When the summer season ends and I have more free time what I like to do to relax my mind and my vision is landscape photography.
When you think about landscape photography you may not immediately connect it with emotion in the same way as if you see a portrait, documentary photo, wildlife photo or indeed pet photo (that emotion is why my dog, Romeo, gets more love than me on facebook!). But as with all art forms, landscape photography should connect with the viewer in a way that means something, and it has the potential to be more than just a gorgeous scene.
I remember when I started photography 35 years ago, a mentor at that time, said to me, “You photograph how you see and not what you see.” At that point I didn’t really get it but I never forgot it.
It’s interesting as there are thousands of videos and articles on technique, cameras and settings, but the photos that stick in your mind don’t get there because they were really sharp, had good bokeh or were shot on a certain camera. Have you ever looked at Van Gogh and said, “He must have had a good paint brush?” However, there aren’t as many on emotion and feelings in photography.
What emotions do you feel with landscape photography though?
Sometimes a photo makes you stop in your tracks and look deep into it. It isn’t just perfect exposure or a beautiful scene. It has instant impact and creates a quick emotional response. Take the next image for example:
Other times, you can pass by an image many times and eventually grow to love it and have an increased emotional attachment to it as you see new things and explore the intricacies of the scene.
Unfortunately modern social media favors the first of these two emotional responses. Instagram is all about that five second impact. Take the following photo from my Instagram feed. It got 50% more views than my average photo but it doesn’t really have any long lasting emotional response.
