The photographs were taken on July 15th, riding the bicycle near Luukki. Both of the photographs show places where I have gone walking and looked at the landscape from the opposite direction.
Today was a rainy day. In the morning I wasn't too wet, but in the afternoon it rained a lot and I got soaked through.
(Posting title is from the poem Afton Water by Robert Burns.)
This morning I rode the bicycle for 1 1/2 hours, riding through Petikko to Keimola, and returning via Kivistö. The photographs above were taken at Kivistö train station on June 24th.
In six days I have got 11 1/2 hours of exercise. Maybe I should take a rest day.
(Posting title is from the poem Indigenous Elvis at the Airport by Heid E. Erdrich.)
I took these photographs yesterday. It was a clouded day, and so it has been for quite a long time. I'm missing sun, that strange object on the sky. Where are the bright and blue winter days? And the weather forecast promises clouds for the next five days...
Today I learned about a book on photography which I didn't know of before, even though I should have, The Pencil of Nature, of which Wikipedia tells us:
The Pencil of Nature, published in six installments between 1844 and 1846, was the "first photographically illustrated book to be commercially published" or "the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs". It was wholly executed by the new art of Photogenic Drawing, without any aid whatever from the artist's pencil and regarded as an important and influential work in the history of photography.
Talbot is of course well know in the history of photography, but I didn't know much about his writings, which are available for reading. What is interesting is the importance to point out that the role of the artist who draws a picture is missing from photographs: "It is needless, therefore, to say that they differ in all respects, and as widely as possible, in their origin, from plates of the ordinary kind, which owe their existence to the united skill of the Artist and the Engraver."
But why the title of this book caught my interest was the feeling which I often have when taking photographs, that it is not the camera which makes the photograph, it is the landscape itself which draws the photograph, coming together in a moment of existence, making a photograph right now, and then continuing on its way of changing from moment to moment.
(Posting title is from the poem The World Is in Pencil by Todd Boss.)
Today was a clouded day, and it was dark when I managed to go out for a walk. Some spots of color still linger, but theirs is a losing fight - until spring.
On Wednesday I made a posting titled "Late autumn feelings", and then I was traveling for a few days. When I looked at the landscape on Saturday, it had changed as if a week or two had passed. Now it is very late autumn indeed.
I went for a long walk yesterday, taking some photographs. There is a little bit of autumn colors still left in trees, but not much. The landscape starts to be ready for winter.
Sven W used the term "semi-abstract" landscapes for some of my recent photographs. I started to think about this, and the term seems to fit.
I have been feeling a kind of aversion to "big" landscapes recently, and often I have gravitated towards subject which much smaller scale, though not all the way to macro photography. Terms like "intermediate scale landscape" have been grossing my mind.
But I think the term semi-abstract landscape fits better what I have been searching for: a sort of middle place between the big and the small, the concrete and the abstract, the beautiful and the ugly.
Sometimes I have a feeling that naming a thing may destroy it in the end, by fixing it in place, by not allowing it to change any more. But maybe this term is vague enough to have plenty of space for exploration.
In any case, today was a wet day, good for taking photographs, though a bit dark for the photographer.
Today I went to Tremanskärr, walking through the marsh and checking how autumn looks like at the Kurkijärvi lake. Fine day for such a walk, with clouds that kept the temperature at a nice cool level around noon.
I'm reading Peter Watson's book Light in the Landscape - A Photographer's Year (Guild of Master Craftsman Publications, 2001). This book contains marvellous landscape photographs of Britain, taken with a large-format camera, Tachihara 5 x 4in, using Fuji Provia (or Velvia etc.) film.
Watson tells about landscape photography, and about working with such a camera, which seems challenging but rewarding. This is very different to the way how I work, trying to react instinctively, without thinking, using the Panasonic LX5 camera which allows such use.
Large format requires a sturdy tripod, and the exposure is often about one second (1/4 to 2 seconds seem to be typical to Watson), using aperture f/22.5...f/45. It is quite a feat to take a photograph with such equipment, but the results are fine.
However, I started to compare Watson's photographs with those in the book Jewels of the Fells (Metsäkustannus, 2010) by Pekka Luukkola. I mentioned this book here earlier.
The landscape photographs of Lapland captured by Luukkola are - in my opinion - of even higher quality that Watson's. That doesn't mean that Watson's book is not good - it is of fine quality indeed - but not quite at the level which Luukkola has achieved. Maybe the subject matter has an effect on the results as well.
On page 28 Watson writes: "You're not trying to capture reality; your objective is to produce a clinically clean, flawless picture." Maybe this motivation makes Watson's photographs, despite the technical excellence, a little bit less admirable than what Luukkola has achieved - he catches reality (an artist's reality, but reality nevertheless).
Watson also includes some close-up pictures in his book and although these are fine, I didn't feel that they were of quite the quality (or had such inspiration) as the landscape photographs with a wider vista. It may be lack of practise, or maybe the large-format camera doesn't suit these subjects as well as landscape at a distance.
Watson offers a lot of practical advice on using a large format camera, such things as tripods, filters, using polaroid, finding the right exposure, and so on. And he also shows several photographs which, even though fine, could have been even better with a slightly different setup, for example a less strong grey grad filter for the sky.
But in the end, what matters is that this is an impressive book, demonstrating the power of a large format film camera, which still has managed to keep up despite the challenge from digital cameras. But I also learned that this kind of camera is not for me, for my style of seeing. I want the convenience of a pocketable camera, it allows me to see how the world looks like in a photograph.
Summer keeps on advancing. And it seems that every square meter of landscape is populated with a multitude of ideal subjects for photography. Provided that mosquitoes don't bother too much, that is.
Paul Maxim had an interesting posting about Place, reflecting on an earlier "Rosebud-posting" by Mark Hobson, which is also worth reading.
While pondering this I realized I had taken yesterday some colorful, "detail" photographs. Here you are. Waiting for spring - which seems still to be a long way away.
It is getting colder and - fortunately - not so wet any more. Maybe we will get some more autumn colors, at least cold nights and dry days are a good incentive for the trees.
Here are some autumn landscapes from Sunday. I'm not sure if I like any of them, all of them are a bit subdued. But perhaps that is a kind of attraction in itself?
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