Atmosphere and Floating Downstream
Looking forward to this trip!
Hey all — thanks for reading. This is a short one, just to prime the pump as the saying goes.
We’re all getting ready to float on in July — and if you’re interested, there are still a few spots available so reach out now. Love to have you with us. This trip is a gift that will keep on giving, long after we get to the takeout. For a week, you are in the wilderness. There’s quiet and camaraderie. There are breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. It’s a chance to use photography as a meditation. As a creative retreat.
It does not matter what kind of photographer you are, or how many years you’ve been in practice. All that matters are open eyes and open minds.
I’m going over my notes from last year, digging into some new reading to get ready for this year. I bought a copy of Taschen’s GENESIS by Sebastio Salgado — and wow! I’ve seen some of this work online in my research, but this is an incredible tome of breathtaking B&W landscape photography.
Salgado writes in his intro:
My approach was not that of a journalist or scientist or anthropologist.
In Genesis, I followed a romantic dream to find and share a pristine world that all too often is beyond our eyes and reach. My goal was not to go where man had never before set foot, although untamed nature is usually to be found in pretty inaccessible places. I simply wanted to show nature at its best wherever I found it. And I found it in boundless spaces of immense biodiversity which, amazingly, cover almost half the Earth's surface: in giant, largely untouched deserts; in the frozen lands of the Antarctic and the north of the planet; in vast expanses of tropical and temperate forest; and in mountain ranges of awe-inspiring splendor. Discovering this unspoiled world has been the most rewarding experience of my life.
We’ll definitely be looking at his work on the river, as well as discussing his reasons for the project.
I also grabbed a copy of Larry Fink’s “On Composition and Improvisation” — another excellent volume in aperture’s The Photography Workshops Series. If you know his work, you’re probably thinking “hey Andy, Larry is a lot of things as a photographer, but he’s not a landscape guy - what gives?” — and if you don’t know his work, a quick image search can help. People and parties and boxing and portraits and moments of people’s lives captured with deceptive casualness.
I think that no matter what you photograph, you can take away a lot from his work: from being in the “now” to being able to react quickly to a changing moment. Things that I can apply to my own landscape photography (and all my photography).
In the book, he writes:
There's a difference between atmosphere and space within a picture. Atmosphere is charged space; it fills the setting with feeling and could come from the way you feel about the place—something from within your mind—or from physical conditions. Either way, it is worth trying to emphasize the factors in the reality that create atmosphere: dust or wind or rain or overriding, overwhelming, over-saturating sun and heat. Can you photograph heat in a way that conveys its hotness? Can you photograph water and make the picture feel wet, rather than just look like a picture of water? It's all about intensification.
Take those tiny little glimpses and combine them. Put yourself in a place to make photographs, show that place at “its best”, and search for a way to intensify what you’re feeling and seeing so that it shows up in your photo.
I’m looking forward to floating with you all — if not this year, then next year!
cheers
-andy
andy[at]canyonphotofloat.com
PS Please forward this! Help me spread the word, and offer this trip to more photographers! You guys are my best advertisers!