Prashanth,
With all humbleness, here are my views, others mileage vary
About 15-20 years back I really liked a few photographers' work. I learnt basic photography skills going through lovely books written by John Shaw. I loved all his beautiful images of nature then. I also loved some of the images of Frans Lanting, Galen Rowell and a few others then.
Now, ~20 years later, I think I am in an interesting situation. Let me start with your question -
Now I'm curious to see what is that favourite work that has inspired you. Please post one creation
To me the very purpose of nature photography has changed. A few important changes happened over several years -
I needed an answer for an important question - Why do I photograph? What Nature Photography means to me ?
Nature Photography practiced today portrays mostly beauty of nature - exotic locations, landscapes, seascapes, animal portrait, wide angle perspectives, finer macro details and this list goes on on. We also see occasionally conservation related images. In summary we
state/show what we see, mostly the objective truth. After 20 years this objective truth seem to lack its meaning!! Yes nature is beautiful, but then it is a tautology!
I now think what is more interesting is subjective truth! Beyond showing beautiful accounts, for me, the purpose of the image is to stir some thoughts like what authors do, the purpose is to share some feelings like poets and painters. The metric now has changed from for how long you see the image verses for how long think after seeing the image!
But then why
nature? Isn't it a wrong medium for this purpose? Why not other genres of photography?
This question haunted me for sometime. Finally (I think) I found an answer - the perfect medium is in fact nature itself! However, the nature here has a different purpose. The main use of it for me is abstraction. While it is easier to portray feelings in human subjects abstractions are a challenge! It is very difficult to show nature using humans but I *think* I can show humans using subjects nature!! It is a very interesting challenge and can become very powerful, at times.
Now, back to the question -
who's work?
I think what is said is more important than who said it. That said, with all humbleness, is there another forum where you see steady stream images of nature which goes beyond factual representation of nature? More importantly is there a place on the net sharing a good body of work and images of nature
which makes you think? I wish there were many, but have not found them yet. I am sure we will see them in future. But for now the most of the work I cherish are embedded here in archives of CNP, produced by fearless photographers like you!!
