Return To The Landscapes You Were Triggered By

“You become things, you become an atmosphere, and if you become it, which means you incorporate it within you, you can also give it back […] 
And that I would call the dreaming with open eyes.”

| Ernst Haas

As landscape photographers we often ask ourselves to which landscape we should go next. Some may have bucket lists of iconic places they want to see in their life. Others seek out for new environments they haven’t seen so far in their lives. Some may feel attached by the sea or the mountains. Others may enjoy the adventure of the unknown. Whatever type of photographer you are, the landscapes that attract you might tell you something about yourself. And you should listen to it.

The American painter Ernst Hopper once said that ‘The work’s the man. You can’t get something out of nothing.” As such, each of our crafted photographs is a self-portrait. Whenever we listen to the landscapes and react on something that caught our eyes, whenever we invest time to deliberately put this essence of the landscape out and frame it with our camera, we also frame ourselves. We are actually reacting to our environment, because something spoke to us that we also have inside. We found a match, a dialogue between the outer and the inner world. As a consequence, each of our crafted photographs that is captured with passion and intention reveals us. It is a portrait of who we are in that moment of time. 

If you are therefore triggered by a specific landscape – no matter how often you have seen it already – if it triggers something inside, you should potentially return. I deeply believe that we will learn as an artist and make progress through this process, that we will create exciting new work, but also that we learn something important about ourselves.

Return to the landscape that triggered you in the past. They might teach you something.