Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.
Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
Introduction
5.01 Nature > Introduction to nature photography
                      
To start with it is easier if we divide the enormous subject of nature photography down into a number of distinct but overlapping categories and I have created a series of webpages dealing on the main ones. Before you go to them it is worth examining how the photography of the natural world has changed since the early days of photography. Any discussion on a topic as complex as this is going to be simplistic but here are some of the key points. Photography of the natural world has always been split into at least three distinct groups of photographers:
- Amateurs who want to record a scene, animal or plant that they have seen.
- Naturalists who take a scientific approach to cataloging their observations and specimens.
- Artists who seek out the essential beauty of nature and often enhance it in a studio.
From 1840 to about 1860 the long exposures meant that animals other than man and dogs tended not to be photographed. There are exceptions to this but in the main it holds true. Plants are more static and algae, leaves, flowers and grasses were all recorded early on by botanists like Anna Atkins (1799-1871) and Franz de Paula Antoine (1815-1886). Still life studies of flowers and vegetables were ideally suited to the available technologies and the sensibilities of the age and Roger Fenton, Charles Hippolyte Aubry and many others did these.
The struggles in the late nineteenth century to get photography accepted as an art form led many photographers to pictorialism which selected subjects and used soft lenses, chemical processes and toning agents to make the natural world look like a painting.
Following the First World War some photographers, such as Paul Strand, saw that it was pointless turning the natural world into the semblance of a painting and it would be preferable to show it as it actually is. Here pin sharp gelatin-silver prints became the highest level of achievement and we enter the fine art worlds of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. At the same time high quality wildlife color photography done on location was still in its infancy and it was people like Ylla (1911-1955) with her book Animals of Africa in the early 1950's that started to change this. Later on Eliot Porter (1901-1990), Hugo Van Lawick and the television programs of David Attenborough had an influence on how we saw nature and it was no longer the noble lion sitting on a limestone kopje but a pack of hyenas pulling an antelope apart. In a book like Serengeti by Mitsuaki Iwago our cuddly view of nature is challenged and when Jane Goodall recorded that chimpanzees could actually be cannibalistic all our illusions of a natural Eden were gone.
If we now look at those three groups of people I mentioned earlier they all still exist but they have morphed. The amateurs are still there with far better cameras and lenses, the fine artists need to do more that simply take a beautiful flowers although many still do that. The naturalists in universities and research institutes now have access to better equipment and facilities than almost all artists and produce images on a daily basis that are simply stunning but are rarely seen in galleries. There are so many naturalists with photographic skills that they can make a living dedicated to photographing a particular genera or species. This means the artists have to produce images that are more edgy in what they take and that is what is happening. An alternative strategy is to revert to using nineteenth century techniques and processes in a search for originality.
Nature photography and colour
5.02 Nature > Eliot Porter: Colour
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
      
Contemporary
5.03 Nature > Contemporary examples of nature photography
   
5.04 Nature > Joseph Holmes: amnh (American Museum of Natural History)
    
alan@luminous-lint.com |
   
General reading
Auer, Michele & Streff, Jean, 1999, Histoires d'Oeufs: A travers 300 Photographies de 1840 a Nos Jours, (Ides et calendes) isbn-10: 2825801410 [Δ]
Edwards, John, 1996, London Zoo from Old Photographs, 1852-1914, (Self-published) isbn-10: 0952709902 isbn-13: 978-0952709909 [Δ]
Eskildsen, Ute, 2006, Useful, Cute and Collected: The Photographed Animal, (Steidl) isbn-10: 3865212093 isbn-13: 978-3865212092 [Δ]
Jacobson, Ken, 2001, ‘The lovely sea-view - which all London is now wondering at‘: a study of the marine photographs published by Gustave Le Gray, 1856-1858, (Petches Bridge: Ken & Jenny Jacobson) isbn-10: 0952755017 [Δ]
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Karl Blossfeldt
Blossfeldt, Karl, 1967, Urformen der Kunst, (Tübingen, Germany: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag) [Δ]
Blossfeldt, Karl, 1998, Natural Art Forms: 120 Classic Photographs, (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications) [Δ]
Andy Goldsworthy
Goldsworthy, Andy, 1990, A Collaboration with Nature, (Abrams) [Δ]
Goldsworthy, Andy, 1996, Wood, (Harry N. Abrams) [Δ]
Goldsworthy, Andy, 2004, Hand to Earth, (Harry N. Abrams) [Δ]
Goldsworthy, Andy, 2011, Stone, (Thames & Hudson) [Δ]
Ernst Haas
Haas, Ernst, 1971, The Creation, (New York: Viking) [Δ]
Eliot Porter
Porter, E. et al., 1968, Galapagos: The Flow of Wildness, (San Francisco: Sierra Club) [Δ]
Sebastião Salgado
Salgado, Sebastiao, 2013, Genesis, (Taschen) isbn-10: 3836538725 isbn-13: 978-3836538725 [Δ]
Garry Winogrand
Winogrand, Garry, 1969, The Animals, (New York: Museum of Modern Art) [Republished Museum of Modern Art (2004)] [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Resources
Heather Angel (1941-) • Franz de Paula Antoine (1815-1886) • Anna Atkins (1799-1871) • Tom Baril (1952-) • Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) • Sonja Braas (1968-) • Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) • Jerry Burchfield (1947-2009) • Keith Carter (1948-) • Catherine Chalmers • Cy DeCosse (1929-) • David Doubilet (1946-) • Maureen Enns • Elliott Erwitt (1928-) • Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) • Harold Feinstein (1931-) • Ernst Fuhrmann (1886-1956) • Andy Goldsworthy (1956-) • Henry Horenstein (1947-) • Charles Jones (1866-1959) • Frans Lanting • David Liittschwager • Richard Long (1945-) • Aleksandras Macijauskas (1938-) • Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) • Susan Middleton • Freeman Patterson (1937-) • Oliver G. Pike (1877-1963) • Eliot Porter (1901-1990) • Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) • David Sims • Doug Starn (1961-) • Mike Starn (1961-) • Joyce Tenneson (1945-) • William Wegman (1943-) • Jack Welpott (1923-2007) • Art Wolfe | Home > Themes > Nature
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 | Amy Stein: Domesticated
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 8, 2008) |  | Anna Atkins
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (October 9, 2010) |
 | Brigitte Carnochan: The ModernBook Gallery Exhibition (Nov - Dec 2006)
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 14, 2007) |  | Caroline Hyman: Botanicals
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 27, 2007) |
 | Cy Decosse: Gioco di Luce / Play of the Light
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 11, 2007) |  | Flowers: A 19th Century perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (March 7, 2007) |
 | Flowers: A Pictorialist perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 23, 2007) |  | Flowers: Through the 20th Century
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (May 16, 2007) |
 | Fontainebleau, Barbizon - the relationships between painters and photographers
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (November 6, 2010) Further examples sought showing direct parallels between individual paintings and photographs. |  | Harry Nankin: Contact 2003-4
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 8, 2007) |
 | Harry Nankin: The Rain
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (May 24, 2007) |  | James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 14, 2007) |
 | James Hill: The Flower Studies
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (June 7, 2007) |  | Karl Blossfeldt‘s Original "Urformen der Kunst" / "Art Forms in Nature"
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (October 3, 2006) |
 | Landscape: Mountains
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 8, 2012) |  | Landscape: Rural pathways, tracks, trails and lanes
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 8, 2012) |
 | Landscape: A 19th Century Perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 8, 2012) |  | Landscape: Deserts and Dunes
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 22, 2012) |
 | Laszlo Layton: Natural History
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (January 10, 2007) |  | Marian Drew: Still Life / Australiana
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (April 17, 2007) Introduction by Russell Storer added. |
 | Professor Albert Richards: X-rays of Flowers
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (April 16, 2010) |  | Ron van Dongen: Flora
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 13, 2007) |
| Scientific: 19th Century Botany
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (November 27, 2010) |  | Still-life: Apples
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (February 9, 2009) |
 | Still-life: Eggs
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (July 13, 2008) |  | Still-life: Pears
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (December 23, 2007) |
 | Trees: A 19th Century perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (November 20, 2007) |  | Trees: A Pictorialist perspective
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Improved (November 20, 2007) |
 | Wilson A. Bentley: Snowflakes
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
Released (June 19, 2011) | | |
 | A.W. Malm: Monographie illustrée du baleinoptère...
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | Roger Kockaerts: Cyanotypes of Endangered plants
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|  | S.F. Baird: U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Woods Hole, Mass
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 | Illustrations based on Daguerreotypes: Domesticated animals
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|  | Nature: Fauna
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Alligators and crocodiles
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Bears
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Birds
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Bison
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Butterflies and moths
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Cats
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Cattle, bulls, cows and oxen
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Chickens, turkeys and ducks
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Deer
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Dogs: Bulldogs
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Dogs: Examples
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Elephants
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Extinct
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Flies
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Frogs
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Goats
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Hares
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Hippopotami
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Horses
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| | Nature: Fauna: Hung game
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Insects
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Leopards
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Lions
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Monkeys, chimpanzees and apes
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Ostriches
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Pigs
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Rabbits
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Rhinoceros
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Rodents, mice and rats
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Sheep
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Snails
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|  | Nature: Fauna: Snakes
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|  | Nature: Fish
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|  | Nature: Flora: Ferns
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A 19th century perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A 20th century perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Flowers: A Pictorialist perspective
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Calla lilies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Dandelions
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Magnolias
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Orchids
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Peonies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Poppies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Roses
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Sunflowers
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Thistles
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Tulips
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|  | Nature: Flora: Flowers: Water lilies
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|  | Nature: Flora: Fruits
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|  | Nature: Flora: Fruits: Apples
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| | Nature: Flora: Fruits: Pears
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|  | Nature: Flora: Leaves
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|  | Nature: Flora: Succulents and cacti
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|  | Nature: Flora: Trees: A 19th century perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Trees: A 20th century perspective
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|  | Nature: Flora: Trees: A Pictorialist perspective
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| | Nature: Flora: Trees: Apple trees
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|  | Nature: Flora: Vegetables
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|  | Nature: Museums, zoos and aquariums
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|  | Nature: Preserved
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|  | Nature: Shells
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| | Still life: Eggs
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