Wabi-Sabi Revisited

This is one of the very few landscape images I've made that has been edited in this manner.  It is a gorgeous interpretation of what I found at this vineyard early one morning.  But the only reality it reflects is the actual contents.  The light, colors, saturation and contrast are all hyper-enhanced.  This is what has become the standard for good landscape photography.  Just look on the Internet and you'll know what I mean.  Look at the work of the "best" landscape photographers today.  It seems no one wants to see nature's imperfections rendered in a realistic way.  Everyone seems to want hyper-perfection.  To me, sad.  (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800e, 24-120mm f/4 lens @ 44mm; 1/200th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 200

In this post I want to continue with the concept of wabi-sabi that I wrote about in a previous post, here.  I wanted to touch on the idea that the lack of wabi-sabi has caused me to lose almost complete interest in most landscape photography.

For those who may not be familiar with the term, wabi-sabi, according to Wikipedia, wabi-sabi is:

"In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature."

Landscape photography is one of the primary reasons I fell in love with photography more than 50 years ago.  It was primarily the work of Ansel Adams and a few others I saw in photography magazines and museum exhibits that created a sense of awe in me.  When viewing the work of these noted black and white photographers, I discovered for the first time that a photograph could transcend being a mere snapshot of a place one might visit.  Later in life, as I acquired the means, I used to design my travel and road trips specifically to go to places where I knew the landscape would provide a plethora of opportunities for photography.  That is, until a couple of years ago when I've lost almost all interest in the "grand" landscape.  I still hold interest in the intimate landscape, however.  Why this change?

When I look at landscape images today, I no longer see a representation of nature.  I no longer see the imperfections one finds everywhere in nature.  I only see, not only photographers striving to find perfection in nature, but now creating hyper-reality and hyper-perfection.  Traditional landscape photography seems to have little place in today's world.  What I see that has become the norm are scenes that are impossible to find in nature.  Yet, those kinds of scenes have become what is considered "good" or "great" nature photography.

If you look at almost all of who is considered "top" landscape photographers, most will have images that are hyper-real.  The images are dramatic, overly edited, over saturated, have highlights toned down and shadows brought up to the point that it just doesn't happen in nature like that.  They are creating a hyper-perfect representation of nature.  My question is, "What's wrong with nature as it is?"

Additionally, I find hundreds, if not more, images of every piece of landscape across the country, in every type of light under all conditions, it seems.  I come away with the feeling that "Why should I bother?  It's all been done before and in a way that a traditional landscape photograph is looked down upon."

I don't have anything against the uber-landscape photography.  I think everyone should photograph for themselves and create their art in a manner that suits themselves.  What I see is utterly amazing photography!  I create my art for me and intend to continue to do in the future.  But for my tastes, these images that reflect nature and light in hyper-realistic ways that have never existed and will never exist, kind of spoils the entire experience for me.

This is where wabi-sabi comes in.  If more photographers would celebrate wabi-sabi, seek out and show nature in its true form, warts and all, more of us may have an appreciation of it.  If we only appreciate nature as it is not, i.e., perfect, then we may miss the beauty of what is there and not make the experiences in nature that can enrich our lives.

I would like to see this trend of producing hyper-real photographs to end.  This trend reminds me of what happened when high dynamic range (HDR) first appeared.  Photographers quickly went overboard and produced images that did not resemble reality in any way.  I'm happy that today's HDR achieves the goals of capturing the full dynamic range of a complex scene yet remains looking realistic.

Embrace wabi-sabi.  Embrace imperfection.  Embrace the transient nature of the landscape and don't use the tools you have to "clean up" the landscape from what it really is, enhance the light in ways that it never can be and manipulate color and contrast into an alien reality.

Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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