The invisible landscape
I live in Hettange-Grande, a small town in eastern France, in an area that few would consider an ideal destination for nature or landscape photography. Here, the mountains are not much higher than simple hills, the lakes are mostly artificial and the sea disappeared several million years ago (maybe to escape the arrival of the nuclear power plant?). Lovers of spectacular and epic views, you might want to put down your tripods somewhere else.
For a long time, I lived under this idea and considered that there was nothing worth capturing in my surroundings. Then I changed my mind. Mainly because as my interest in photography grew, I learned to look at the world around me differently; to pay attention to the light, the weather, the season changes, the variations of colors of the vegetation, the shapes of the trees, the details of the plants, the flowers, etc., to finally realize that it was entirely possible to celebrate the beauty of nature through photography without having to visit distant and grandiose landscapes. I am now convinced that image opportunities are all around us if we make the effort to discover them.
The advantage of such an approach is that the resulting images are by default unique and personal, far from the worn-out compositions of the iconic places of landscape photography. Working on landscapes generally ignored by photographers means going off the beaten track and to develop one's own vision: no choice!
And the benefits go far beyond the images themselves: in the process, I found myself developing a much stronger connection with nature than I expected, becoming interested in the names of plants, trees, the history of the surrounding places, the cycle of seasons, etc. And it seems to be contagious: my wife also joins in, and we marvel like newborns at the changing nature and infinite diversity of the nature around us.
This collection of images illustrates this journey of discovery of a landscape that is both familiar and new. It is an invisible landscape: if we do not pay attention to it, it disappears into the banality of everyday life and fades away when compared with the prestigious sceneries that populate our visual memory. Many of the subjects represented here are accessible by walking from my home, and all within a maximum radius of one hour by car. For some, I have walked past them for years without ever paying attention. I'm glad to finally pay the invisible landscape a humble tribute through these images.
What about you, do you also live close to an invisible landscape?
July 2021
For a long time, I lived under this idea and considered that there was nothing worth capturing in my surroundings. Then I changed my mind. Mainly because as my interest in photography grew, I learned to look at the world around me differently; to pay attention to the light, the weather, the season changes, the variations of colors of the vegetation, the shapes of the trees, the details of the plants, the flowers, etc., to finally realize that it was entirely possible to celebrate the beauty of nature through photography without having to visit distant and grandiose landscapes. I am now convinced that image opportunities are all around us if we make the effort to discover them.
The advantage of such an approach is that the resulting images are by default unique and personal, far from the worn-out compositions of the iconic places of landscape photography. Working on landscapes generally ignored by photographers means going off the beaten track and to develop one's own vision: no choice!
And the benefits go far beyond the images themselves: in the process, I found myself developing a much stronger connection with nature than I expected, becoming interested in the names of plants, trees, the history of the surrounding places, the cycle of seasons, etc. And it seems to be contagious: my wife also joins in, and we marvel like newborns at the changing nature and infinite diversity of the nature around us.
This collection of images illustrates this journey of discovery of a landscape that is both familiar and new. It is an invisible landscape: if we do not pay attention to it, it disappears into the banality of everyday life and fades away when compared with the prestigious sceneries that populate our visual memory. Many of the subjects represented here are accessible by walking from my home, and all within a maximum radius of one hour by car. For some, I have walked past them for years without ever paying attention. I'm glad to finally pay the invisible landscape a humble tribute through these images.
What about you, do you also live close to an invisible landscape?
July 2021
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