A Picturesque view of Olana

This photo is mostly about the clouds for me…

(god, I love a wide-angle lens!)

But there’s the whole Persian mansion thing at Olana and finding a more complete view of it was very difficult. Frederic Church designed it that way; he wanted the landscape to be experienced in *glimpses* or a particular, planned sequence of views…

The other photographers at Camp that weekend approached their work very seriously and with tripods, lining up to take (presumably) the same photo as the person before and behind.

(blech!)

I wandered around and in Gorilla-photographer mode ran down this hill with arms extended… briefly considered a child-like roll, even…

(but for the camera equipment and the embarrassment of being caught in the act!)

I turned around and found the mansion perched beside a maple tree afire…

: )

A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don’t think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. ~John Loengard, “Pictures Under Discussion”

9 thoughts on “A Picturesque view of Olana”

  1. “…it will simply look like a copy of something pretty.” Exactly the problem with most nature-calendar-type photography, isn’t it?

  2. Gosh Dave, yes!

    Funny, but I like to use those pics for inspiration when going to someplace new.

    I have this sense that *real* photographers know the best way to approach a location; usually tho I find those pics lacking in some way… nothing technical (as if I’d know it!), but…

    That’s not to say their photos might not be gorgeous, but there’s some… something that’s lacking for me in the *traditional* approach…

    Probably it’s some depth of feeling…

    (still working that out, i guess.)

  3. That was a clever photo! The mansion was way up there!

    I saw a photo today of a wave breaking over the lighthouse at Ludington on Lake Michigan. There was a very big storm – possibly as big as they get. I think it was said that no one could ever remember seeing a wave break over the lighthouse before.

    That was probably a luck shot of a life-time. Just a different perspective on photography!

  4. I so wanted that tumbling down the hill shot …

    (Had to settle for traditional crap.)

    ((Maybe if I had a wide angle lens …))

    🙂

  5. We just finished reading the Odyssey and dealing with Greek mythology in 9th grade English. This must be the view that Persephone waits to see as she leaves the Underworld to return to Earth in the spring, clouds leading her upwards.

  6. I love your “sideways” way of taking photos… I’m still trying to understand this “gorilla” style photography… something about long legs & arms & loping & the camera held upside down & sideways or maybe hanging from a tree-limb?

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