There was a time when I thought traditional landscape photography was what interested me the most. When I say “traditional” landscape photography, I am thinking more along the lines of Ansel Adams, Tom Till, David Muench, and the like. While I like the “pure” landscape of that type of photography, at least when I get outdoors, it turns out that I’m not as into making “pure” landscape images, as I am into landscapes with the “hand of man” in them.
Many years ago, I bought a book (at a real bookstore) on the New Topographics genre of photography, and realized that this was more along the lines of what I enjoyed photographing, than the more traditional landscapes. I recently had a request for some landscape photographs, and realized how much of what I’ve produced is not the traditional landscape photography, of canyons and glorious sunsets with snow capped peaks. Instead they’re landscapes with buildings and people.
It was fun to go back through years worth of work, and see some of the more traditional landscape photography that I have made, or at least that which has seen the light of day. There are years of negatives and transparencies still in boxes waiting to be scanned.
