PRO COLUMN
BENEDICT BRAIN considers the landscape as a living entity…
Benedict Brain returns for more photographic pondering, as he considers the landscape as a living entity and shares his favourite writers
Inever really know how to answer the question, “What kind of photographer are you?”. I’m just not sure where I fit. I heard the term ‘genre fluid’ the other day and I thought maybe that hit the nail on the head.
I’m often photographing in the landscape, however, I am reluctant to describe myself as a landscape photographer. Mainly, I don’t like the association and assumption that I’m the kind of photographer that gets up at dawn to chase the light in the magic hour at the world’s honeypot photo locations. I don’t have a judgement on this, not much anyway; it’s just not me. I’ll happily spend time in the mountains at dawn, but for me, this is about nourishing the soul and raising the spirits.
But as a photographer, I’d sooner be shooting in some semi-industrial scrubland and engaging in more humdrum topographies. To that end, I have been inspired by the New Topographics, especially by the work of Lewis Baltz, Stephen Shore and Robert Adams. Adams in particular has been a big influence on me with regard to the landscape and in his fabulous book, Beauty in Photography: Essays
in Defense of Traditional Values, in the essay Truth and Landscape, Adams says, “Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities – geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together… the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact – an affection for life.”
My thoughts are that by geography, Adams is referring to a visual record of a place, the topography, the weather and the light and so on – in a descriptive way. Autobiography suggests an element of personal expression, a sense of place and how you respond to it as a photographer. And finally, as a metaphor,
Adams is asking what else can you say with your photograph – can it be used to imply an alternative meaning or message?
Keeping Adams’ three kinds of information in mind is what I strive for when I’m working in the landscape. So the image I’m showing here is part of an ongoing project which I have tentatively titled A Sentient Land. In the project I’m exploring aspects of the landscape, using photography to describe the land as a living, dynamic and visceral entity which is suggestive of a deep-rooted connection with myth and ancient folklore. As I work through the images and the project evolves, I think I’m beginning to make work that is less one-dimensional with layers of meaning and this is the direction I want to take my landscape work.