the fog in which we wrap ourselves in the guise of those preconceived notions and expectations we carry with us everywhere we go. I try very hard to carry that experience with me whenever I engage with Place, for whatever purpose, endeavoring to remain open, to propose rather than impose in a search for Lopez’ reciprocity. For I, like Lopez, “long to become the companion of a place, not its authority, not its owner” most especially when engaged creatively with any given place, including Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area.

Gaining Intimacy

Lopez’ offers practical advice as to how to go about fashioning a meaningful experience in and forging a reciprocal relationship with any place. It is advice that I and, I am sure, many have followed to a degree innately while engaging with the places in which we make images. It is advice that should form the bedrock of any excursion into any “geography” whether local or far flung, near field or far field.

How does one actually enter a local geography? . . . To respond explicitly and practicably, my first suggestion would be to be silent. Put aside the bird book, the analytic state of mind, any compulsion to identify, and sit still. Concentrate instead on feeling a place, on deliberately using the sense of proprioception. Where in this volume of space are you situated? The space behind you is as important as what you see before you. What lies beneath you is as relevant as what stands on the far horizon. Actively use your ears to imagine the acoustical hemisphere you occupy. How does birdsong ramify here? Through what kind of air is it moving? Concentrate on smells in the belief you can smell water and stone. Use your hands to get the heft and texture of a place—the tensile strength in a willow branch, the moisture in a pinch of soil, the different nap of leaves. Open a vertical line to the place by joining the color and form of the sky to what you see out across the ground. Look away from what you want to scrutinize in order to gain a sense of its scale and proportion. Be wary of any obvious explanation for the existence of color, a movement. Cultivate a sense of complexity, the sense that another landscape exists beyond the one you can subject to analysis.

Lopez concludes that “The purpose of such attentiveness is to gain intimacy, to rid yourself of assumption.” His summation that “it should be like a conversation with someone you're attracted to, a person you don't want to send away by having made too much of yourself,” resonates whenever I am in Poland Brook and other such places. My time in the local geography proves to me that “such conversations take place simultaneously on several levels.” I too have found that such conversations “may easily be driven by more than simple curiosity,” and that the forces that drive me to such engagement are much deeper, sustaining and compelling than mere inquisitiveness. And while I share the “compelling desire, as in human conversation . . . to institute a sustaining or informing relationship” with any given place, I seek also to feed my imagination so as to make something from the intimacy gained. [widepullquote]For, like Lopez, the relationships I have forged with the places in which I make images have established in me an unshakable faith that “the power of the human imagination to extrapolate from an odd handful of things—faint movement in a copse of trees, a wingbeat, the damp cold of field stones at night—the human ability to make from all this a pattern, to compose a story out of it fixes in me a sense of hope.”/widepullquote]For, like Lopez, the relationships I have forged with the places in which I make images have established in me an unshakable faith that “the power of the human imagination to extrapolate from an odd handful of things—faint movement in a copse of trees, a wingbeat, the damp cold of field stones at night—the human ability to make from all this a pattern, to compose a story out of it fixes in me a sense of hope.”

Here is where I could tell you about the ethereal echo of the rumble of those stampeding hoof beats that remains with me to this day. An echo that surges up from the soles of my feet, through my legs, across my midriff, lodging a lump in my throat when I am nowadays stood waist high in golden rod, the sun only a hint above the ridge, awaiting the intimate subtle stampede of murmurs and whispers of the sustaining and sustained conversation with Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area to manifest through the fog I carry within. But alas, the magic of such conversations with good friends, the power that resonates within from having had them, diminishes or disappears altogether in the strict retelling. And worse, like gossip, can leave the relationship unsteady, threatening to send Poland Brook away from me by having made too much of myself in the retelling. Some conversations are just private. But the outcomes, the benefits of having those conversations, the benevolence taking root, that I am made better by having such conversations, and the stories that I have made from them in my images must be shared. “We keep each other alive with our stories,” Lopez tells us. “We need to share them, as much as we need to share food.”

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Mornings spent wandering amongst the trees with a camera in hand, before the world has woken, offer something of a spiritual cleansing. They are enough to make one forget about the madness of this existence and return ‘home’ to the soul of Nature. They offer, for a short while at least, an escape from the world of ego, and bring forth forgotten feelings of belonging, and a deep, universal oneness, restoring internal balance and harmony.

A fruitful morning of photography presses a reset button inside and allows us to see through the thick smog once again into the clear, icy blue of the vast, expansive ocean. It is enough to make us forget about all the trials and tribulations that we have faced in our day to day lives. Any emotional and psychological pain that we would have inevitably, either consciously or unconsciously, accumulated since the last outing is transmuted into the purest of beauty and given new meaning and purpose. In the precious moments during which our shutters are opened to the pureness of the mornings’ light, we are liberated from the stresses and struggles of life at last, and we add more colour to our soul.

Crossing the Threshold from the Known into the Unknown

Nature photography, as with any other creative and artistic pursuit, can help us transcend beyond ourselves and our limited, thinking minds. The camera is a vehicle that carries us beyond the physical plane; the known world, and into the world of spirit; an unknown world reliant on feeling, intuition and an understanding of energy through which to navigate. It is a world of pure consciousness in which there are no limitations, barriers, or identities. When we stand upon the crest of a mountain at sunrise and look out over the vast, expansive wilderness, we get the sense of a connection with something much greater than ourselves. During this escape from our small, limited, rational minds, we are left to ponder the age-old question, ‘can this really be all that there is?’

A morning amongst the trees, enveloped in the safe embrace of the mist is enough to bring us back home to the core of our existence. We become the witnesses of divinity and observe the process of eternal creation that is at work before our very eyes. We come back home to the feelings of limitlessness and oneness that make this often complex and nonsensical existence so worthwhile and meaningful. In this place of oneness, we come to terms with and make sense of our place here on this swirling rock. It is here, in our ultimate state of spirit, that we are unbound to the minds and bodies that contain us.

As the golden light of morning penetrates the veil of fog and pierces through our lenses, all our photographic senses are heightened, and there is nowhere else that we can be but right here in the ‘now’.

In moments like this, we escape the dreaded world of thought and lay on the brakes that temporarily prevent our descent into the darkness of chaos and destruction. The resulting photographs, created from the souls’ intuition and, therefore, enriched with depth and meaning, is the order that is needed to deal with the chaos of our egoic existence and the madness of modern society that seems to be, all too often, so focused on division and separation. In the moments that we open the shutters of our camera to capture the beauty of these sacred hours, we choose the path of creation instead of that of destruction, and we make the daring ascent from darkness into light.

Society Divides, Nature Unites

Following mornings like these, I can’t help but contemplate some of the deeper questions about this human existence and the current state of our co-created world of society. I often wonder why it seems to be that, overall, humanity is so intent on dividing itself and creating enemies out of another. Everything we know seems to be a game of two sides.

Either we are black or white, Christian or Muslim, left or right, right or wrong, good or bad, awake or asleep. Isn’t it an irony that our quests for community and belonging so often force us to cut ourselves off from certain people and demographics? For us to belong somewhere, we must not belong somewhere else. Why does a human being have this innate tendency to think in such dualistic ways?

Outdoors in the natural world, there is no place for division, hierarchy, or competition. In Nature, there is only unity. Everything works towards one common goal. The pursuit of Nature is one of growth and expansion. What would our world look like if more people prioritised their own personal and spiritual growth and the expansion of their own consciousness over the expansion of only their houses, bank accounts and businesses? When did this disconnect from our soul’s growth and true purpose begin? What if we all realised that the real competition is the one that lies within; for us to transcend the ego and live from the soul that seeks for nothing but joy, love, and peace, and finds all of this in the freedom of its’ own authentic expression?

When we look towards the beauty of the forest networks, we see such unity and come to realise that everything is divinely connected and perfectly balanced. There are no arguments of right or wrong, good or bad. The ‘woodland’ itself is an entity, made up of what we label as ‘trees’, ‘fungi’, ‘moss’ and ‘ferns’. Through the ‘woodland’, runs a small ‘stream’, in which there are ‘rocks’ and ‘silt’ and all kinds of ‘bacteria’ and other living species. The ‘stream’ runs into a ‘river’, and the ‘river’ into the ‘sea’. At which point, then, does the ‘woodland’ become detached from the ‘sea’? We apply such language to understand the world in our minds. Is it, therefore, our minds, then, that create the division and separation? What happens when we learn, instead, to tune into our hearts and choose to feel instead of think?

Returning Home to the Heart

The act of creating a photograph, for me, is a response to a feeling inside of my heart. I feel compelled to pull out the camera and create when the cogs in my mind cease their relentless turning, and I come to rest in a place of deep, internal stillness.

My heartbeat falls into rhythm with that of the earth and we dance in perfect harmony across the woodland floor. The trees stand as witnesses of my hearts’ truest expression and, in these precious moments, the soul that resides within reunites with the eternal soul of Nature.

Following such moments, it is difficult to look into the eyes of another human and see an enemy. I realise that the same feelings, and the same soul, exists, too, inside of them. It is important, therefore, that mornings like these are experienced regularly. Too long spent away from the soul of Nature and our own true, authentic, expressive nature, might cause a human to become too disconnected from its’ heart. What happens when one spends too long living in the darkness of the mind and falls out of tune with the song of one’s own heart? Could this, perhaps, be the reason that so many people find their only peace and purpose in war? In the same way that the woodland, in our minds, is detached from the sea, so have our minds become detached from our hearts. When did this happen and how can we restore balance and harmony between the two?

The truest test of the human being lies in its’ ability to create harmony between mind (rationality, thoughts & fears) and heart (intuition, feelings & love), ensuring that each remain connected to the other in every given moment, come fear, or love. Perhaps then, given the current state of our world, it is time to return home to the heart on a global scale. What the world needs now, more than ever, I believe, is a deep cleansing of the collective soul as we look to repair our relationship with the earth, ourselves and, therefore, each other, and co-create a better world for tomorrow.

Nature provides the pathway way back to our hearts and soul. I find my own way back beyond the gatekeepers of ancient trees in Eryri during the sacred hours of the morning, and they help me to strip back the masks and peel off the armour, so that I can emerge from the darkness and stand to be seen in all my light once a

So, MrsLJ and I have entered our fifth year in the wilds of Wester Ross. Leaving the comfort blanket of our home in Cumbria far behind us. Why did we even contemplate such a move. I’m not sure that I’d even scratched the photographic surface of Cumbria in that time. People, and by people I mean photographers, think of Cumbria in terms of its lakes and the various views that surround them. But Cumbria is so much more than that. There’s the quiet, pastoral beauty of the Eden Valley, the vast open spaces of the Pennines and the East Fellside. The Cumbrian views are quite polished. Civilisation is obvious at every turn. The dry stone walls, the boats that ply its lakes, the chains of pubs that open all year round.

If Wester Ross has a layer of civilisation, it's skin deep, a thin veneer only. The mountains are bigger. More rugged. Instead of manicured fields, there are miles of bog and rock.

If you dropped me anywhere in the Lakes, I would know exactly where I was, and I would be able to walk easily to the comfortable safety of the nearest pub. In contrast, I could get lost just about anywhere in Wester Ross. I could get lost ten minutes from my back door. I fondly imagined that the move would be great for my photography. In a way, it would just be more of the same things I’d always done. Just on a larger scale.

I thought I’d be exploring the relationship between mountains, Scots Pines, tumbling streams and bottomless lochs. But in truth, I failed miserably in that task. I found that photographing the (even bigger) view was not my forte. I can’t do it. Joe Cornish and the like can do it with ease. But my attempts to capture the grandeur of my locale left me seriously underwhelmed. Instead, I found that my head was being turned with greater regularity by the smaller view. Views that I’m fairly sure I would have walked past in the lakes.

Views that were as nothing to the grand views. But continued to hold my gaze the longer I looked at them. I’ve always said, “See with the heart, shoot with the head”. Perhaps it was time to take my own advice. To shoot the smaller view.

I’m not going to say the ‘intimate view’ as I hate that phrase. I love our landscape. Photographing it is my passion. Every image I make is intimate. They’re all a labour of love. And that love, that feeling of awe at the smaller and smaller world around me, led me to take all sorts of images that would have been beyond my more narrow-minded Cumbrian persona.

Do I question my failure at capturing the bigger view? No. It's just the way it is. If I dwelt on that failure, I might question our move to the desolate wastelands of the North. Instead of basking in my failure I’d rather look back at some of the images over the last three years or so with a smug feeling of pride. Having said all that, I’ve no idea what is next. But whatever it is, I’m looking forward to it.

“[C]reativity is inherently . . . tied up with process, you cannot escape it. ~Joe Cornish

“Form: manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to recognised standards of technique ~Miriam-Webster Dictionary

The Pioneer Valley consists of the three counties through which the Connecticut River—the longest river in New England—flows down Western Massachusetts from Vermont to Connecticut. The “Pioneer Valley” was dubbed by nameless travel writers a century ago to draw tourists into the area, an invention that adds a deceptive veneer to an area suffused with over 6,000 years of human history. Accounting for its fertile soils and arboretum feel, the Pioneer Valley is situated on a former seabed snugged in an ancient rift valley, sat between the once rugged Berkshire Mountains and an unnamed ridge of peaks to the east. It is in this rather narrow former ocean floor turned terrarium that I, nearly exclusively, make images, and in which I have come to hope for and rely on the unexpected in doing so. Making images on an ocean floor turned veritable botanical garden, where over 6,000 years of human experience has been expunged and from a name contrived by forgotten advertising men, it seems fitting that a random quote from surrealist novelist Tom Robbins has provided a key for unlocking a more considered approach to my image making.

It is an approach that I have applied for some time and that has allowed me to start pursuing, as acclaimed American photographer Ralph Gibson puts it, a “visual signature” and to evolve the artistic outcomes I seek (and the methods by which I achieve those outcomes). This renewed approach — a roadmap of sorts — could lead anyone to artistic discovery in expressive image-making, and creative engagement generally. For, as Paul Strand put it, “If the photographer is not a discoverer, then he is not an artist.”

Edges

Robbins, a renowned novelist who the New York Times called “a cosmic lounge lizard,” morphed from a strict Southern Baptist upbringing, “into a moonbeam of the counterculture” of the American 1970s and beyond. Robbins seems never at a loss for the enigmatic, if not oddball, prophetic turn of phrase (or entire novel). Robbins, largely known for works that are “very weird . . . hilarious and curiously moving,” (like Jitterbug Perfume and Still Life with Woodpecker), is by all accounts a meticulous writer who “knows words the way a pool hustler knows chalk.” One of Writer’s Digest “100 Best Writers of the 20th Century”, Robbins was a well-known art critic in Seattle, Washington, before turning to novels. It was an experience that seeped into his fiction. In “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, Robbins gave sound instruction to the artist.

If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.

Enticing tuition for the artist, for who among us does not desire entry into the realm of magic? This directive to push art to the “wildest edge of edges” has given me a key to unfurling a vast expanse for exploration and discovery in my expressive image making.

When speaking of pushing any discipline beyond the “wildest edge of edges”, Robbins is speaking of form, that is, “manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to recognised standards of technique” — what Cornish calls process and what Gibson refers to as the protocols of photography. Robbins' invitation to the artist is to go beyond the limitations confronting all manner of creative engagement, including those “recognised standards of technique.” Form (process/protocols) are the parameters within which all photographers must work. However, I see form — Robbins’ form — as something broader than merely recognised standards of technique, process or protocols. Robbins’ form is virtually bespoke for each of us and encompasses aspects spanning the unique to the universal. This form concerns the methods employed by the artist, rather than the goal, the achievement, the outcome. This form is that distinct space — physical, emotional, material and metaphoric — in which we dwell as creatively engaged artists. Form includes limits, boundaries, that confine that space — frontiers for exploration, at the outer limits of which lie Robbins’ “wildest edge of edges.”

I imagine this broader version of form as the structure in which an artist must dwell and work while creatively engaged, and includes all that bounds our efforts as artists. It involves every aspect of the creative process. Among myriad others, form for the photographic artist includes our chosen genres, our subjects and thematic approaches, the choices we make with respect to our gear and processing, our decisions whether to practice predominantly near field or far field, digital or analog, our intimacy with the areas and the conditions in which we work. It also includes the thoughts, feelings, emotions, preconceptions and expectations we bring to each and every step along the process of creative engagement. Expressive image making is bound on all sides with the parameters of this more expansive version of form.

These boundaries include what is achievable with whatever gear is in one’s kit and the proficiency one has with it — our understanding of and proficiency with, so to speak, “how film sees the world,” as Ansel Adams put it. They include the ability and aptitude to access, interact and commune with desired locations and subjects, and one’s capacity to work in the conditions met. They include the personal constraints we all have as people, such as our physical condition, our locality and our ability or willingness to travel, and monetary limitations that directly shape our creative efforts. These various strictures and boundaries all apply their forces on our output as creative agents. For me, however, the ultimate importance of form lies not in its structure, per se, not the boundaries that hem us in. Rather, form’s significance lies in a purposeful, contemplative engagement with that framework and its limits, that is to say, the critical and ever-evolving relationships we build and cultivate with that space in which we are bound, in which we dwell while creatively engaged with image making.

Applying this broader interpretation of form, Robbins’ edict becomes a personal invitation to explore unreservedly that structure or space we all inhabit while engaged creatively. It is an invitation inveigling me “to push my art beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges” that limit me, and the outcomes I seek, from creative engagement. It is an invitation that perhaps should be accepted by anyone engaging with creativity, with artistic expression. Robbins’ edict is to explore the imaginative space that form provides, that space we inhabit as individual artists, such that we evolve, grow and move toward that realm of magic. To evolve as artists, we must assess and reassess our expectations from and our relationship with this comprehensive form, from the mundane to the esoteric, from form’s universal aspects applicable to all engaged in expressive image-making to those completely unique to our individual efforts.

We must do so with our gear and technology, our ability to achieve desired outcomes with the tools we employ, our intimacy with their means and their machinations’ breadth, and how those limits determine the outcomes we seek. It means examining freely and with regularity our relationships with and connections to our creative environs, whether near or far afield, before we arrive, in situ and after we depart, and how those relationships and connections enhance or inhibit our creative efforts. For those of us engaging with the landscape, it means examining and gaining an understanding of the history of a place and our history with that place as it evolves over time. It means ever striving to gain a better understanding of what we can expect when in those environs in which we choose to make images — weather, mood, atmosphere — in order to foster an ability to engage with the creative process when expectations are altogether met, when those hopes are not met or prove altogether unfounded, or when we choose to leave all expectation behind. And importantly, it means examining our relationship with ourselves, our goals and aspirations, writ large and small, and our engagement with those things I list, and others, that is, our engagement with form.

Following Robbins’ guidance to push art as far as it will go could provide the artist a route to those edges of form where I would suggest, the artist may coax art “into the realm of magic.” It is this engagement, this process, that I believe could be a foundation from which any artist to pursue any goal, any outcome, they seek to achieve, both in any given moment and over the long term of committed creative engagement. This requires a commitment to probing our relationships with form and its innumerable facets unrestrainedly, becoming so well versed in form as it pertains to our efforts that its boundaries become inviting, enticing us to explore those edges. We must see our limits not as a threat to achieving the outcomes we desire, but rather we must see them as an invitation, calling us forward so we can push ourselves and our art toward those “wildest edge of edges.” For, as film critic and essayist Phillip Lopate promises, “The fulsome confession of a limit carries the secret promise of an almost infinite opening-out.”

When we, as expressive image makers, examine deeply and regularly our engagement with form and our relationships with its components, no matter “how trivial or mundane” those things can seem, we open a path that can take our art “to such extremes that we illuminate its relationship to all other things . . . to that point of cosmic impact.” Once open, that path sets a bearing on the “wildest edge of edges” and perhaps a glimpse, if not entry into, that “realm of magic.” As grandiloquent as this may sound, I am convinced of the practical impact such an approach can have in the creation of meaningful images. I am not alone, it would seem. Joe Cornish has said that “photographic creativity, is also inherently a reflection of process, from both the science of photography itself and the limits on the materials, the methods and the equipment that are available to you at the time. I think that is a very important lesson to learn and is a great springboard because you can use to your advantage the limitations and the oddities that are the photographic process. . . . Process and creativity to me are intrinsically linked and importantly so.”

At this point in my development as an image maker, entering the “realm of magic” remains largely aspirational. I have, however, glimpsed Robbins’ edge of edges and the distant realm of magic beyond through my purposeful engagement with those intrinsic and important links between my creativity and the processes and protocols of expressive image making. There is no doubt there are countless image makers who regularly dwell in that realm, but there seem few, if any, external signposts pointing the way to it. However, in his approach to his writing, Robbins offered some direction as to the state of mind conducive achieving such engagement with form—a state of mind that would certainly aid any image maker in going beyond the mere glimpse and may even plunge them and their work deep into that realm of magic.

Zen Universe

Michael Dare, a screenwriter and movie producer, assisted Robbins with writing a screenplay, an adaptation of one of Robbins novels that never made it to the screen. During that period, Robbins described his writing process to Dare. In his essay How to Write Like Tom Robbins, Dare discusses that guidance in some detail. Dare explains that when Robbins starts a novel, it works like this. First he writes a sentence. Then he rewrites it again and again, examining each word, making sure of its perfection, finely honing each phrase until it reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes an entire day is devoted to one sentence, which gets marked on and expanded upon in every possible direction until he is satisfied. Then, and only then, does he add a period. Next, he rereads the first sentence and starts writing a second, rewriting it again and again until it shimmers. Then, and only then, does he add a period. While working on each sentence, he has no idea what the next sentence is going to be, much less the next chapter or the end of the book. All thoughts of where he is going or where he has been are banished. Each sentence is a Zen universe unto itself, and while working on it, nothing exists but the sentence. He keeps writing in such a manner until he eventually reaches a sentence which he works on like all the others. He adds a period and the book is done. No editing or revising in any way.

Or, as Robbins himself put it, “I try never to leave a sentence until it’s as good as I think I can make it.” Dare thought Robbins’ methodology was senseless for any writing project, declaring it “was no way to write a book, much less a screenplay.” Robbins himself confessed his approach was “painting myself in corners and seeing if I can get out.” If one wants to aspire to approaching and transcending “the wildest edge of edges” to gain entry into that “realm of magic,” Robbins’ approach of treating each sentence as a “Zen universe unto itself” during which “nothing exists but the sentence” seems a most suitable way to approach image making, what Thomas Joshua Cooper, among others, refers to as building an image.

As Cedric Wright, photographer and mentor to Ansel Adams, said, “[a] secret to fine results is to enjoy the most luxurious deliberations in each step of the work.” He warned that “there is a contagious contentment . . . out of which is apt to flow more of the spirit and qualities needed” to make an image. Wright determined that, “ideally, it should be as if on that one part of the work alone were focused the entire essence of a lifetime.” To strive to engage with this approach when light is fleeting and other limitations are encroaching, or when distractions abound, can reveal for us that “edge of edges” and thereby lead us to that place where creative transcendence may be glimpsed or, perhaps, even realised. Approaching any creative endeavour — except perhaps writing according to Dare — as close to this method as you can seems one route to achieving creative fulfilment, of approaching that realm of magic. While there may be some well-placed reticence to painting oneself into a corner as a routine, Robbins was on to something in his approach to writing that seems perfectly applicable to making images and our engagement with the form. It is through engagement with form that will lead us toward a comprehension and, ultimately, an intimacy with the boundaries that shape our efforts — both those that we all share and those specific to ourselves — such that we can dare to aspire to enter that realm of magic. Committing to such engagement is something that I have explored for some time, but still struggle with. The first step seems to be finding those edges of edges, wherever they may lie. As Lopate suggests, the artist must be “iintrigued by their limitations, both physical and mental [because] what one doesn’t understand, or can’t do, is as good a place as any to start investigating the borders of the self.”

Anamorphosis

From what vantage point must one be positioned to discover the boundaries of form? Where must one be stood in that unique space we each inhabit as creatively engaged artists in order to delineate those edges of form that limit us? What does it mean to and how does one explore those boundaries of form individual to our efforts as expressive image makers? For the artist there seems to be no more of a personal question, one that will elicit unique and individual responses. However, some general steps to those ends seem apparent. First, we must become proficient in those aspects of form necessary for attaining our desired artistic outcomes. We need not master every facet of the recognised standards of technique employed in photography generally, just those necessary to make the images we want to make, to attain the outcomes we desire. And once proficiency with the aspects of form applicable to our particular efforts is attained, those edges become delineated, made ready for exploration, for in order to explore edges of form we must know what they are and where they lie. We must not only know those limitations, we must become intimate with them so that we may strive to master those aspects of form that apply to our unique approach. As Gibson admits, “I have always, always, always worked within a set of specific limitations that led me to an infinitely broader horizon than I would have otherwise arrived. It’s the limitations that open the doors.”

To strive to master form, we must appreciate form as it pertains to Wright’s “luxurious deliberations” throughout image-making. Form in expressive image making is bespoke to each and every expressive image maker. Form is individual. Form is founded upon and bounded by the methodology, aptitude, attitude, psyche, aspirations, desires, gear—and more—that we each bring to our image-making and how we each choose to employ and incorporate those elements into our efforts. Form redefined here is the “[unique] manner or style of performing or accomplishing according to [more than merely those] recognised standards of technique [and includes everything that shapes those efforts].”

Where does one begin to explore this form when it includes all that which bounds the methods of engagement with the creative process of image making—from the basic to the advanced, the mundane to the esoteric? It seems that the application of a restriction to our craft is widely accepted foundation from which to explore form. Like Gibson, who “always, always, always” applies of “specific limitations” to his work, renowned Australian educator, artist and environmental advocate Len Metcalf, known for his transcendent square sepia images (as well as Len’s School and Len’s Journal), has said that “By having restrictions . . . I find immense freedom and so much extra room to explore.” Examples of intentional restriction of some aspect of form abound. Henri Cartier-Bresson famously used only one camera, a Leica rangefinder, and one focal length, 50mm, for nearly all of his work. For Guy Tal, much like me, the restriction of where he works applies to his image-making, as he confesses to working “primarily in the landscape of my home, the high deserts of the Colorado Plateau.”

As these few examples show, the choices of a starting point for defining and applying some restriction to our work, whether temporary or permanent, are myriad and run the gamut from those that are universally applied to all image makers to those that only affect a given photographer at a given time in a given place. From the basic to the advanced form is all that binds, controls or contorts—desired or not—our efforts. Engagement with form is pervasive and unavoidable. That engagement is where we may begin to seek and, once found, push the boundaries, the edges of form. That engagement will take you from awareness to comprehension and mastery of all that limits our image-making efforts. By applying a restriction, such considered and purposeful engagement with form may allow one to find and surpass the “wildest edge of edges” of form so that we may create something that “reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite.” Under these circumstances, setting off and exploring the edges of form seems formidable. Being one who engages with the land and landscape nearly exclusively where I live, my interactions and relationships with and connections to Place and the places I go in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts are foundational components of form that provide fertile ground for me to grow as an artist. The “restriction” of repeatedly making images in one specific location, not for days or weeks, but over the years and under varied conditions and circumstances, has afforded me a vital starting point for exploring the edges of the form within which I create images.

In Part Two, I explore my relationship with Poland Brook Wildlife Management Area, a nearby wildlife refuge, where the images accompanying this essay were made. I tell how my repeated visits over the years have enhanced my efforts to grow as an artist and offer that the same effort could help anyone grow through engagement with form.