My recent trip to Colorado, and my upcoming trip to the North American Nature Photographers Association (NANPA) conference in Reno, NV, got me thinking again about the importance of "connections" within our world. By "connections" I mean "the relationship of something within its context."
American photographer Elliot Porter (1901 - 1990) developed the genre of "intimate landscape" compositions to illustrate the connections between subjects and their environment. Unlike his contemporaries (Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and others) who photographed primarily "grand vistas," Porter's "intimate landscape" images were small slices of the natural environment that excelled at illustrating why the scene in front of his camera was relevant to a larger and more complex world. Porter's 1962 groundbreaking work “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World” combined stunning large format color images with quotations from Henry David Thoreau and was the first book published by the Sierra Club. The book was an immediate success, raising the Sierra Club to national prominence and launching an environmental movement that can be considered the "grandfather" of many of the environmental and conservation groups of today.
The assignment for the week of 1 - 7 February 2010 is "Connections." You should strive to compose an image that illustrates a "connection" between elements within a scene (such as a drinking fountain and a snow covered mountain peak). Please upload your images to the "Connections" album in the Weekly Assignments category of the Gallery no-later-than midnight Mountain Time (GMT -07:00) on Sunday, 7 February 2010.
I'll look forward to seeing your images.
Keith
