The Inner Essence of a Landscape.

I’d never thought of myself as a landscape photographer, but since I’ve always hiked a lot, or otherwise been out in nature, and had a camera with me, I’ve taken a lot of landscape photos over the years. So of course I’ve developed my little theories and thoughts on what I think makes a good landscape photograph. There are of course a lot of nuts and bolts involved such as light and composition, but I’ve come come to believe that what separates a good landscape from just another pretty picture is the photographer’s ability to capture something of an inner essence of a scene. Ideally, that essence is not something that can be defined with words but rather something that is perceived in the right, non-verbal part of the brain, and felt deep down in the soul.

I really hate starting off an essay with official definitions which are typically at least as dry as the landscape pictured above. Nevertheless, definitions can be useful, even necessary, to find mutual understanding as the piece moves along. So I’ll risk you will slog through them in order to get to the loftier ideas and more interesting discussions presented below. So be prepared, an arid wind is gonna blow for the next few graphs.

National Geographic defines a natural landscape as “part of the Earth’s surface that can be viewed at one time in one place. It consists of the geographic features that mark, or are characteristic of, a particular area.” We typical think of landscapes as depicting a vast area of nature with no sign of humans or human intervention. Pictures of trees do not a landscape make. You need a picture of a forest.

NatGeo goes on to differentiate a natural landscape from a cultural one. “A natural landscape is made up of a collection of landforms…” A cultural landscape, on the other hand, is “a landscape that people have modified.” They don’t say it, but I think with cultural landscapes, we also expect them to be vast. A closeup of a smokestack does not a cultural landscape make. You need some other element to make it deep.

Most people think of landscape photography as beautifully spectacular pictures of places. They only see, and the photographers only photograph, the outer essence, which is the spectacular beauty. Many of these photos are heavily processed, often with HDR (ugh) to accentuate, and make spectacular, the natural beauty, which more likely than not robs them of most, if not all but the most superficial artistic merit. If the left brain can easily explain what it thinks is good about it – the mountain with its golden hour light, the reflection in the lake, the crisp green foliage, etc., and the right brain gets nada, it’s probably not very good.

I believe, or pretend to at least for the sake of making interesting photographs, that Landscapes contain an inner essence that is incomprehensible to the left brain but that the right brain feels deeply, which a skilled photographer can capture. Sure, maybe that’s new age-y hogwash, but it’s certain that photographers, or painters for that matter, can create a picture that communicates the idea that a landscape has an inner essence, whether it really does or not.

In order to find that way of looking at landscapes, of feeling that there is an inner essence and communicating something of it visually, I think it’s useful to study great landscape painters. I found my inspiration in Hudson River School paintings by artists such as Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Duran, and Frederic Edwin Church. I love how the best of what they did with light and color and composition give a palpable feeling of the essence of a landscape that is more than being just a picture of its individual elements.

When I’m shooting landscapes I find myself looking for the same elements. Compare the Durant painting and my smokestack work to the above photo against the June Lake picture above that’s whacked out with HDR process – I will be surprised if you can’t see what I’m getting at. If that kind of much more typical landscape photography has any inner essence, it is one of superficial plasticity. The best Hudson River School photos, I expect you can see, ooze an inner essence. That is something the left brain is unable to explain in words. But the right brain knows.

(Comparing the above photo and painting, I’m tempted to talk about depth and perspective in a photograph, as those two make an interesting contrast in that regard, but I’ll save that for another essay.)

Perhaps part of what allows us to sense the inner essence of a natural landscape is the difficulty one has to overcome to find the photo. As “progress” marches on, it is ever more difficult to find a natural landscape, one with no evidence of human activity. Somehow, the more difficult a natural landscape is to capture, the more pure its inner essence. Your right brain can usually discern the difference between a vista that is precisely shot to exclude the cornfield to the right or the highway to the left, and one that the photographer had to hike three days through the wind and the rain to get to. Perhaps that’s poppycock to a viewer? Dunno for sure, but it feels like that when you’ve climbed up a large, increasingly steep hill in the open sun in a harsh, rattlesnake-filled desert to get a shot like the one below. I think something of that experience is communicated in the photo. I guess technically that has nothing to do with any “inner essence” of a landscape and demonstrates the more likely idea that photographers inject some of their inner essence into the photo.

But maybe we live in some Don Juan’s world where the remaining old spirits have migrated to these more inaccessible places. However the landscape gets its inner essence, whether from the inside or out, what matters is that you can feel it when you are there, and photograph it if you’re carrying the right camera, and have learned how to see at least something of what you feel.

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All photos ©Michael Webster unless otherwise indicated.