Buachaille Etive Mor Watch

[huwevans]

WARNING: Rant ahead - and it's only slightly tongue-in-cheek.



I've had enough! And finally I'm going to do something about it.

I've commented before on the lamentable frequency with which this one mountain features in British landscape photography, but twice in the last two issues of AP is just too much. When I started photography back in the 70s it was Ashness Bridge - you couldn't turn a dozen pages of any photography magazine without being confronted by yet another picture of the same scene, taken from more or less the same position, looking in the same direction. (And if you went to the Lake District, there wasn't a newsagent's or gift shop in the entire county that didn't have at least half a dozen versions available in the postcard stands.) Then in the 80s we got Eilean Donan Castle ad nauseam. And for some years now it has been the Buachaille Etive Mor, with just as much lack of originality.

So, sad bastard that I am, I decided to count the instances of the BEM cropping up in AP in 2007. And the answer was 12. Twelve pictures of just that one landscape! One of them even included the bleeding bloody Black Rock bloody Cottage, and that, I'm afraid, should be a hanging offence. There was also one Eilean Donan shot, but I'll let that go.

Are landscape enthusiasts not ashamed to be simply repeating the same shots that so many others have taken before? I certainly would be. It's not as though there aren't enough other mountains in Scotland or the rest of the UK to be able to find something different to shoot. Have they no imagination? Is driving up the A82 and snapping what they see at the side of the road really all the effort they are prepared to make, or all the challenge they are up for? If twelve street photographers had independently photographed the same craggy-faced old tramp and got their pictures into the mag, wouldn't we think something wasn't quite right? At the very least I reckon the tramp would deserve a substantial modelling fee.

So, here and now I am commencing a 'Buachaille Etive Mor Watch' in the hope of shaming landscapists into actually looking for something else to photograph, and, for that matter, AP into choosing different images to print. Every time I find another published picture of the wretched lump I shall increment my count by one. I might even write to the editor! And if the offending image is in a competition I shall count it twice, because there's even less excuse for that. Let's see if 2008 is any improvement - I'd like to see that BEM count at least halved, if not reduced to one or two. Please, British landscapists, make some effort to find original images - photograph something different. Don't be satisfied with just producing your own versions of everyone else's clichés. And please, AP, do your bit to encourage originality by not accepting the same old subjects over and over again.


Okay, rant over. I'm glad I got that off my chest. :-)

[AGW]

Its good to clear the system before the start of the new year! You are right Huw...there is so much more out there....

Graeme

[Zou]

I personally think Ben Loyal, the 'Queen of Scottish Mountains' is far more photogenic. Again, you don't even need to get off the A road to photograph it:







I might submit some pictures to the AP gallery to help redress the balance. Who'll join me in campaigning for prettier mountains to be photographed more? Stac Pollaidh! Suilven! Foinaven!

Anyone??

[Mr_Geoff]

Well said Huw! I was going to suggest this as a New Year's resolution for both the mag and the forum!

[Benchista]

I've personally got no objection whatsoever to seeing more pictures of the Great Shepherd - on one proviso: that they're different. I have started a long-term project to shoot all the most cliched locations in as different a way as possible - it will take a while to get to them all, and at the moment I'm not entirely sure what to include and what not to - the ones you mentioned for sure, Huw, but also Durdle Door, maybe Corfe Castle, certainly Bamburgh Castle, and so on. In fact what I would like to do is to make a calendar, so I guess I need 12 locations...maybe I'll start another thread for suggestions.

But to get back to the point, I love Buchaille Etive Mor, and actually have a Colin Prior print up in the house of the thing, and in the flesh it's a magical place. Where I would absolutely agree with Huw is that I'm heartily sick of seeing minor variations on exactly the same picture, and although I can understand the motivation of people wanting to take the shot for themselves, I'm not at all sure that I see the point in wanting to share something so unoriginal.

[daft_biker]

I was thinking a similar thing recently too Huw...but not about BEM it was landscapes general in AP. I think there has been too many and it seems like the majority of images are landscapes. I probably wouldn't mind if they were more inspiring

[mjc7uk]

Its good to clear the system before the start of the new year! You are right Huw...there is so much more out there....

Graeme

Och Aye! Such the like of those lovies scenery just off the A82, or better still those nice Black Rock thingingmebobs...

Yes I understand and agreed but isn't it up to the publisher to control such publish of the repeative boring "snaps"?

Will have to start tramping out to find a place where no one had been...

[TH-Photos]

I Like the Arrans at the top end of Bala Lake, and you don't have to get out of bed the to photograph it from the campsite.

[huwevans]

I was thinking a similar thing recently too Huw...but not about BEM it was landscapes general in AP. I think there has been too many ...

I know what you mean. Though on the plus side I have been really delighted with the place given to top quality photojournalism in AP over the last year. Maybe it's just the readers' contributions that need to be stepped up a gear or two?

I think it's usually reckoned that landscape is the single most popular genre of photography amongst amateur enthusiasts - or at least the genre that accounts for more frames exposed by the likes of us lot than any other. So maybe it's inevitable that there will be quite a lot of it in a magazine like AP. Be that as it may, even when I did still consider myself a landscapist I still found myself being more impressed by good work in other fields than in landscape. I guess those other areas are where I feel the real challenges lie.

[Footloose]

Well Nick, I hope the project doesn't send you mad in the process!

Maybe one of the AP monthly comps should be titled 'Industrial slag-heap on a miserable, overcast day in February.'? This would really be a challenge to people and 'wind up' the traditional pictorialists in the process!

[Per]

Just opened Outdoor Photography (don't worry, I put it back) and you'll never guess what's on the double-page centre spread...

[BigWill]

..................anyone for some nice bluebells then.................just for a change!

BigWill

[beejaybee]

But to get back to the point, I love Buchaille Etive Mor, and actually have a Colin Prior print up in the house of the thing, and in the flesh it's a magical place.

Yes. Raven's Gully in winter is one of the truly great climbs. I don't have a Colin Prior print but I do have vivid memories of climbing Raven's in a blizzard. (The adjacent Slime Wall is, however, well named, definitely not a place to venture in climbing rubbers!)

Where I would absolutely agree with Huw is that I'm heartily sick of seeing minor variations on exactly the same picture, and although I can understand the motivation of people wanting to take the shot for themselves,

The light is always changing, perhaps even those who've taken dozens of the same view can improve.

I'm not at all sure that I see the point in wanting to share something so unoriginal.

Agreed, but however often I see the "classic" views, I refuse to close my mind to the possibility that someone may take an image that isn't even better at reflecting the majesty of the place.

[Nod]

The main problem with "that" view of BEM is that it almost as though there's a tripod anchored in the ground, so there seem to be so many near identical shots. Like there are of the side of (?) Selfridges in Birmingham nowdays.

[daft_biker]

Seen many shots of Edinburgh castle this year Huw? :whistling:

[Benchista]

Slightly too urban for my list...

[huwevans]

What, you mean like from Calton Hill perhaps? Now who might possibly be churning out pics of the castle from there? ;-)

[daft_biker]

Not from Calton Hill this time. I much prefer the view from the new town anyway

[Seven]

oh Huw the bleedin bloody did make me laugh and of course you are right

Although I don't think the photographer can be blamed as when you see something it may well have been taken a trillion times before but if you are there you can't help yourself but snap away, not that I've been anywhere near these places but I imagine that's how I would feel.

I blame the editors of mags for publishing 'samey' images. If more original images were published then what is sent in would perhaps follow.

Personally I'm sick ot death of seeing craggy faces and the spinnaker tower!

[parisian]

Tanya you are very possibly right that the editors of the mags need to take a look at the content they produce for us.
It does seem at times that unless there is a shot of some boring blasted landscape that has been done to death then the portfolio will not get printed. I often tell my students that rather than take the same old hackneyed shot they should simply buy a postcard of the place and save printing costs. What would be better is to see the mountain rescue team abseiling down into the tripod holes to rescue the snappers who have attempted to get that same tired old shot.
Most landscape shots produced for readers portfolio sections are boring to the extreme, similar light, similar viewpoint and about as interesting as a stoat with leprosy.
There seems to be much too much concern over equipment and very little on photographic innovation these days.