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Much photography directs the viewer to look at a ‘thing’ – an object, an event etc. Emotional impact tends to burst onto the viewer through the process of realization and recognition of what is being shown. Christopher Thomas’s images work in a different way. They focus on absence rather than presence. Their emotional power seeps rather than bursts onto the...
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Water, Agriculture & Abstract Beauty ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ goes the adage. And that’s certainly true for photography which, as a descriptive medium, has always been used to tell stories. Whilst the single image can communicate meaning instantaneously, stories come into their own when a selection of images is put together as a series. A sense of...
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Do you like modern art/photography? Especially abstract modern art…? Or does it frustrate you? Does it feel like the artist is being deliberately obscure, cloaking an image in obfuscation, and then calling it Art! I must admit I can have both reactions… But with this image by Sandy Weir I’m definitely in the former camp. To me this is beautiful,...
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Chris McCaw and Sunburned Usually, I try to avoid talking about too much about technique in these articles. It’s the aesthetics of the image that really interests me - the impact a picture has on the viewer. And it is the emotional reaction that is most fascinating about Chris McCaw’s beautiful and mysterious Sunburn pictures, but his method of capture...
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Abstract photography, which is how I would almost classify this lovely photograph by Michéla Griffith (click here to read previous articles by Michela), engages the viewer in a completely different way from other photographic genres. Unlike a landscape or a portrait there is a momentary hesitation, a second of uncertainty, as we ponder what it is that we are seeing....
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The best photographs leave something to the imagination, they leave room for the viewer wrote David Ward In an article "Leaving room… Where does the viewer live?" (OnLandscape, issue 65) David Ward goes on to explain that to capture the viewer’s attention, images pose questions without necessarily providing any answers; they tend to be slightly ambiguous and are open to...
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Much photography is descriptive in a literal sense. Sharp lenses, high resolution cameras transcribe in great detail and clarity whatever subject the photographer choses. The viewer recognises instantly what is being shown; as a result interpretation is relatively simple. That is not the case with Doug Chinnery’s wonderful moody seascape view above. (Click here for other articles Doug Chinnery has...
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Living just next to Epping Forest I have always been fascinated by images of trees. They can be wonderfully expressive things. Not easy to photograph though. Too chaotic, seemingly random, difficult to isolate from surroundings. The mainstay of landscape photography, the vista, becomes incredibly hard when you enter amongst the trees. Which is perhaps why focusing on the near and...
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Fearless Photography There has been a lot of debate about the Sublime recently – in this publication and others. It is clearly in vogue. So I make no apologies for focussing on Marc Adamus in this article. A photographer who, in every sense of the word (awe, majesty, grandeur, fear etc), makes Sublime images. His style is hugely dramatic, intensely...
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Many photographic images are illustrative. They present the viewer with whatever is in front of the camera. However, photographs are at their most powerful when they tease out an emotional response in the viewer. They go beyond illustration and become evocation. Bruce Percy’s image of a small iceberg on the beach at Jökulsárlón in Iceland is just such a picture....
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