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In This Issue:
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11-SEP-2005
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Nikonians winning in several contests
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Book Review: Landscape Within
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It is a sad anniversary today and a lot has changed around the world,
influencing our lives after the terror attack September 11th 2001. But,
life goes on and many of us have been very active with our Nikon
cameras, resulting in several members receiving well earned attention
in various contests.
The panorama to the right by Nikonians Team Member Ernesto Santos was
chosen the Winner in the Creative Digital category of the 2005 Nature's
Best Photography Awards competition. Only 130 photographs were chosen
from more than 14,000 images submitted this year.
The photograph will appear in the Awards Special Edition of Nature's
Best Photography magazine, which hits newsstands in mid-October. Or
congratulations Ernesto!
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Congratulations also to Bob Johnson, founding member of the Nikonians
Writers Guild, Highly Honored Winner in the Landscapes category of the
2005 Nature's Best Photography Awards competition.
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Last but not least, our congratulations go out to Nikonian Marsel van
Oosten who've won First Prize in the Advertising Category of the 2005
International Photography Awards (IPA) He also won four Honorable
Mentions in the Landscape Category, the Trees Category, the Wildlife
Category and the Digitally Enhanced Category. Very well done Marsel!
PhotoPlus Expo
The PhotoPlus Expo
will be held in NYC October 20-22. Several companies there will help
spread the word about Nikonians, distributing our flyers and vouchers.
If you have the chance, this exhibition should be well worth visiting.
More info on this soon.
Bo & JRP
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Landscape Within: Insights and Inspiration for Photographers by David Ward
From the Nikonians book and magazine literature section. By Nikonian Conrad Obregon (Obregon)
Even though this book has weaknesses, I feel that it's an important
book for any advanced landscape photographer to read, and perhaps other
advanced photographers as well.
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The book has two different parts that are only vaguely related. One
part is a collection of Ward's landscape photographs. The other is a
philosophical examination of creativity and vision in landscape
photography. It is this series of essays that I find most intriguing.
The author initially discusses the nature of photographs; that they are
not real and that they capture time. He suggest that while most
landscape photographers are interested in the grand vistas, most might
be better served by concentrating on the intimate landscape because
there are more opportunities there for discovery. He also suggest that
one of the best procedures one can follow in landscape photography is
to go slowly and delay taking the photograph as long as possible to let
your vision crystallize. Eventually the author takes a semiotic
approach to landscape photography. (Semiotics is the study of signs and
symbols as means of communication.) Ward notes the importance of
realizing both the connotation and denotation of photographs as signs
or symbols. Along the way, Ward provides a history of landscape
photography, with particular emphasis on developments relating to
creativity and vision.
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One of the main problems of Ward's essays is that they never do reveal
to us what the nature of photographic vision and creativity is. That
may be because this is something unknowable and ineffable. Yet thinking
around the edges of these profound ideas may help the photographer to
develop them, and that makes this book worth reading.
It's a sign of the difficulty of the subject that I often felt Ward had
not made the right choices in the design of his book such as leaving
the discussion of how we perceive things to the last rather then
presenting it in the beginning of the book.
Turning to Ward's pictures, which are scattered throughout the book,
they are terrific. They demonstrate a vision and beauty we could all
emulate. I have said elsewhere that editors feel that books of great
pictures do not sell, and so they ask great photographers to write "how
to" books. That conclusion was too focused. Books of great pictures do
sell, provided that the pictures tell a story, or that there is a
synergistic effect in the way that the pictures are presented. But Ward
seems to reject that approach. Although quotes from the text appear
alongside his pictures, the pictures do not illustrate the text, except
in the broadest possible way. And Ward refuses to provide technical
data on his pictures, saying this is a "why book", not a "how to book".
He seems to be challenging the reader to construct his or her own book!
The bottom line on this book is that there seems to be no silver bullet
for creativity and vision. Perhaps the author should have called this a
workbook, because even after reading the stimulating ideas, one will
have to do plenty of psychological and, dare I say, spiritual work to
develop the landscape within.
You find more of Nikonian Conrad Obregon's reviews in our book and magazine section
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