“My pictures have seen the world; printed in National Geographic, they get around. Dentist offices everywhere, barbershops in Bhutan. You know.
But for all their connections with the real world, photographs too often lead disconnected lives. It is as if, after their moment of creation, they go off to live in a foreign country. They talk to the wider world, spread instantly across the planet, but with the folks back home, where they were born, not so much. Sometimes they act like children estranged from their parents, all links severed with the real world where they were born.”
Jim Richardson in A Long Love Affair With the Scottish Isles, in Pictures
This is not my hope. Rather, as Jim Richardson goes on to say in his essay, I want my photos to have a life. Too often people live in a place that they don’t really see or they visit a landscape that is unfamiliar and see only what they came to see – the interstate, a specific trail, or paddle route. I want my photographs to convey the intrinsic value of these landscapes and the beauty that may not be readily apparent. I want the connections between people and wild places to be always fresh and strong with the hope that more every day life decisions are informed by the need for wilderness. No estranged children here, please.
Cottonwoods dwarfed by the landscape
See Jim Richardson’s essay here: http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/05/a-long-love-affair-with-the-scottish-isles-in-pictures/?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=pom_20160410&utm_campaign=Content&utm_rd=15302027