Why I hate landscape photography

In one of those 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' moments I got it in my head to start a project about the Ribble Valley. With the sun shining off I went. When I got into the valley the sun did a disappearing act. Reason one I hate landscapery. The quality of natural light is all important. That doesn't always mean it has to be bright sunshine, but it does have to help define form of foreground, middle and far distance. Just a bit more brightness would have helped.

One thing I have managed to accept is that it's pointless me looking for the traditional scenes or the traditional compositions. My brain doesn't work that way. The photographs were never going to be winning any prizes in a Beautiful Britain competition. I tried a few clichés like framing things with overhanging branches. As soon as I popped them up on the computer I hit the delete key.

The trouble with the valley is that it's big. When I eventually rocked up at a viewpoint I know, on what is apparently England's most southerly fell, to take in a vista of the valley I thought about narrowing my remit down and concentrating on the fell itself. It's a strange place. What looks like long neglected pine woodland that is being reworked. I started to get some ideas.

Because I tend to use longer focal lengths for what passes as landscape photography for me depth of field is an issue when hand holding, as is shutter speed when light is lacking. Expecting bright sunshine I had left the tripod at home. Even though I loathe the thing it would have been useful. Reason number two I hate landscapery. Tripods.

It soon became pretty obvious that I wasn't  photographing the landscape in the usual sense. I was concentrating on aspects of how it had been altered.

When I found my way on to the track used by the forestry firm's vehicles I got more interested. The pictures didn't work out, but it was clear my original intention of making 'landscape' pictures had gone out the window.

Even so there was still something missing. People. The third reason I hate landscapery is that the pictures are boring without people doing things in them.

It struck me that landscape photographs with people who are connected to the place are much more interesting to look at. That doesn't mean they have to be environmental portraits, they could be more distant figures. The connection is what matters. The whole notion of landscape being devoid of people strikes me as bizarre. Not only bizarre, but a romanticised falsehood. I guess what I should be aiming for, and maybe am already doing, is a kind of documentary landscape photography. I try not to idealise.

Everything is just photography. There's no need to pigeon-hole it into landscape, portrait, wildlife and so on like the magazines and forums do. It's all about making pictures that get some sort of message across. Or it is when it's working right. Sounds simple, but it ain't.

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