The Intimate Landscape
© 1998 William Neill

For as long as I have been a photographer, I have preferred making images of details. I started out using macro techniques to isolate small subjects such as dew drops or flower petals. This type of close-up image, although it didn't describe the overall scene, seemed to convey the energy of my experience most effectively. The composition showing only part of the subject revealed that elusive "essence" more than a descriptive photograph of the whole subject.

When I started using a 4x5 camera many years ago, I continued to photograph details, but more often photographed the landscape in the middle distance range where there was usually no sky and often not much suggestion of foreground. I call this style "the intimate landscape." This phrase has stuck in my mind ever since I first saw Eliot Porter's book Intimate Landscapes, which is sadly long out-of-print. The book is a masterpiece of landscape photography. Both the photographs, and genre of photography defined by the title, inspired me to explore further the terrain pioneered by Porter, and to extend the tradition of color landscape photography that he set.

My photograph shown here, Blossoms along the Oconaluftee River, was made in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I had hoped to time my photography there with the blooming of the redbud and dogwood, but instead found that spring was late (i.e., I was early). After driving the park roads and exploring at different elevations, I was convinced that nothing was in bloom until I saw this tree. This single tree grew along the river bank amongst a forest of bare trees. The day had been dark and gloomy, but the feeling now was of the arrival of spring after a long, hard wait! Now I had to make an image that spoke of the mood.

The light was perfect&emdash;soft without shadows and highlights to distract. This is my favorite type of lighting condition for intimate landscapes so I often photograph on cloudy days, in the fog, at dawn and twilight, or in the shadow of a canyon or mountain. Film seems to record evenly lit subjects with more color and more detail&emdash; the lower contrast range lessens the danger of washed-out highlights or blocked-up shadows. If the sun had been lighting this scene directly, the highlights on the water would have visually overwhelmed the blossoms.

Luckily, the most graceful branch on the tree hung over the river, separating itself from the rest of the tree. The next problem was to find a camera position where the background was not distracting. I remember struggling to isolate the elegant curve from the surrounding confusion even with my longest lens for my 4x5 camera, which was 360mm in focal length. Then I remembered that I had a 6x7 roll film back that slides into the back of my camera. This effectively doubled my focal length and allowed me to reach out to this branch, eliminating the unwanted clutter.

The use of a view camera, with its swing and tilt adjustments, was also vital to making this image. When I finally found the right angle to set the tripod, and had chosen the telephoto lens, the line of the branch was very oblique to the camera. The view camera allowed me to adjust the plane of the camera back to keep the branch sharp without moving from the optimum camera position. I needed the river, without its near and far banks, in the background to help simplify the composition. The two rocks visible behind the branch were minimal enough to give some context without distraction. The exposure was in the fifteen to thirty second range. I still needed a fairly small aperture to keep the branch sharp so I was lucky that a breeze was not blowing. The blur of the river added to the mood and helped set the branch apart from the water. The dark clouds above reflected a black and white mood on the rapids, which made the green leaves and pink flowers glow out from the wintry background.

There is another camera option that could have been used to make this image. Canon's Tilt-Shift lenses give the landscape photographer the same front tilt and rear shift functions of a view camera. If I had wanted to make the photograph in 35mm format, I could have used my Canon 90mm Tilt-Shift lens in combination with a 2x extender, thus giving me 180mm of focal length. This is comparable to 360mm plus the roll film back on my 4x5. The tilt function, normally used to increase depth of field from foreground to background, would be turned sideways so that the depth could be controlled to left and right side in the composition. At 180mm, a normal lens would not be able to carry the considerable depth of the branch even at the smallest f/stop.

This technique of isolation, whether by use of focal length, camera angle or other means of composition, can lead you to simplify, and add intimacy to, your landscape work. The viewer can see that you selectively searched for something special that might only have been noticed by you. After all, photography is how you can allow others to see the world through your eyes!