2010-04-26

Milan ordinary landscapes. Porta Garibaldi #9. February 2010

In the post closing the series on the PASM (Parco Agricolo Sud Milano) I have left you with a quote that focused on "LANDSCAPE AS DOCUMENT". In case you where interested here is the, almost, complete article: "THE MONUMENT AND THE BUNGALOW", courtesy by Google books. The article is divided in two parts. The first one, of general scope, focuses mainly on to the ways to approach landscape reading, the second one is a live example, that I have found of great Interest for Italians too, that, as immigrants, left their native country, in great numbers, for the "new world", as my father did.

3 comments:

Kent Wiley said...

An interesting field of study, Mauro. My question is how do we as photographers manage to show any of the detail that is possible using the language of "cultural geographers?" The problem with photography is that it is entirely about appearances. It tells us so little about anything else other than what is there before our eyes.

Mauro Thon Giudici said...

Kent, I think that "what is before our eyes" is exactly what a Geographer deals with. It's obvious that words lead to a totally different way to describe a place. However there is a grammar in landscape photography too.
Its made of different FOVs with a progression from the whole to the part (or the other way). I think that the real problem is to catch something purely visual and not expressible otherwise, after all we do not want to end up making mere illustrations.

Kent Wiley said...

"after all we do not want to end up making mere illustrations."

Exactly. Purely documentary photography, or even photo journalism for that matter, doesn't really interest me. Saying something about the landscape is what we are after. But how to go about it as pointedly as an historian who might be standing in our shoes, is what I wonder.