(Rediscover) Voice In A Landscape

When I began taking landscape photographs my primary interest was in capturing the scenery in front of the lens. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? After several years I realised that few of the photographs I took really excited me and so I began to explore what was missing in either my technique or composition. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with my images, they just didn’t match the need I felt to speak with an original voice.
Quite by chance I came across a quotation from Paul Klee’s “Creative Credo” in which he says: “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible.” Looking at my work I realised that it was merely reproducing what was in front of the lens. The images lacked, for want of a better term, a soul, and I knew that I had not yet found a voice with which to speak about landscape.
Losing faith in your own ability to capture images is one of the most difficult things a photographer has to face. Finding a voice is a deeply personal thing and not ...