I have been absent from this blog and productive work on my degree course for around five weeks. My time has been spent on other pursuits – three weeks training hard in Lanzarote for upcoming triathlon races, a few days at home catching up on life, a week in Scotland walking and photographing the landscape and a week of business meetings and socialising with friends and family. I have also been diverted by my preparations for exhibiting photographs both on-line through Source and the upcoming exhibition at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield, which has now been confirmed (although the dates have yet to be finalised).
I have rather lost my momentum with YOP and need to get a grip. My main priority for the next few weeks is to get back on track with my Critical Review of Robert Frank and Simon Norfolk. As this has turned out I have struggled to get on with this project. This could be because I have been diverted by other things but I fear it is because the subject matter has not really gripped me… My target date for submission to Sharon my tutor is the end of April, which still looks achievable as things stand today. I should have a fairly uninterrupted run at it over the next six weeks.
The last five weeks has not been entirely devoid of photographic activity. During my stay in Scotland I visited two regions in the Northwest Highlands, the Assynt mountains around Ullapool and the area around Loch Ewe close to Aultbea. I was with a group of committed landscape photographers and thoroughly enjoyed their company and experiencing the grandeur and isolation of the Northwest Highlands.
Once again I found myself lured by the beauty of the natural landscape and I made a number of landscape photographs which have a ‘romantic’ feel to them. As I mentioned in my previous post Cornwall sojourn…picturesque, sublime, beautiful or just plain idealised… there seems to be little room for this kind of aesthetic in today’s art world… Beautiful images run the risk of being read critically as needless idealisations. For me however the photographs I made represent not just the beauty, grandeur and isolation of the physical world out there but also my personal experience of the place. I also made a few portraits of my fellow photographers and got to know two women landscape photographers who have kindly agreed to be subjects for my Landscape in Mind project.
Here are a few of the images that I made:
Stac Pollaidh, Northwest Highlands Scotland
Gruinard Bay, Wester Ross Scotland
Bruce, Gruinard Bay Wester Ross Scotland March 2014
So my holiday break is over and it is time to get back to work……
photo-graph 
Vicki M
March 20, 2014
And we’ve missed you! Hope the training was as fruitful as you had hoped; and that the race is rewarding. I think you’re mad—but that’s just me. I have no problem with the idea of idealised beauty—the images speak to you and for that reason alone, they are important!
Catherine
March 20, 2014
Good to see you back. I don’t have problems with the idea of idealized beauty either. If you’ve seen it then the image provides a reflection to enter into and re-live.
Keith Greenough
March 20, 2014
Great to hear from you both!! Hope all is well with you and looking forward to meeting up again in the near future. Thanks for the comments. The forthcoming debate at TV Group on this question will be interesting….
Yiannitsa Cegarra
March 20, 2014
Great to hear you back on track after a well deserved and fruitful holiday. As you know, this is the type of Landscape that melts me for very simple reasons, some you have already mentioned.
Keith Greenough
March 20, 2014
Thanks Yiann… Hope all is well with you!
jsumb
March 20, 2014
Mmmm an early salvo eh? At this range (size) they look lovely, though the portrait of Bruce might be accused of being a trifle flat – I’m talking purely aesthetically, as I have no other reference. Central image has lovely contrast, beautiful warm tones, I wonder if it might work better as a square image, losing some of grasses at the bottom, anchoring with diagonals in the top left and bottom right? The engagement is at an aesthetic level only, which is fine
Then I began to wonder at the ‘titling’, as these appear to be less ‘captioned’ that ‘titled’. And what drew me to consider this notion was the second image which tells me that it is ‘Gruinard Bay, Wester Ross Scotland’; I can see no ‘Bay’, though you tell me it is a ‘Bay’.
Looking forward to the discussion….
Keith Greenough
March 20, 2014
Thanks John….interesting point about about captioning/titling. The text is intended purely to specify where the image was made. I stay well clear of text which will direct the reading of the image other than to specify location. I will leave the interpretation to the viewer. The lack of a bay in Gruinard Bay image does appear somewhat contradictory and you have to trust me that this was the place as there is little denotive evidence in the image itself to confirm or deny this. The middle image certainly would work with a crop but I am personally prefer the way the extended area of grass leads into the background of the birch trees. This is as I recall the place when I made the image. I wonder if a square crop might make the image more abstract in a way. As regards the portrait, it would have been pretty easy to increase the contrast, but I decided on this dark, perhaps less punchy, interpretation….a matter of personal taste I think… Good to hear from you and looking forward to our discussion next week although I have no idea how to get into the online group get together….
Eddy Lerp
March 20, 2014
Glad you’re back Keith and all in one piece.
Your images are superb, as usual, and certainly do have a place in most of our minds it seems for the natural beauty all artists should appreciate, but often pretend not to, to seem more arty.
Keith Greenough
March 20, 2014
Thanks Eddie….. I do wonder if some people do deny beauty on the grounds that it might undermine their artistic street cred!
Eddy Lerp
March 20, 2014
I’m sure they do Keith, you only have to talk with some people and they say that natural beauty doesn’t mean anything to them anymore, therefore are they saying that only un-natural beauty works? I don’t think so, they just need that arty-farty tag.
seeingspotsphoto
March 20, 2014
Lovely view