Jazz Green : Artist Journal

Posts tagged ‘landscape photography’

on landscape photography

September 26th, 2011

these landscape photographs have all appeared in previous posts, from 2005-2010 (part of an ongoing recycle & reuse images whenever possible philosophy due to the sheer number of images accumulated). i decided to collate this small selection of photographs of the east anglian landscape in one ‘place’ as it were as a simple means of a personal review, having been lost & buried elsewhere in the ‘blog’. these photographs were all taken from a humble point ‘n’ shoot perspective. there is the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words but here the apparent air of mundane detachment or plain objectivity contained therein means they are perhaps unworthy of many words…

suffolk fields, old airfield, passing place sign
[a field, a 'passing place' sign]

from previous post: passing places part ii may 2006

old airfield, overgrown by fields, suffolk
[edge of old airfield, with rubble]

from previous post: beware of banality december 2005

suffolk fields, old airfield, passing place sign
[old airfield track and fields, a misty winter morning]

from previous post: farmscape painting february 2010


[field, late afternoon]

from previous post: on vacant and empty landscapes april 2010


[stubble field in winter, with ground frost, norfolk]

from previous post: some secrets revealed november 2010

on a train, passing through the fens, winter fields
[fields, seen from a train, the fens, winter]

from previous post: passing places april 2006

[misty morning by the lake, winter]

from previous post: mist opportunties again may 2010


[early morning mist, reflection of trees in lake water]

from previous post: winter solstice december 2009


[high snow drift, a field, two trees and a farmhouse, winter]

from previous post: from white snow to grey earth january 2010


[snow on ground, meadows, ditch, late afternoon light, winter]

from previous post: walking, in winter, wander land december 2009


[hoarfrost on trees next to the lake]

from previous post: the art of making soup january 2009

winter field, misty morning
[field, early morning, winter]

from previous post: mist opportunities january 2010


[the north sea, a view from dunwich cliffs, suffolk]

from previous post: on vacant and empty landscapes april 2010


[covehithe cliffs, suffolk]

from previous post: on vacant and empty landscapes april 2010


[salthouse marshes, north norfolk]

from previous post: salthouse surveyed march 2009


[on southwold beach, the north sea]

from previous post: two pebbles, a drawing october 2009

i used to take quite a few landscape photographs but i have not been very inclined to do so in more recent times. these landscape photographs seem no more ‘vital’ to me now than having just a memory of the time, place or location to draw upon. perhaps it is just photography fatigue. not only does it become all to easy (with digital cameras) to take yet another photograph but one feels simultaneously guilty for not taking a photograph, for not framing the moment as witnessed there and then. then, much later, one wonders whether it should be kept or erased, whether it has any lasting use, significance or meaning.

from previous post: taking the scenic route april 2009

to swiftly conclude, here is a photograph (not really a ‘landscape’ per se) of a lone seagull on a roof in the pleasant seaside town of aldeburgh, suffolk – all appears to be quite innocent, peaceful and calm…

‘thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards, never while actually taking the photograph.’

henri cartier-bresson (as quoted in on photography, susan sontag)

the little canvas on the prairie

February 26th, 2011

another episode in the creative space-time continuum conveniently afforded by my virtually travelling small i-cons series… shown here in the now customary small canvas pose

prairie - abstract canvas - mixed media intaglio print
prairie 2011, 15cm x 15cm

i completed four more i-con canvases last weekend, this here little prairie being just one of them, the others i might reveal in due course… the i-cons are intaglio prints from handmade collagraph printing plates, individually hand-coloured and neatly collaged onto a box canvas…

prairie - abstract mixed media canvas - by artist jazz green

i am aware that the process of making traditional prints then fashioning the prints into more tactile objects (albeit still vaguely pictorial ones) seems also to embody a rural craft aesthetic… perhaps that is my intention, that they cross that boundary..

prairie - contemporary abstract on canvas - by artist jazz green

and where was this particular canvas headed? why the state of kansas in the usa – but i really should have taken a road map and my virtual reality sketchbook…

so, having landed somewhere deep in the kansas prairies, i then travelled back in time, to the dust bowl of the thirties, the association with the wizard of oz a most curious incidental connection in the process, a psychological, imaginary journey conversely inverted… here is another view of my own prairie, perhaps echoing wooden structures battered by a storm, wind-ravaged crops and dark dust clouds settling on a dim horizon…

prairie - small abstract intaglio print, collaged on canvas

[prairie 2011, 15cm x 15cm, intaglio collagraph on canvas]

my virtual travels slowly unravelled into a bit of an american history lesson… i have seen the wild grass prairies, the fields of shimmering gold and cotton plantations, the enslavement & racial tensions, the old farmsteads & migrant cabins, the depressing dust clouds that shadowed an ecological disaster of mankind’s making, dark skies and a slow exodus of people homeless & hungry, straight-as-a-die dust tracks, winds that whipped them westwards, eerie ghost towns & deserted gasoline stations, oil-pumps in skeletal silhouette, herds of roaming cattle, tumbledown tin barns & ranch houses, the rule of law and a sense of order, then a cavalcade and a smoking gun, the burning flares of a rocket roaring through the ether, wild rodeo kicks & other cowboy tricks, the neon signs of roadside motels & all-you-can-eat diners serving supersize steaks… from kansas to oklahoma and then onwards to texas – it was all a bit of a whirlwind and i was thankful to be home at last…

prairie - concentric circles - abstract canvas

[prairie, digitally circulised]

i was very moved by some images that i viewed in the american library of congress archives, specifically those that related to the ‘dust bowl’ era – abandoned farmhouses half submerged by soil dunes, seeing only the very top branches of trees, and refugees camped out by the edges of barren fields. i wonder if matters have come full circle again, learning little about the precarious ecological balance of a planet that we want to call our home..

but history also provides a means of seeing a prettier picture…

i used to like watching little house on the prairie as a child. i couldn’t remember where exactly it was set, but after a quick trip to the information portal wikipedia i discovered that walnut grove was/is in fact a real place in remote minnesota, but the tv series was filmed in california. i do remember it was loosely based on the true life story of laura ingalls-wilder (whose original series of books inspired the tv series), and i have since discovered she lived in many different places during those pioneering days of the late 1800s…

prairie abstract - intaglio print on canvas

[prairie 2011, 15cm x 15cm, intaglio print on canvas]

so, once transported back to the factual/fictional location of walnut grove, i began to imagine a simpler way of life in the little homestead surrounded by wild grass meadows and golden fields…

of sweet ma & pa ingalls and the too good daughters who looked quite unrelated, laura’s tears & ears and mary’s blonde hair & blindness, the prairie aprons & pretty dresses, the ribbons & bonnets, the handmade gifts from the heart, the hearth and the kitchen, baking sweet apple pie and the rattle of tin plates & pans, the wooden slat steps up to bed, the belief in the bible, the old reverend and the little white church on a sunday, the faithful horse & wagon, the toil of the land and the bounty of harvest, the bundles of school books and the kindly school teacher, mr olesen the storekeeper, his irascible wife and one very spoilt daughter…

i was also reminded of watching the walton’s (portraying a different era in american history), whose home, by british standards, seemed to be the size of a small hotel (with very thin walls, apparently)… can anyone imagine one hundred years from now watching with some rose-tinted fondness the stories of how we used to live..?

but there’s no place [quite] like home… this week i also chanced upon a real life visit to a local fen by way of an appointment in the area, but i hadn’t anticipated being caught in a downpour… these quick photographs seemed interesting enough to post here, with a similar colour palette to the small prairie canvas…

[a view of the fen, before the rain, an overcast afternoon]

[i liked watching the reeds appear to draw ink lines through the surface of the water]

[more reeds & water, but the camera soon gets quite misty eyed]

[another kind of drawing (or an abstract painting), made by rain, water and some reeds]

this last photograph reminded me of some quick rain-induced sketches from last year – by that i mean some spontaneous mark-making made in my sketchbook while stranded in the rain (i was out drawing clouds but then the rain came down unexpectedly)…

[sketchbook, in a rainstorm]

*prairie has ecological resonances with an earlier work in this series, congo


a straight photograph; morning mist, winter…


with some digital blurs applied…


then with a dark vignette…

The original photograph had, by nature’s own means, some readymade atmosphere… I could, I suppose, use some mechanical filters to achieve a similar effect, as I am not a fan of post-processing in digital photography – in the deceit of any number of wow and pop effects – aka ‘photoshopped’…

It seems to me that when using digital technology the artist should have a rough idea of the visual outcome they want to achieve and then experiment with the tools and techniques to realise the vision or intention.

David Hockney quite likes using computers… as does Julian Opie… so computers can be good tools for artists…

This painting, by the British artist Gary Hume, displays the digital effects of Photoshop’s pointillize filter, but this was ‘painted‘ in 1998… he must have been one of the first to use Photoshop software as a ‘creative’ tool…

Gary Hume, Bird point III, 1998 – gloss paint on aluminium

Here’s a little Photoshopped  ‘Humeresque‘ I made earlier, (in the ‘Blue Peter’ tradition, of course)…

Created from this original photograph…

Like many successful international artists, Gary Hume has a painter’s assistant… he ‘can’t bear doing the really fiddly bits’ apparently… The painter and the assistant must be a strange relationship to maintain, when the fabrication of the work has to embody the style, technique and skill of one artist… I wonder if the ‘painter‘ in such a situation ever feels that the assistant is the more accomplished craftsman if not the artist, or if the assistant sees the role as a type of apprenticeship, providing the necessary first steps to their own success…

Software such as Photoshop can provide new creative tools (or assistance) in making art. As mentioned, Hockney excels in exploiting the finer nuances of the capabilities of the software; looking at Hockney’s new digital drawings one doesn’t immediately want to recall the brand of software used. Another artist, Paul John Taylor, who came to my attention via Jerwood Painters 2009 (exhibition reviewed here), seems to be using digital filters to design his paintings (referencing media photographs) – they apppear to look as though a selected photograph has been post-processed with filters (as with Gary Hume’s painting above) and then are mechanically painted (or reproduced) onto canvas.


Paul John Taylor Bombed Beirut, second from right

I had a little go with some digital filters and effects. Here is a news image I found on Reuters – showing similar image manipulation techniques.


[click to view larger]

I am fascinated by the desire or concept to translate digitally manipulated images back into handcrafted paintings – the painting becomes a reproduction (or facsimile) of its digital counterpart – validated as art by the very materiality of paint as opposed to pixels. They could print them straight onto canvas or panel, but then they wouldn’t be original paintings.

Whereas Opie and Hockney use the tools of technology in very individual ways (in both artist’s work mechanical drawing or mark-making is a part of the process) with very distinct visual outcomes, Taylor and Hume seem to have merely appropriated the built-in filters and effects of the software. The British artist Maggi Hambling (whose recent seascape paintings display the energy of both the artist and the subject matter) once said that ‘photography is inevitably a dead thing’, so perhaps digital manipulation just continues the flogging…

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The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.