(note: this blog has been going for over 2 years now during which time we’ve put up 360+ posts. The stats. show that those from the early days have been seen by very few people so to supplement our new content we’ll drop in old posts too, just to keep you coming back!)
Just how are we, as photographers, to express frustration? We are, after all, most of the time working with what we see in front of us and sometimes the cause of our frustration may be not obvious to the viewer. You may see a Scottish hillside covered in flowering Rhododendron as something rather beautiful: I see it as habitat rendered useless to native species by an invasive weed.
Expressing ideas through photography, rather than on the page, can be even more challenging. For the last year and a half, I have used self-made signage, shot on location, to satirise aspects of our attitudes to wild nature. There is not a lot of humour in mainstream landscape photography, but if I want people to start thinking about the things that bother me, it is a good starting off point.
I made this picture in Riisitunturi National Park, Finland, at the end of February when low temperatures conspired to make it a challenging shoot, not least because adhesives ceased to stick things together…
Congratulations on the new-style website – I don’t know when you changed it because I’ve barely had time to read the posts via RSS, never mind actually visit the site. I hope the search function will help next time I want to revisit an old post.
Frustrations of photographers? High on my list is not being able to even think about taking pictures (or writing articles) because other work gets in the way. I’m supposed to be writing reports now, but thanks to the RSS feed, you’ve given me a few minutes of respite from that.
Keep up the good work.
Welcome back Annie. Yes, everything has changed – for the better I hope. The choice seems to be between taking photographs and remaining poor or doing “real work” and remaining dissatisfied. Still, it’s nice to have the choice!
My best
Niall