Landscape photographer Dinesh Maneer, who is also the mentor of our upcoming Landscape Photoraphy Workshop in Gokarna writes about his perspectives on landscapes photography, and how landscape photography should be used as a medium for expressing emotions. Text and images by Dinesh Maneer.
Millions of landscape photos were shot already on any subject and continues to be shot everyday. Photographers carry their extra heavy photo gears and climb mountains, walk for hours, take huge risks on the rocky shores of rough sea to make that one photo where photographer uses his best artistic instinct to eventually make him more happy and contempt about that photo. Now he can return with peace but the reverse is also true where photographer becomes most unsatisfied if he is unable to make a good photo. Knowingly or unknowingly photographer educates himself everyday and improves to get better photo which might put enormous pressure on him to perform. The social media platforms where he usually shares his prized photographs create more pressure on him, and during the process, there is a high danger of getting lost or getting highly misguided.
It’s been a challenge for photographers to shoot different or unique images, so that he can please his critics, editors or curators. But the idea of pleasing the viewer itself is not good, which is a well known fact today. Everyday we see the quote “shoot for yourself” by legends in social medias, magazines, books, exhibitions, speeches but very few will explain how exactly to shoot for self. Well the truth is, though the phrase “shoot for yourself” looks simple, it is actually not. In today’s scenario of photography as a religion, shooting for yourself is very difficult. I will try to put my thoughts by narrowing the subject by using only sea and rivers as examples.
Sea and rivers are most loved subjects of any landscape photographer. But probably they are easier to photograph, provided they are available geographically to a photographer. So when it becomes easy, they tend to get photographed the most. Now, the photographer is again in dilemma on how to shoot differently, eventually heading to the same tricky situation that I mentioned above. Instead, it is time to change the way of thinking.
Let us take the example of poets on how they wrote poems. They put their own emotions into words while going through any situation physically or emotionally. It’s the same with great painters like Vincent Van Gogh or Picasso. When they went though high emotional pressures, they expressed the emotions though their art. Photographers should do the same. Any emotions such as anger, sadness, joy, peace or whatever be the emotions, they should get expressed while photographing.
It is difficult to express with words, but I can show with a few examples on what emotions some of my photographs express, and try to shed some light on how to link between human emotions and the landscape that is in front of you. And with that, I shall leave rest of the thinking process to you.
A popular technique, ‘the long exposure,’ which makes moving objects vanish and become flat can create a variety of moods. The expressed moods can be different with change in colors that are available when pressing the shutter-release button.
The above image, where the light-coloured roots of the tree touches a green serene water (which is made serene/flatter using long exposure technique) can tell different emotions but can be very subjective. Roots reaching out for green water help me to express the need of nature conservation today. Though the feeling is mixed with helplessness and anger, but the picture was able to convey that in a serene way.
This is a photograph I made 5 years ago, when I was a nursery student of photography. It helped me express the happy moment of seeing incredible colors of nature during one glorious sunset, which I will cherish for my whole life. I was happy while shooting and happy after shooting as well. Whenever I see this image, I feel the joy and it reminds me the excitement of that moment.
This picture of Aghanashini river has two emotions in it, as it has two different landscape styles in it. One being those distant hills with reflection, which is calm and tranquil, but the other is the dramatic clouds rushing towards the viewer representing powerful thoughts bursting out from a calm mind.
Monsoon offers ample opportunities for taking control of how pictures come out. The above photograph has dark monsoon clouds, powerful crashing waves evoking all sorts of bursting emotions. I shot this in the year 2014 , the year when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She survived and is doing well, but whenever I look at this picture, I feel those painful moments. I chose this particular shutter speed ( 1/7 to 1/20) to represent nature to express myself unknowingly.
This one may not be a good picture in terms of technicalities, but reminds me of a disturbed mind. I tried many shots to capture the pounding waves with a slow shutter speed that would express such an emotion. Disturbed mind was not my own emotion here, but it is something I saw in the outside world.
This is the last image that I will show here. For me, this is more of a philosophical representation, where a small stream runs and joins the sea, which is the destiny of any flowing water on earth. The white moon and the dark cloud act as two different element of nature where you can relate them to any thing such as heaven or hell good or bad.
These are just few of my own personal thoughts that I am learning in this wonderful journey of landscape photography. We are shooting landscapes over last 100 years and there is no need to show how a landscape is in the perspective of artist. Artist has to express his emotions in his landscape photos rather force himself to make art. It may not be his own emotions or expression; it can be others’ emotions as well. A photographer should travel, get different experiences, see different emotions out there in the world so that he can learn how to shoot for himself. Just like a poet who sees pain in the world and expresses them in words, the same way, a photographer should be open for different experiences so that he can show them through his photos.
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