Brean Down (an aside)
I have learned from both experience and also valued sources (books, lecturers, colleagues etc) that the only way to understand a landscape is to only take your senses with you.
If you need an aide-memoire then keep it simple and (most importantly) non-distracting. This could be a sketchpad or a notebook at most. This in turn forces us to contemplate the landscape and not the recording process. We may look, listen, feel and in the process clear our cluttered minds so as not to impose our own predetermined actions (such as the demands of photography) or our preconceptions onto the place in question and its unique 'genius loci'.
A quick photograph in this respect can become misleading, and in turn reinforce preconceptions, as can a recording. The eyes, when freed from searching for the perfect framed 2D photo is no longer seeing through the eye of the lens. Instead the eyes can continuously register our surroundings and what is around us in every direction in so many more ways (and at many more depths/heights) than a camera. In addition we see and process images very differently to a camera. For example does anyone ever see life as nesting inside a frame or indeed has anyone ever seen a straight line?
Likewise the structure of our ears combined with the brain's auditory processing can perceive and isolate sounds that a microphone could either miss, blur or bury due to a variety of factors including proximity, response range + frequency.
As we all surrender to digital technology (and AI making decisions for us) it is arguable that before we get past the point of no return we must stop and learn to develop + sharpen our senses again.
More to follow.
Mo
If you need an aide-memoire then keep it simple and (most importantly) non-distracting. This could be a sketchpad or a notebook at most. This in turn forces us to contemplate the landscape and not the recording process. We may look, listen, feel and in the process clear our cluttered minds so as not to impose our own predetermined actions (such as the demands of photography) or our preconceptions onto the place in question and its unique 'genius loci'.
A quick photograph in this respect can become misleading, and in turn reinforce preconceptions, as can a recording. The eyes, when freed from searching for the perfect framed 2D photo is no longer seeing through the eye of the lens. Instead the eyes can continuously register our surroundings and what is around us in every direction in so many more ways (and at many more depths/heights) than a camera. In addition we see and process images very differently to a camera. For example does anyone ever see life as nesting inside a frame or indeed has anyone ever seen a straight line?
Likewise the structure of our ears combined with the brain's auditory processing can perceive and isolate sounds that a microphone could either miss, blur or bury due to a variety of factors including proximity, response range + frequency.
As we all surrender to digital technology (and AI making decisions for us) it is arguable that before we get past the point of no return we must stop and learn to develop + sharpen our senses again.
More to follow.
Mo