Friday, February 13, 2009

Somewhere in Canada

Like the hook of a good melody, I've had this image by Thomas E. Gardiner lodged in my brain for about a week now.


I love everything about this photo: the strange vantage point looking slightly down its nose, the delicate composition of separate elements scattered deliberately through the photo, everything relating together yet shyly keeping to itself. I love the many layers from foreground to the horizon, the mix of natural and human landscape, and the fact that the shot seems to encapsulate an entire town in one image. And that plain red truck in the corner which anchors the whole damn thing is simply perfect.

Out shooting lately, this photograph has been my guide. I know it's futile to copy what's been done. But sometimes it's helpful to hold an image in the back of one's head as a sort of mental angel lighting the path.

Keep on truckin', Mr. Gardiner. Keep on truckin'...

4 comments:

sirius said...

I live in Alberta. I see this stuff all the time. Thanks for introducing me to this photographer. He capture it so well. I loved his site.

Anonymous said...

You'll find that a British photographer by the name of Raymond Moore was the ground-breaker in this kind of delicate 'positional' approach to photographing the human landscape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Moore

Blake Andrews said...

Thanks for the tip about Raymond Moore who I hadn't known much about. I've had fun looking at his images online. His approach seems similar but generally more concerned with form/abstraction, helped by the use of black and white.

Anonymous said...

You might check out Andrew Borowiec's work. He has an old book on towns along the Ohio River (Along the Ohio) and a new book out on Cleveland. Great vantage points and a mix of residential and industrial scenes.