The Art of Photography
Poetry often speaks volumes with few words. In the same way, the art of landscape photography can convey more by showing less. We wonder through a three-dimensional world that fills our senses to the periphery with a rich experience of detail and motion. The photo, by contrast, is a finite canvas, a static world laid flat and bounded by edges. Include too much and the details are diminished to insignificance. Include too little and the context vanishes into abstraction. Like poetry, the photographic art is in framing only the essential elements needed to communicate the message.
For a growing multitude, the natural landscape evokes a quiet sense of wonder and perspective, providing a refuge from the noise of modern living. The untrammeled horizons of wilderness have a great power on the spirit and this, for many landscape artists, is the message. Nature photography distills these broad horizons and countless details down to those elements needed to summon the sense of being present. And while the canvas of a photograph is finite, it can give us a glimpse into the boundless mystery that is the work of nature.
