Mike Morrish started his class by saying that, for him, looking at a landscape and responding to it emotionally was more important than the photography. Working through examples by Don McCullin, Colin Baxter, Ansel Adams, Charlie Waite and Fay Godwin, Mike led a discussion that brought out some issues, e.g. whether landscape has to be beautiful, and principles, e.g. the importance of textures and tones. Using 20 of his own pictures, from Caxton to Kenya and Oman to Zennor, Mike asked members of the Forum to ‘write down one or more aspects of landscape photography that it suggests.’ Points for me were: view point; the light; being there; sense of place and identity; the importance of happenstance/serendipity; when and when not to include people; and does the photograph express the emotion that made you take the picture?
Photo: Don McCullin from Open Skies, 1989