Pursuing Mountain Photography Friday October 5, 2007
One commonly repeated idea about photography is it doesn’t matter where you are and what your subject is, rather that you think and work creatively. I’ve seen photographers give this advice, and I don’t wholly agree with it; it’s a lazy answer that doesn’t properly address the issues. It’s certainly true you can create good photographs from mundane and less obvious subjects and there is for example, an interesting self-explanatory book called Trash Aesthetics that explores this subject in depth. Though it’s more academic cultural criticism than photographic theory, it does identify a contemporary trend in which photography is implicated. Photographing ‘trashy’ subjects, seeking beauty or interest in overlooked situations could almost be described as a sub-genre of photography. It sharpens your visual instincts, and in an enjoyable way makes the world a better place because you have created beauty where it wasn’t inherent. In that respect, it demonstrates photographic creativity.
However location, location, location, to rephrase a well known UK political manifesto, could almost be regarded as a photographic manifesto. The fact is, if you go to a fabulous or interesting place it’s like giving your computer extra RAM or using superior grade petrol in your car. Indeed, take a look at the lovely art photo books in your local bookshop or library and you will find a large proportion of the work exemplifies this. Although he’s a trite and superficial reference, David Bailey was a very accomplished photographer and is a useful example. When he produced his iconic work a few decades ago, he was ground-breaking for several reasons one of which was his frequent use of exotic locations. Not only did he work with fantastically beautiful women, he took them to gorgeous beaches and immensely photogenic places. Nice work if you can get it, though I prefer mountains to beaches.
I say this as a preamble to the subject of mountain photography, in respect of the fact that I’ve recently visited the Pyrenees and some of my photographs are in this essay. Mountains are potentially very photogenic, they are my favourite place to be, and the experience of exploring them has interesting psychological and philosophical implications. Why do we feel calm, happy and enlivened when we are there but not (in my case) when we are walking through Manchester city centre? What is the difference, ecologically, psychologically and aesthetically, between urban streets and a high altitude plateau? The same applies, though in a less dramatic way, when comparing normal urban living to the warm beaches we enjoy on conventional holidays. And there’s a Shirley Valentine syndrome when we come back, and really, really, do not want to come back, because we had such a great time on holiday. What does that signify, beyond the obvious notion that Spanish or Caribbean sand is a more pleasant place to sit than at an office chair? I regard mountains as not only a wonderful recreational possibility, but that walking in them is symbolic of something fundamental and important in the human psyche: something that gets ignored, overlooked, and brutalised in contemporary life. Take one look at the faces of car drivers stuck in traffic jams, to see what I mean.
There is then, something quite interesting about just wandering your local neighbourhood and making beautiful photographs from it. But photographing mountains is not only environmentally and aesthetically different, it’s also psychologically different and photographically inspiring. The images you get ideally record moments of contemplation, silence, aesthetic pleasure, or a humble appreciation of the power and moods of nature in one of its most formidable expressions. ‘Humble’, from the word ‘humility’, is an interesting psychological concept rarely considered in modern human living except in a specific and unappealing religious context. It actually means ‘stand under’, and in mountain walking it has both literal and philosophical ramifications. Hikers sometimes say ‘you have to respect the mountains’ and it’s a similar notion, where we have to accept our human will is subordinate to the inert but formidable geography. Mountains are always a slightly dangerous place, and we have to remember this and plan accordingly. Some powerful narrative written by British mountaineer Alan Hinkes conveys this very well:
Suddenly I was scared. I was shaking and hyperventilating. “Shit, this is serious”, I thought. The reality of my situation had just hit me: I wasn’t on Buachaille Etive Mor or Helvellyn in a winter flurry – I was alone, at night in a snowstorm at 8500 m, descending from the third highest summit in the world. There was no Clachaig Inn a couple of hours away down the mountain, no car waiting in Glenridding to whisk me home for a pint, meal, a shower and a kip. No rescue team to search for me, no Sea King helicopter to pluck me off in the morning if I bivvied out – this was the Death Zone: if I let my guard down up here, I was dead (Trail Magazine, August 2005).
Fantastic, resonant words. Alan Hinkes is just the 13th man to summit all 14 of the world’s highest 8000 m peaks. And while he is one of a mountain elite very few people emulate even remotely, what he describes there is the psychological relationship between a human being and the mountain, where a certain kind of will is necessary but not the normal kind. It’s the tenacious instinct for survival, pushing to the limits one’s capacity for endurance, in an environment fundamentally inimical to human life: built on a respect and humility for the mountains, knowing their potential danger. And it’s not actually necessary to climb Everest or K2 to understand this; I’ve had my own “shit, this is serious” moments wandering the relatively gentle hills of the Lake District.
Photography interrupts life, by creating a suspended moment for subsequent reflection. Cartier-Bresson has been superseded in many ways, conceptually, aesthetically and journalistically, but his notion of the decisive moment is still an important part of understanding photography. A photograph depicts both mental and physical ‘space’, resting on a process that even in its purest form is still artificial. A photographer works through a series of filters which are cultural, psychological, and technical. Even Cartier-Bresson’s insistence on a simple 50 mm lens was a questionable standpoint: the 50 mm traditionally corresponds to ‘natural’ sight, but actually the full span of our vision including its peripheral edges is more like 35 mm, and if we focus on a distant viewpoint we make an adjustment, psychological rather than optical but the effect is the same, corresponding to a telephoto lens. Cartier-Bresson was not quite the pure photographer he liked to think he was, never editing his work (or very rarely) based on the idea that he was capturing moments of reality. And the same applies to mountain photography: few people today would argue it’s ‘natural’ or ‘pure’ as Ansel Adams suggested, because it’s built on careful aesthetic editing that is routinely deconstructed as part of basic university courses in art and photography. Fifty years ago, or even less, photographic theory was considerably more naive than it is today.
Mountain photography, while not currently regarded as the sexiest or coolest subject to pursue, is nonetheless interestingly consistent with an observation made by Roland Barthes in his Camera Lucida, comparing photography to film:
In front of the screen, I am not free to shut my eyes; otherwise, opening them again, I would not discover the same image; I am constrained to a continuous voracity; a host of other qualities, but not pensiveness (55).
Pensiveness, from the French term meaning reflection and the pause it rests on, is essentially what mountain photography is all about. Barthes compares the photograph to cinema, and prefers the former because the latter distracts and carries his attention whereas a still image allows him to explore it: to explore his own attention. Mountain walking has a similar phenomenological i.e. meditative basis. It clears and soothes the mind, consoles us with an affirmation that the world is a beautiful place, and it’s an activity you undertake at a slower pace making you more aware of your psychological attention and how it operates.