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Other Nature

This chapter talks about landscape photography, but not only the kind of landscape photos we would think of. The writer takes the Yosemite park as an example. First, there are people like Adams who focuses on the spectacle of the mountains, and artists like Stephen Shore broke that rule and reaches out to take pictures with the landscape as a background for history and people, and also there are artists like Susan Derges who are “looking into a photograph” instead of “looking at”.

It expanded my knowledge of landscape photography and provided me a wider view to look at a landscape photo. The question in the book that also bothers me a lot is why people still take pictures of landscape even though there are hundreds of better pictures. I always thought it is a feeling of possession, an emotion attached to the picture, and not comparable with other majestic pictures. But thinking about it now, the definition of landscape photography is actually very wide. It doesn’t have to refer to the sameness of Yosemite mountain. It can be attached to history, people, and the nature like the artist’s works I’ve referred to. Think about nature as it is alive, not a prop.


Susan Derges

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