do we really need to dig so deeply in landscape photography

Responding to such a question involves some considerations about doing photography. In respect to landscape we, photographers of all kind, have a big responsibility, our pictures, whatever the audience, will became, in case success and relatively to the audience, icons for the place we have chosen as subject.

A landscape picture is an artifact derived from a relation between an observer (you) and the chosen (by you) portion of space. I still need to dig more here. There are more precise definitions in the second of my former posts.

Landscape painting and poetry too have some responsibility. For example in the case of Venice and Vicenza both arts where used to depict a rural way of life far from real, made of simplicity, pastoral sets and well ordered vegetation. Reality was that the same who paid for artists were also robbing the land from the peasants through wear loan and taxes.

Arts were used as cover ups of an otherwise shameful action.

Who is to blame ? if we europeans have an idea of America made of skyscrapers , red rocks and gasoline services ?

Landscape photography is connected in natural ways to landscape imaging in general. For several years (at least 80), and today for less explicit reasons, the only missing thing was color (at least in fine art). Now in digital times color is not a trouble anymore, we can have plenty of control too.

So it is also time to reconnect some missing links and become aware of the necessity to carefully study why we are still here depicting land, nature, houses, cities almost the same way humanity started doing 1100 years ago, in the strict sens of landscape. Humankind started painting the world they saw a lot much before. Getting back that lot of time
is not a mean to rediscover some ancient technique.

But back to the question. I am sure that all this studying is not necessary in most cases. One can continue to take his own sunsets without bothering about. Better one can take pictures, fine ones or even new ones without a minimal idea of the history of art.

But if you are in search of reasons why here is a good place to start, i am not sending you to amazon to buy, but you can use several words as strings in a google search.

I started this study last year due to a project i am still working on and as usual i got lost.

I know that these are times in which the attention is on expression more than on
impression but photography has to do with reality. has it ?