Mountains have a certain appeal to them. Something about the great height just draws people towards, or up, them. There was a particular fascination with mountains during the romantic movement, where they were seen as something natural, powerful, and intimidating
I wanted to try and make a project based on the romantic perception of mountains, as the huge, vertigo inducing feats of nature, so began to look into pictorialism, a photographic movement that looked to give photographs a painting-like quality, through manipulation of the images. The problem with this, is that the original pictorialists physically manipulated both their cameras and their images (shot on film) to give them the ideal quality, whereas I had only my DSLR, that I didn't want to risk damaging in the process. I decided to look at forms of digital manipulation as an alternative method of achieving a pictorial quality.
Thinking about the lack of sharp focus as a main element, I searched through my photos to find ones that were already out of focus, and to try and use them for further experiments.
I came across the work of Ansel Adams, and decided to explore his work and style, and see what I could come up with when trying to emulate his style.
I started to edit some photos to mimic Adams' style, using black and white filters, adjusting the focus to be sharper, and less obvious manipulations in post, to give the sense that this was how the photos were taken.
I thought that these photos were very effective, not only in emulating the style of Ansel Adams, but also in terms of the outlook of the project, as an attempt to look at the romantic and impressive nature of mountains, leading me to continue the project with Adams style in mind.
I thought that these photos were very effective, not only in emulating the style of Ansel Adams, but also in terms of the outlook of the project, as an attempt to look at the romantic and impressive nature of mountains, leading me to continue the project with Adams style in mind.
I decided to make a photobook from the images I made. I aimed to produce the photobook in a documentative way, and keep the pages simple.