Landscape photography still means for most people, images of nature without the traces of human presence that we associate of the world we live in. Most of the landscape photographs we see are travel brochures and post cards, which do not include such modern ingredients as power lines cutting the sky, or industrial sprawl.
Landscape has gained a wider definition that is still being investigated by critics such as W.J.T. Mitchell who has said that "Landscape is not a genre of art but a medium". He points out in this essay that "landscape aesthetics... include poetry, fiction, travel literature and landscape gardening." Perhaps more importantly he brings to our attention that beneath the surface of landscape art there lies moral, ideological, and political messages and meaning that are often hidden and unexplained….
…Nowadays, when asked about what kind of photographer I am, I reply by saying that my work is about my interpretation of our relationship with nature - how we (as western Europeans) interact with the natural world about us. It is of course a complicated answer to a simple question and usually means that it is easier to show some images.
John S. Webb
August 1997
The following conversation took place on April 29, 1994 between Anthony Georgieff (KATALOG) and John S.Webb: JSW: “Our awareness, our senses can only perceive a ridiculously small amount of information of what's going on around us. That I think is very relevant to photography. When I compose a picture I am both aware and unaware of the process. There are things that I am aware of in the frame and round about me, but there are also things that I cannot possibly consciously see, register, or even think about. It is filtered away. My Ekodok pictures, for instance, were made around Helsingborg in an area which people don't usually look at. They work there, they drive through it but they don't think about its visual aesthetics. This happens all the time. People may pass though an area every day but if you ask them about it they will have a hard time describing it. I am trying to present a milieu that people can recognise and associate with, in a way which is visually interesting and which stimulates thought. I don't have any great theory that photography can change things but one of my aims, in the long run, is, through photography, to make people care”. AEG: “Do you think of yourself as being a "nature" photographer?” JSW: “I have always thought of myself as being a landscape photographer, although the whole concept of nature is undergoing a change. It is desperately important that we change our established idea of nature as being "other", outside ourselves. When we affect the environment, it is a two-way relationship -an interaction: we ourselves are affected too as we are part of the environment. This is a theme I am very preoccupied with. The far reaching effects of recent man-caused disasters have affected our awareness of our shaky existence on this planet”.
AEG: “Does this have something to do with style?” JSW: “I think of my style as being rather undramatic and meditative. I try to avoid drama in photography. I try to compose the images in a way that there's a strong sense of form and the image is "anchored", stable, the camera is straight. Mostly I try to avoid forced perspective”.
AEG: “How would you position yourself on the background of what is being done nowadays photographically in Sweden?” JSW: “There are different groups of photographers but I think the scene, especially in Stockholm, has been dominated by what has been generally known as post modernist photography. Of this I am definitely not a part”.
AEG: “This seems to be quite unique to Sweden. After all, post modernism is not very new and people in most European countries and in the US are either not too excited by it any more or detest its jargon - which in my opinion has grown out of bounds”. JSW: “I've tried to read some of the theory, but some of it you just get lost in. Very often you need new words in which to make the theory fit. The language can become very complicated quite often repetitive and affected. Sometime back one Swedish photographic magazine published a five and half page word list. Maybe that was a good idea. I think there's a need for coherent photographic theory to help us all understand the media. I have felt, rightly or wrongly, that Sweden only has room for one kind of photography at a time. In the seventies it was social documentary. There was some good photography that came out of that period but there was a lot of dogma. I think the same can be said of the past few years preoccupation with post modernism. That doesn't mean that there aren't other kinds of photography going on. Its just hasn't been that visible, that's all. Hopefully that is beginning to change now. In Gothenburg at least, there are some new galleries like "Amidol" and events like "Fotomässan", that have opened things up a lot”.
AEG: “At the moment a lot of your time goes on teaching photography?”. JSW: “I teach only part-time but it occupies my thoughts a lot. It is a combination of many different things. Trying to help students through discussion of their work to know whether they are really producing what they want to produce, - and if they are doing it to the best of their ability- introducing new ideas and methods. A lot of it is being there to give advice and practical help when someone needs it. Teaching is a give and take process. At its best you inspire each other through your work”.
©Anthony Georgieff
www.webbphoto.se
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