Not Pictured; When is a Landscape not a Landscape?

Personally speaking, I have a hard time garnering any sort of enjoyment out of looking at landscape photography, even if the image demonstrates a high level of technical ability. Don't get me wrong, I love a burning scarlet sunset over rolling hills, reflected in a shimmering, clear lake as much as the next person, it's just that when you remove the element of actually being there, you lose something. You lose a lot, in fact.

As a result, I often feel that a traditional landscape photograph, no matter how well executed it is, doesn't get across the sensation of "being there". Whilst I don't completely agree with the notion that every photograph has to say something or tell a story, I tend to feel acutely aware of a lack of focus or feeling in a photo of a mountain on a nice day, for example.

Of course this also raises the question of what a "traditional landscape" is. Is it one that perfectly follows the rule of thirds, has some nice lines to lead you through the image and has perfect exposure, perhaps using an NDGrad filter to get the sky just right? Does a landscape image have to have a minimum field of view, in both width and depth, to be classed as such? Does it have to be landscape oriented or can it be portrait oriented? Does it matter? Have you fallen asleep?

I suppose what I'm really driving at is whether we need to worry about this question at all, and whether working within the limits of a landscape framework limits what we can do creatively.

Believe it or not, I do sometimes dabble in landscape myself (or at least I think I do). The main draw of this kind of photography I find is the adventure itself; going out into the big bad world and trying to create an interesting image from your surroundings. I sometimes feel frustrated at first, as you review your images so far and they're just hills, trees, mountains, arranged slightly differently each time.

The recent snow we've had has given me an opportunity to experiment a little more. I travelled up to the lake district and snapped some wintry scenes. I've picked a little selection of shots, some that lean towards the traditional and some that lean away. (click the images for larger versions)

With wintry scenes, I like to emphasise a starkness, similar to the way you might approach a desert photo. Strong, simple lines, minimalistic and sometimes with a human interest of some sort, either for a sense of scale or for a figure to relate to within the image.

The viaduct you can see is situated at Ribblehead. You'll find a nauseating wealth of images of landmarks such a viaducts and aqueducts, so it can be a real challenge to produce something more interesting. The heavy snow was a perfect opportunity to do this and I wanted to get across a sense of the temperature.

As for composition, landmarks like these are always shot at some kind of angle, to supposedly make them different and more interesting. Unfortunately, when everyone is doing this, it then makes it the norm to take this approach. That's why I've included an alternative approach, taking the viaduct head on with nobody in sight. It does weird things to your sense of perspective and you can't really tell how large a structure you're looking at. Is that a good thing? I don't know, but I just shoot what pleases me aesthetically.

So my answer to the question, "when is a landscape not a landscape?" is "when you stop worrying whether it's a landscape or not". I know it's cold outside, but wrap up warm, grab your camera and go break some rules.


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