Friday, February 25, 2011

Landscapes. Never, ever again!

Call it Wabi-Sabi or Pictorialism if you like [but DON'T call it a Landscape!]

I was out with Ghriet, a noisy contemptible dog with a small mind of its own. The wind was howling round my earlobes and my tinnitus was kicking off big-time. We tramped up the road past the abandoned charabanc, through the squeaky iron gate and onto the moor. It was sunny but cold with the wind tearing through me. I was heading towards the peats. I'm not sure why since it wasn't landscapes I had in mind that's for sure. The way the dog was barking it was going to be a still-life, and soon.

To be completly honest, it wasn't the best choice of location I could have made for a non-landscape shot. Sure, the frogs have been very busy leaving little jellied piles of spawn all along the track, yes the grass looked lovely and the sheep cuddly but I didn't really have the camera for that. Or the film. The camera works excellently but not in that wind. The lens has the resolving power of a milk-bottle bottom and the film was Chinese and now looks like the emulsion was spread with second-hand chop-sticks. Either that or the local water board have just chucked another dead sheep in the system such was the prevalence of hairs on the neg!

So I took a landscape. I know, I know, I don't take landscapes but I made an exception. I won't do it again I can tell you.

4 comments:

Dom said...

What a wonderful sepia photograph

gz said...

I like your non-landscapes!

Chris said...

I love this picture. Fantastic feel to it.

Anonymous said...

You have a natural talent for 'landscape', whatever you say. It comes naturally to you. Why do you kick against it so? The camera likes you and seems to follow your eye. Like it's part of you. Here's a parallel. I do life drawing. Often I struggle - trying to put one limb against another so it doesn't looks dislocated. Then, sometimes, all too rarely, when the struggle is over, I do a drawing without thinking - like a snapshot, unintended - and it works! It's there, on the page. Everything locks together. And all the struggle has made it work! I see the same thing in your landscapes.
David