Simplicity Friday May 20, 2005
I think it was renowned landscape photographer Colin Prior who recently said he was finding his more simple images the most rewarding. Unlike him I haven’t spent most of my life taking pictures, but I think I understand this feeling. There’s a subtle but discernible learning curve when you spend hours, week, months walking with your camera in the great outdoors. There are certain configurations of shape, shadow and mountain that I instinctively know will be successful, partly because an intuitive sense of composition and a feeling for what feels right, and partly because I’ve taken shots like that before and I remember the results for future reference. It’s not deliberate, or conscious, but occurs because I am intimate with my pictures.
After many years of walking the Lake District mountains, and several more recent years when I’ve been photographically active, I’ve noticed my taste has begun to change in two ways. First, although I still pursue the really stunning blue sky panoramas, I’m finding them slightly less interesting for the simple reason that they have a chocolate-box, touristy appeal that is ultimately fairly predictable. The best example is the well known tourist viewpoints, used as images for postcards and guidebooks. It’s unfortunate but true that if you look on the internet, in tourist shops etc. there are hundreds of these images and beautiful as they are, they lose their drama and impact with familiarity.
Secondly, I’ve noticed I have a few images that I particularly enjoy, that are notably simple. If you spend a lot of time looking at mountain scenery, you eventually want something more refined. Part of the delight of mountain walking is its simplicity, so this is an appropriate refinement of aesthetic or photographic taste. How little can you do, and how little can you portray, to make a great photo? More than that: can you find the more simple and graphic compositions that convey beauty and interest, because they are simple?
I like this photo for example, for exactly these reasons. It has a beautifully subtle light, combined with pleasing mountainous curves and an expansive outlook towards the Irish sea.
And the photo below is even more simple, and wasn’t even part of an exciting day’s walk. It’s a scene from the agricultural countryside not far from where I live, and the combination of the light and the pastel springtime colours creates a lovely softness. It’s not dramatic and wasn’t technically challenging, but was the result of being in the right place at the right time and recognising the photographic possibility.
If I had to choose, I probably would prefer the greater drama of mountain scenery when the skies are blue and the distances vast. But it’s nice to have some variety, and create photos enjoyable because they are so simple. That’s how I feel at the moment.