Ordinary
Barry
Lopez:
When I was photographing, I used to ask other landscape photographers to
consider that the Sierra Club and Audubon calendars they were shooting for were
not all that different from the Playboy calendars these photographers would
never associate themselves with. They were consciously trying to create
gorgeous, overwhelming images. They created them in response to an ideal about
the beauty of landscape that was, qualitatively I think, no different from men
choosing certain types of bodies and arranging them in certain kinds of poses
to mirror a set of expectations that American men associate with erotic
feminine beauty. Some people were outraged by the suggestion, but I would make
it anyway. My argument was, “You say that you want to see landscapes preserved,
but what you’re photographing are the voluptuous landscapes, so I’m having
trouble believing this if there are no photographs of the beauty inherent in an
ordinary landscape.” This is one of the ways advertising and public relations
have compromised art and writing, you know, in the twentieth century.
Advertising has become a force for corruption, in my mind, as far as language
and imagery are concerned. As time goes by, it’s an industry I’ve come to have
little respect for, although I have known people working in advertising whom I
still hold in some regard. I’ve worked in it myself. It’s just become so
compromised.
1. Write about an ordinary landscape, some place where we wouldn't think "nature" at first. The scrap of grass behind the Safeway dumpsters. The urban creek full of highway runoff running along the street. Just regular and ordinary. Can you find a place that isn't advertising anything. Is there beauty
inherent in it? Is there a larger significance?
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