This is more work from the Newfoundland trip, though it’s not related to location at all. For some reason, despite my long-standing interest in rocks, I never tried photographing them very close-up. The closest I came was in connection with the Patina series, where I was mostly interested in flat colors in analogy with weathered paint. Here, as the title implies, I’m visualizing these as landscapes. Most have no horizon line, that powerfully suggestive, if far from universal, feature of landscapes. But they seem, at least the later ones, to resemble landscapes in the way one moves around the picture. Of course, in viewing any image, the eye moves under the attraction of various elements. With landscapes, the motion is also kinesthetic: one can imagine one’s own body walking around the scene and visiting different spots within it. I bet there’s more activity in the motor cortex when looking at a landscape; maybe the experiment has already been done.

A difference from classical landscapes is the fairly strong use of limited depth of field to throw parts of the image out of focus. I can’t really give a good reason for it, except that it’s been a steadily expanding part of my photography. I’m painfully aware of the faddish use of the technique in recent “tilt-shift” photography of urban landscapes, where I’ve disliked it in the work I’ve seen so far. Perhaps this mini-project will lead me to re-examine it with a more favorable eye. I haven’t decided whether I like or dislike the air of artificiality it lends, a sort of mysterious surrealism.

There’s probably a good argument to be made for concentrating on major projects. But I apparently can’t resist side experiments like this one. Perhaps later, now back home, I will carry on with it when I have a chance. It will be interesting to see the direction it takes. Do you also tend to hatch ideas by incubating them on your mental back burner?