First, let me explain why I photograph nature, and then why I want to focus elsewhere:

Art is many things, and different things to different people.  I’m not here to define it for you, but one way that many of us describe it is that art is a personal vision.  You might say it is like our particular schema that we overlay atop the real world, projecting a new level of subjective or “augmented” reality over something, to highlight and make it read the way we feel, and all the other ways of “seeing” that we like to say that artists do (especially when we are feeling pretentious!).  But it’s not as clear and as obscured and as simple and complicated as the real world itself.   We artists can get lost in our art, believe too much in our own hype and find ourselves too far up our own asses that we sometimes forget- we need the real world.  We need some semblance of balance.  To touch grass.  At least I do.   Getting out into the real world is essential for me, as it is for many of us, that much is clear.  And as for the need to photograph it: well, I guess as a visual person who is also a professional photographer with a real nice camera for landscape photography, it’s probably going to happen from time to time.  Incorporating it into my “art life” is the most thorough way to incorporate it into my life as a whole, and so it will find its place represented in my work.   What input goes in will always find itself also coming out.  Seeing the world for real, in all its beauty, is cathartic on one level, and seeing it come out in my work is cathartic on a whole other level.  In fact, I might have just talked myself into doing it more.

At the same time, I feel the need to compartmentalize and stress that landscape photos aren’t strictly MY work.  For two reasons: One, that I only had a small part to play in its execution; and two, because the subject matter wasn’t my idea, and in fact I actually do have other ideas that are entirely my own that would like to express.  And of course those things which of I can claim sole authorship are the things that feel the most like MY work.   I’m not saying I’m right in making this distinction- and I can see holes in this logic as well as the benefits of a more holistic approach.  But my main consideration is this:  I am a limited resource, here for a limited time.   The major difference between what I consider MY work and the work in photographing nature is that nature photography is an endless process, a perpetual activity more than a project that can be accomplished with any finality.   In lieu of any other purpose or demands it would be a rather fulfilling way to spend all my time, but my purpose is also to find out what is unique to me and accomplish that with what time I have.   Which of course is a stressfully burdensome thing to consider, making it necessary to get outside and enjoy nature as often as I can!

After all, it will always be there, endless as ever.