A review of 'Landmark: the Fields of Photography' exhibition

_{(Nickel Tailings No. 34, Edward Burtynsky, 1996)}

 

I am no fan of landscape photography.

There, I have confessed. And I seek no forgiveness for it.

I find it boring, obvious and excruciatingly repetitive.

How many glorious waterfalls can you savour. Or majestic mountain ranges? Or breathtaking fields of corn? It just never ends. Landscape photography at its worst is the Captain of Cheese in the annals of photography. Even more so with dollops of overcooked digital retouching added for good measure.

So it was to my happy astonishment that Landmark: the Fields of Photography successfully rehabilitated my taste for this respected photographic genre.

Landscape photography pioneered photography's role in the world. By capturing nature in all its glory and visceral force it brought Mother Nature to the masses. And they loved it. Landscape photography planted the future seed for tourism and environmentalism. 

Curated by the globally respected curator, William A. Ewing the exhibition was a refreshing perspective on a tired genre revitalised in its role of capturing the rapidly changing vistas of planet earth. From earthly scars, oil slicks, austere tourism, ghetto dreams to Nordic ice and wistful seas it managed to provide more than just a thoughtful stroll through the fields of twenty first century planet earth.

It certainly left a renewed imprint with me.  

Here is my pick of the best:

_{Permanent Error, Pieter Hugo, 2010}

 

_{Howl, Amy Stein, 2007}

 

_{Complaining Forest, Olaf Breuning, 2010}

 

_{Concrete Spillway Chute, 'Under the Nordic', Olaf Otto Becker, 2010}

 

_{Man who fell to Earth, Pierre Radisic}

 

_{Crude Oil Prices 2003 to 2008, 'Monuments', Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, 2008}

 

_{11,936 887 suns from sunsets from Flickr, Penelope Umbrico, 2013}