I'm studying photography at Aston Univerisity in Birmingham, England and my goal is to find a landscape photographer who uses meduim or large format and natural light rather than enhancing an image with the use of filters. I've ploughed through lots of magazines here and they all feature the same old boring stuff by Charlie Waite, David Ward and Joe Cornish ect but all of those use filters extensivley. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'll be very grateful. The only other thing is that he or she needs to be British. (the photographer, not the poster)

thanx. Lisa

-- Lisa Bevis (LisaBevis@fsmail.com), June 04, 2002

Answers

There is this grand dame of British or for that mater European landscape photography: FAY GODWIN. There was also one of the worlds greatest photographers that made good photograps (unfiltered) of the British landscape: BILL BRANDT There is a catch though: They were both born in Hamburg, Germany. But great Britons still.

-- Gudmundur Ingólfsson (imynd@simnet.is), June 04, 2002.

You may want to see the photos of Paul Cunningham. He was one of PDN's 30 photographers this year. Check out www.pdnonline.com/ gallery/pdns30/2002. Click on "PDN's 30" in the lower left of the popup window.

-- Matthew Runde (actorm@hotmail.com), June 04, 2002.

My code was partially destroyed, so don't copy and paste the URL that you can see. If you click on it, though, you will visit the correct page.

-- Matthew Runde (actorm@hotmail.com), June 04, 2002.

A picture of a road, with a stop sign, or one of a a cow with some flats in the background is hardly my choice of landscape. http://www.djclark.com/godwin/gal11.htm Personally I think anyone who has eyes and a camera could do that! Lisa.

-- Lisa Bevis (LisaBevis@fsmail.com), June 04, 2002.

Hi Matthew, An image of half a tennis court? Is that landscape photography? I must be missing something here. Or perhaps my art teacher needs the sack. Or maybe I need to find another career!

Lisa.

-- Lisa Bevis (LisaBevis@fsmail.com), June 04, 2002.

My favorite British landscape photographer is John Blakemore. Uses 4x5. Last I heard he was teaching in Derby.

-- Willhelmn (wmitch3400@hotmail.com), June 04, 2002.

Hi Lisa,

You don't want the "old boring stuff" but seem put off by anything different?

"A picture of a road, with a stop sign, or one of a a cow with some flats in the background is hardly my choice of landscape. http://www.djclark.com/godwin/gal11.htm Personally I think anyone who has eyes and a camera could do that!"

Actually Lisa, now living several thousand miles away now, it captures exactly a place close to where I grew up. Fay Godwin's work is very interesting - try looking over the whole range - especially black and white. Try Edge of the Land.

"An image of half a tennis court? Is that landscape photography?"

Yes it is (or can be)

"I must be missing something here."

sounds like it

"Or perhaps my art teacher needs the sack".

Wouldn't suprise me at all

Take a look at some of the following photographers(not Brits) and give us an opinion, based on your teachers approach and we'll confirm it for you! - Thomas Struth (especially in this context "Dandelion Room), Andreas Gursky, Richard Misrach, Gabrielle Basilico, William Eggleston.

There are an awful lot of art teachers out there who know little of contemporary photography.

Tim

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), June 04, 2002.

Hmmm,

looks to me like Lisa's a LF Troll - her emails bounce back from the list

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), June 04, 2002.

Dear Tim, Sorry for the wrong email, here is my real addy. getting my .com's mixed up with my .nets in all the excitement!

LisaBevis@fs.net

-- Lisa Bevis (LisaBevis@fs.net), June 04, 2002.

Perhaps the way to address this question is to first ask Lisa a question:

What do you consider Modern Landscape photography? Can you offer any hint of content, style, vision, execution? If so, it may be easier for people to offer you help!

-- Per Volquartz (volquartz@volquartz.com), June 04, 2002.

As sent to Lisa:

Ah - apologies for the possible slurr!

:-)

tim

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), June 04, 2002.

Lisa, your question is a good one. I shoot mostly B&W and really enjoy seeing what other photographers are doing. It always struck me that that the better images(to me) never screamed FILTER ALERT, though I know that without a filter, a marginal sky gets blown out (like when shot with ortho,) and lush foliage can get muddy(unlike when shot using ortho) While a really dramatic sky(if thats an element of the photo) can photograph very well without filteration, I think its pretty widely accepted that filteration is a useful tool for B&W to put elements of the image that may be lost back into the image. IMHO it can be overdone. In the field of color photography, I find that Chris Burkett(not a Brit), who is argueably one of the finest color landscape photographers around, doesn't use filters at all. I suggest that YOU grab your favorite flavor format and start taking those exciting new B&W filterless landscapes. Seeing the image is half(probably more than half)the battle, and since you already seem to know what kind of pictures you like, you might as well have at it! Good Luck!

-- John Kasaian (www.kasai9@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Lisa, In aditionto Fay Godwin and John Blakemore (now retired), try Thomas Joshua Cooper (born American, but living and working in Scotland). There are numerous other photographers who work in the way you require, but who are not published - try the regional arts boards and their web sites. good luck Robin

-- Robin Coutts (robin.rocket@virgin.net), June 05, 2002.

Hi Lisa, have a look at british photographer Jem Southam (books include 'Red River'/'Raft of Carrots'/and most recently 'Rockfalls, Rivermouths and Ponds'. The work is 10x8 colour. Prints are monumental.

would be interested to know what you think.

you might also try looking at Gerhard Stromberg's work (german resident in UK)

for colour 10x8 images of the british coast try Harry Cory Wright at Saltwater Bo

-- Stephen Vaughan (stephen@vaughanphotos.freeserve.co.uk), June 05, 2002.

My vote's for Fay Godwin. Check out her book Land, a spectacular collection of b&w images.

-- Andy B. (buckwiet@yahoo.com), June 05, 2002.

Ever checked out John Davies? He doesn't do color as far as I know, but you might be interested. He visited a couple times while I was at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. One of my all-time favorite photographs is his of the Pendlebury Power Station:

http://www.sussed-exhibition.co.uk/content/06%20artworks/23.htm

You have to see the print in person to really appreciate it. They are simple and beautiful, but at the same time have a lot going on (football players, cooling tower, gypsies). Here's a website:

http://www.daviesphoto.demon.co.uk/

-- Eric Mims (eamims@mindspring.com), June 05, 2002.

Not all use of filters is enhancing. It can be a correction back to our vision (vs. that of the film). Cornish for example uses lots of ND grad filters; if done well it is more realistic than without.

-- Wim van Velzen (wp.vanvelzen@12move.nl), June 05, 2002.

Lisa, probably my favourite contempory landscape photographer - UK born (Lancashire) but now living in the US is Michael Kenna ( http://www.michaelkenna.net ). Not sure if this fits your criteria, but then, I am not sure what your criteria is....

Cheers,

-- Bob (bobphoto@techie.com), June 05, 2002.

There is plenty of landscape out there - get out and take some pictures... I often use a polariser or a 1.5 or 3.0 pink correction filter.

How long is you course? What do they teach you? What gear do you have? Are you into landscape with architecture?

I am at Evesham, 45 minutes form Aston uni.

-- Dick Roadnight (dick.roadnight@btopenworld.com), June 05, 2002.

Lisa: A good photo is a good photo, are we supposed to ask first what passport its photographer carries?

-- Julio Fernandez (gluemax@sympatico.ca), June 05, 2002.

Lisa,

Please pay close attention to the above posters commenting on the use of filters in b & w. Without filters, scenics can be dull, boring and flat. Filters are a necessary artistic tool to be used as the artist (that's you) feels will aid the viewer (that's me) to see what you want me to see. To be used as necessary just as darkroom work improves the final print. Dodge, burn-in, contrast papers.

It's all there for you to use to create photographic art.

Also, I agree the Julio.

Good light.

-Steve

-- Steve Feldman (steve@toprinting.com), June 05, 2002.

I think Lisa may have been talking about the use of filters in colour landscape - those lovely tobacco filters or ultra saturated polarizing.

BTW - thanks for the link to John Davies website. I have a book on British Photographers fromt he Thatcher Years with him in it, as well as some old magazine articles - I've always liked his work, but had never thought of looking his site up on the web - duh!

So - new books to blow money on...

(does anyone have the book by him and Martin Parr on Lake Garda? It's a place that holds childhood memories - memories jogged by and combined with old Super 8 kodachrome cine film - the mook might be rather intersting. Any opinions - I love Parrs work) tim

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), June 06, 2002.

sorry, i am a bit late. i live in continental europe, have studied landscape-planing, i occupied myself with valuing landscapestructures and with pictured landscape, and i am a lf-photographer. what i must say to your question and to your following comments is: i do not really know what you are talking about! obviously you seem to have a urgent need of extending your (quite narrow) idea of landscape and maybe also your idea of pictures. so landscape is the sum of elements in it (and this contains botany and zoology as well as architecture and its ground - a simplyfied version of a definition). and i will not try to define what is a picture now. your comments sound to me like you call schubert's songs old boring stuff, and say to archie shepp's experiments "...blowing into a saxophone like crazy can do everybody..." (just to use two well-known artists). but of course there is no need to tell that to an art-student. rgds

-- Herwig Prammer (herwig.prammer@reuters.com), June 06, 2002.

"Lisa" may be a troll, but this subject is worth discussing again because a lot of people don't seem to get it. *** Subject matter is neutral! *** So maybe the picture of the road and the sign wasn't any good, but it wasn't because it had a road and a sign in it. And if you don't think that's "landscape photography," you should check out the New Topographics photographers -- hardly new any more.

I agree with Herwig.

Cheers,

-- Sandy Sorlien (sand44@mindspring.com), June 06, 2002.

Lisa, I teach "Contemporary Color Landscape Photography and the Environment" at the International Center of Photography in New York, and color printing at the Westchester Art Workshop in Westchester (a suburb of New York City). In my ICP course, I include people like Richard Misrach, Joel Sternfeld, Joel Meyerowitz, Mitch Epstein, Len Jenshel, David T. Hanson, William Eggleston, Martin Paar, etc. These are all photographers who include social concerns about the landscape into their images. I'm also writing an article for the August/September issue of Camera Arts magazine on my own "Mystical Landscapes" and the glories of the C print. In the article, I attack the over-filtration of many landscape photographers, and the formulized approach which only considers the landscape in isolation. So your question is quite pertinent. If you would like to check out my own work, you can go the www.nextmonet.com, and look up my name. There are 12 of my Irish landscapes there. I'm not British -- nor Irish -- but I've been tremendously influenced by Celtic culture, as well as its connections to Vedic culture which I have been studying for more than 20

-- Bill Jorden (billjorden@aol.com), June 06, 2002.

I teach "Contemporary Color Landscape Photography and the Environment" at the International Center of Photography in New York, and color printing at the Westchester Art Workshop in Westchester (a suburb of New York City). In my ICP course, I include people like Richard Misrach, Joel Sternfeld, Joel Meyerowitz, Mitch Epstein, Len Jenshel, David T. Hanson, William Eggleston, Martin Paar, etc. These are all photographers who include social concerns about the landscape into their images. I'm also writing an article for the August/September issue of Camera Arts magazine on my own "Mystical Landscapes" and the glories of the C print. In the article, I attack the over-filtration of many landscape photographers, and the formulized approach which only considers the landscape in isolation. So your question is quite pertinent. If you would like to check out my own work, you can go the www.nextmonet.com, and look up my name. There are 12 of my Irish landscapes there. I'm not British -- nor Irish -- but I've been tremendously influenced by Celtic culture, as well as its connections to Vedic culture which I have been studying for more

-- Bill Jorden (billjorden@aol.com), June 06, 2002.

Polaroid Filters...

can produce artificially deep blue skys and the blue sky creats a blue cast anyway, so I tend to use a pink filter with a polariser.

A landscape should look natural, but I lke (natural looking) bright, saturated colours.

The use of filters is one of the main differences between photographic artists and the auto-everything happy snapper.

-- Dick Roadnight (dick.roadnight@btopenworld.com), June 06, 2002.

I must respectfully disagree with Dick's comment, even though he has a most excellent last name.

Whether one is a "photographic artist" can't be measured by whether one uses filters or not. If you don't need them to get across your vision, for god's sake don't use them.

I also believe there is no "should" in art without a big "if" after it. That is, a landscape "should look natural" only IF that is what the photographer wants. If s/he is trying to communicate something else besides naturalism, then why should the picture look natural?

-- Sandy Sorlien (sand44@mindspring.com), June 06, 2002.

Colin Prior photographs panaramic landscapes of Scotland with the 6x17 format using the Fuji camera. He has two excellent books out call "Highland Wilderness" and "Scotland:The Wild Places". So far as I know he doesn't use filters. He goes to great lengths to find the lighting situation he is after. Regs, Nigels (UK).

-- Nigel Sutton (nigelsutton@gnps.fsnet.co.uk), June 10, 2002.