Landscape Within by David Ward | My Photo Bookshelf
I have followed David Ward’s work for a number of years and consider him up there with some of the British landscape photography masters such as Joe Cornish or Charlie Waite, so, as I started to grow my own photography book collection, I was please to find David’s 2004 book Landscape Within and quickly added it to my bookshelf.
The synopsis
While no photographer would deny the importance of mastering the technicalities of the craft, most would agree that true satisfaction comes from using technique to realize more profound, creative goals. In this book, distinguished landscape photographer David Ward investigates the goals of photography and how they can best be achieved. He is concerned, primarily, with the nature of creativity as it is experienced and practiced by photographers, and with the thought processes that go into making an image that aspires to be a work of art. In exploring these issues, and in drawing on his own superb work, he has produced a book that goes far beyond the "how to" manual, addressing questions that, though rarely asked, go to the heart of every photographer’s ambitions. David Ward has been a fine-art landscape photographer for more than 20 years; his work has appeared in many publications, including Outdoor Photographer and Amateur Photographer.
My thoughts about the book
With so many books covering technique, technical know-how and gear, this soft-cover book from David Ward is more about art, creativity and “the why”. David covers so many topics, too many to list here. Still, some of the more notable for me was his views on photo manipulation, the art of seeing, what defines an intimate landscape, historic references and much, much more.
I particularly liked chapter 4, The Art of Seeing. Here David talked about having creative concentration and although he didn’t directly reference Mindfulness, he talked about it in all but name itself including how the mind needs to be clear and focused on the task at hand and not distracted by everyday life. He referred to it as peaceful daydreaming, which I kind of like too. With a focus on the intimate landscape, I also enjoyed how David describes the differences between what makes a scene intimate vs a wide vista and then proceeds to dissect the building blocks of the intimate landscape photograph, talking about the form, texture, perspective and rhythm.
This book was published in 2004 so, at the time of writing, nearly 20 years ago. Although there are some references that give this away, the fundamental message is as true today as it was then. To put it bluntly, I think this book has aged very well as it focuses on the creative, rather than the technical side of our craft.
Along with the excellent writing, David has included lots of his beautiful intimate landscape photos throughout the book. Not only do these photos illustrate the book nicely, but they also provide a timely rest for your eyes and mind to gaze at before taking on the next page as for me at least, some of the writing is a bit full on and takes a couple of reads to click.
For anyone who likes to study landscape photography a little further, to gain a deeper understanding of the craft as well as learn a little of the history along the way, then this is well worth a read.
Book Details
Softcover
Size: 223mm x 228mm
Pages: 128
Availability at the time of writing: Unavailable from the usual UK booksellers. Consider buying a used copy.