Stop and Turn Around

A lesson from famed photographer Jay Maisel—stop and turn around immediately when you see a photograph. He had an interesting theory on how the percentages of you turning around and going back drop the further you drive. I passed this shiny red Thunderbird sitting back from the side of the road and immediately saw the picture. But, as so often happens, the road was busy with traffic and we were on our way to someplace else. I made a mental note to return to the scene and try to take a picture. On the return trip, the skies were cloudy and overcast, and I'm not sure the magic was still there. But I tried anyway. There's something romantic about the way people hold onto old classic cars, even if they don't run. 

Keepers

I never get tired of roaming these gardens. Today, I tried to take landscape views with my 50mm lens. I didn’t exactly fail, but I did find lots of ways that did not work. About half way through my walk, I started asking myself, What even is a landscape photograph? Does the word landscape belong only to photographs of nature in broad sweeping vistas? Honestly, I don’t know. I thought about doing a deep research dive into the topic, but then reconsidered the idea. Really, does this matter?

No. I see the world in fragments and vignettes. It’s just my way, I think.

Accepting the Assignment

We pulled over at the beckoning of a nondescript sign that said Wildlife Management Area, and this is what we found. I am fully embracing the assignment for my online photo class to make landscape pictures using my 50 mm lens.

So many go around hoping to influence or create something that lasts an eternity, when the goal should really be to enter the eternal through the gateway of the everyday.

—James Crews, on Allowed to be Ordinary

Understanding Vernacular Landscape

Vernacular landscape incorporates spatial structures intimately associated with regional environments, agricultural production, and rural life.

From Sage Rerference:

Vernacular landscapes, sometimes termed ordinary landscapes, are the surfaces of everyday life that we see all around us and that are created and re-created daily. Cultural geographers study vernacular landscapes to understand the lives of ordinary people who live in those landscapes. Ordinary landscapes take the form of everyday places such as parking lots, tree-shaded suburbs, trailer parks, or a patchwork of fields in Midwestern U.S. farmlands. They are lived in and are continuously changing.

A vernacular landscape is the combination of natural and human structures in the context of ordinary people's lives.