Copy
Welcome to APG's October 2017 Newsletter

The Enduring Appeal of Landscape Photography

 
View this in your browser
Gallery Views and News

October 2017



 
 
The Enduring

Appeal of

Landscape Art

Landscape Photography, Part One




    In the 1940s, when the survival of the British Empire and even Great Britain itself was in doubt, a woman named Nan Shepherd began a little book about her native Cairngorm Mountains of northern Scotland. Judging it was the wrong time to publish it, she put the manuscript in a drawer and did not take it out until she was an old woman, thirty-five years later. Fortunately, she then decided that the time was right and The Living Mountain was published.

    Her book doesn't mention photography once. A sustained meditation on a particular landscape, it constitutes a guide on how to discover the essence of any landscape. That's exactly what landscape artists have attempted since the discovery of perspective and the ability to represent a three dimensional reality on a two dimensional surface. Landscape photographers look for those discoveries. Shepherd used words; we use cameras.

    
     Landscape is one of the most popular and enduring genres of photography and other art. Visual artists have known intuitively for centuries that humans respond strongly and positively to representations and depictions of landscapes. We respond to natural beauty. Natural landforms and works of art are two things universally thought beautiful. Landscape art marries both, and when done well, is irresistible. That fact accounts for the numbers of photographers who produce landscape art and the numbers of people who purchase it: Joy results.

(It's why you want to come to our gallery and purchase a landscape to take home or to your office. You know you do. It's in your DNA. You can't help yourself. Just get in your car and go do it! Or order on your computer. It's easy! Joy results!)

    Whereupon author is interrupted by Editor:

    Editor: You can't say that! This Newsletter is not a commercial. Take it out.
    Author: That's called subliminal advertising. It sustains the Nation's economy.
    Editor: That's not subliminal. It's crass. Take it out.
    Author: Ha! You wouldn't know crass if you saw it. I tell you the Republic depends on leaving it in.
    Editor: Bah! You're hopeless.

     As I was saying: Scientists suggest that beauty arouses and sustains our interest because it is an evolutionary adaptation that encourages good decisions. We extend those adaptations with works of art and entertainment. We need beauty. Landscape art that reminds us of the savannas where our species began elicit powerful positive emotions.

    Shepherd understood that knowledge is felt; emotional as well as intellectual: our bodies know things that precede cognition. We are, she wrote, embedded in the world and should use “the whole of one's body to instruct the spirit.” She needed time in her favorite landscape because there she simply knew things and was not “bedeviled by thought.” We can enjoy landscape photographs without conscious thought.

    Everyone has a favorite landscape and know many others. Some we have never seen. For instance, many of us know the look of Rannoch Moor simply because it is the real moor through which the fictional Alan Brack and Davey Moore flee in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. The same is true of the moor in the Sherlock Holmes' adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles. We know purely fictional landscapes, such as the Forest of Arden from Shakespeare's meditation on landscape, As You Like It. We know imaginary landscapes in other worlds from science fiction. Mostly though, we know and love a landscape from our own lives, often one from childhood.

    The landscape I know best is a small mountain valley, full of Aspens, which this year seem more glorious than usual. I am among them this week. Aspens are seductive. Each one screams out, “Look at me! Aren't I pretty? Take my picture! Take my picture!” I oblige, of course. The challenge lies in making an Aspen photo that has not already been done and done better by someone else. It is difficult, bordering on impossible, to say something new in an Aspen photo. The key must lie in discovering the essence of an Aspen tree or meadow. That requires a sustained meditation on the valley in which I find myself with my camera. I must understand what Shepherd called “the elementals” of a place if I am to make a piece of art that is beautiful. All landscape photographers do the same wherever they work.

    Peregrine falcons, the fastest animal on earth, live in the Cairngorms. Thinking about them, Shepherd realized that the Peregrine's beauty: it's sleekness, angled wings, piercing eyes, perfect talons, swiftness, and grace are necessary for its survival. A bird that can dive at 200 mph needs its beauty, just like humans need ours. Peregrines remind us that “Beauty is not adventitious but essential.”

Exactly.

_____________________

The photograph at the top of this article is of the Cairngorm Mountains and comes from the website of the Cairngorms National Park.
 

One walks among elementals, and elementals are not governable.


Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

Gallery News

   

  First Friday with Rhonda Spidell


     Our First Friday get together tonight is headlined by Rhonda Spidell and Stan Ford. As we told you last year, Rhonda attended the very first Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in 1972 when a grand total of thirteen balloons flew. She and Stan Ford will be talking about how to make better balloon photos, especially during the evening balloon glows. You can also see a wide selection of balloon photos taken by various gallery members over the years.  Come see us tonight, Friday, October 6, 2017 anytime after 5:30PM. Rhonda and Stan will talk and lead a discussion at 6:30 and we'll have our usual refreshments and good conversation.



New Member John Simmons in New York City

       Our newest gallery member, John Simmons, is in New York City where he attended last night's opening of the photo show “Wandering Curves” , in which his photo Sand Waves 1 is being shown.  It is at the Jadite Gallery on West 53rd St.  A copy of the photo is at APG where you will have to come to see it since we don't have a copy to upload in this space.

     We'll introduce John and our other new member Kelly Haller next month. We are delighted to have them both.



Workshops, Excursions, Etc.

       Only one spot remains on Kent Winchester's and Peter Boehringer's Lake Powell houseboat photography trip beginning the end of this month. (October 30 – November 3, 2017)

Only one! You know you want to go. You do. Really.  All you have to do is go to Kent's website or Peter's to sign up.

One spot. That' all.
Wait no more!

 
  

    But if the whole truth of them is to be told as I have found it, I too am involved. I have been the instrument of my own discovering; and to govern the stops of the instrument needs learning too. Thus the senses must be trained and disciplined, the eye to look, the ear to listen, the body must be trained to move with the right harmonies. I can teach my body many skills by which to learn the nature of the mountain.

Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

The balloonists are here. Drive safely and patiently and come visit Old Town.

     So my journey into an experience began, It was a journey always for fun, with no motive beyond than I wanted it.  But at first I was seeking only sensuous gratification — the sensation of height, the sensation of movement, the sensation of distance, the sensation of effort, the sensation of ease: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. . . . But as I grew older, and less self-sufficient, I began to discover the mountain in itself. Everything became good to me, its contours, its colors, its waters and rock, flowers and birds. This process has taken many years, and is not yet complete. Knowing another is endless. And I have discovered that man's experience of them enlarges rocks,flower and bird. The thing to be known grows with the knowing.

Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

Items of Interest

Proposed Copyright Law Change

     House Bill 3945 has been introduced in the House of Representatives to amend the U.S. copyright law. Known as the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2017”, it would, should it ever become law; and there is at least a small chance of that given that it is sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, create a small claims court within the copyright office to adjudicate claims of copyright infringement where the claim is for less than $30,000. As a practical matter, current copyright law protects low volume, high value works, but does a poor job of protecting higher volume, lower cost creators such as almost all photographers. (Most photography sells for far less. Like in our gallery where you can — here comes a subliminal message — purchase fine art for much less than $30,000. Although, if you want to spend that much, we allow it.)

Edward Weston's Darkroom

     Edward Weston produced most of his sublime photographs in a rudimentary darkroom using a bare light bulb for exposing his images on paper. Here is a short documentary about his process, including a visit to his darkroom.

Eliot and Aline Porter

     Scheinbaum and Russek in Santa Fe have a show through the end of October featuring the work of Eliot Porter and his wife Aline. Here is what they have to say about the show:  “The history of art, music and literature is filled with passionate love affairs between creative spirits. In understanding relationships for artistic couples, hints may be found in their work. Such is the premise behind this exhibit of Aline and Eliot Porter’s work, both artists in their own right while also influencing and supporting each other’s work. This exhibition honors the artistic visions of Aline and Eliot Porter, partners in life and art.”


 
I knew that when I had looked for a long time I had hardly begun to see.


Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
Newsletter Copyright © Kent Winchester, All rights reserved.
The Albuquerque Photographers' Gallery: The Southwest's premier gallery of contemporary fine art photography.

You can unsubscribe from this list by clicking the link below. If you do, woe betide you. You will get short shrift from Winston Churchill.

unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 
 






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
Albuquerque Photographers' Gallery · 303 Romero Street Northwest, Albuquerque, NM · Albuquerque, NM 87104 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp