Playing with the Landscape 8
November 25, 2017
The series of photographs that ended yesterday with The Blind 11 began—as do so many things—serendipitously. I was looking on my computer for older photos that I’d taken with Intentional Camera Movement, ones I had passed up in their day. I’d had so much fun a few weeks earlier, playing with the Pennsylvania landscape, that I wanted more of it. In searching for the older ICM photos I bumped into the first two photographs of the designs that blinds make on walls and ceilings. Then I remembered other photographs I’d taken of blinds designs and kept going. Meanwhile I also played with the old ICM photos. Here’s the first of the new batch. All were taken in Gulf Coast Florida.
Romancing Reality 
Its always good to play with images, to look at them this way and that – new perceptions often surface.
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November 25, 2017 at 6:40 AM
You’re right, of course, Adrian. I find it hard to break out of almost-pure documentation, but I’m starting to feel more comfortable with the notion that I can have two bodies of work, one that documents reality and one that plays with it.
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November 25, 2017 at 8:45 AM
Yes, I really think you can have two. I suppose I had the same problems sometime back. The only no-no, to me anyway, is trying to pass off a highly manipulated (even fantasised) image as pure reality. Other than that, and especially with black and white, let your hair down!!! 🙂
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November 25, 2017 at 9:25 AM
I absolutely agree about that no-no, Adrian. That may be why I really don’t care for many HDR photographs I see online. When HDR is used reasonably (to my mind), we can’t tell that it’s been used, so I may see many more HDR photographs that I do like.
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November 25, 2017 at 9:35 AM
I agree with you entirely about HDR – in particular in landscape shots taken into the light where most or all of the details in the shadows are visible – on the one hand its completely unnatural and thus not reality, and on the other hand if it fantasy or unreality, to my mind its simply not attractive. Haha, we talk about the unacceptable face of Capitalism, well, to my mind, HDR is often the unacceptable face of Digital Photography! I’ve never used it and doubt if I shall.
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November 25, 2017 at 10:10 AM
Absolutely beautiful image, Linda.
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November 25, 2017 at 8:37 AM
Thanks, Ken. I’m glad you like it. It’s fun to go back to old photographs and see what I can find there with a little—or a lot—more tweaking.
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November 25, 2017 at 8:47 AM
The image makes me smile, there’s something cheerful about it, I suppose it looks akin to a rising sun. But more than that, I am heartened by imagining you puttering through your images and finding some that were passed over before, working on them again maybe, seeing them in a new light.
Photographs that document reality, the photographs that play with reality – a nice division, but if it were me, I bet I would find I had photos that fall right in between. Maybe not, I don’t know. Something to thank about!
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November 26, 2017 at 3:01 PM
You have me riffing on the probable slip of the pen in your last sentence. Surprises and ambiguities are often something to be thankful for. Glad you’re smiling—for all the reasons you mention. Going over old photographs can be fun. It’s getting to be about time to get out there and make some new ones, though. Probably won’t get a chance to do much before another week.
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November 26, 2017 at 4:58 PM
Yeah, that was a typo, but a good one! 😉 It’s an odd time of year for photography, isn’t it? Kind of betwixt and between.
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November 30, 2017 at 2:09 PM
I think I like the betwixt and between times—the last chances to catch something that won’t be around for long.
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December 4, 2017 at 5:30 PM