It may seem a stretch, yet inexplicably, every time I’ve driven past this holiday park in Skegness, I’ve been reminded of my all-time favourite landscape photograph, Moonrise, Hernandez, by Ansel Adams.
Greeted by this inviting cloudscape recently, I felt compelled to stop and create. If you’re familiar with Ansel’s image, I hope this photograph brings a smile.
On one level, it’s a playful but nevertheless blatant imitation, a visual joke, but to me, it stands as a heartfelt homage, a testament to the profound impact Ansel Adams has had on my own photographic journey.
Acknowledging the image as a composite, with the moon borrowed from another photograph, might ostensibly dilute its authenticity further. My rationale stems from an unavoidable necessity: we’re looking north, so the moon never appears in this position.
Whether or not compositing is allowed in a ‘serious’ photograph is a great question, and one with several very different answers depending on who you ask and the degree to which editing has been employed.
Some photographers feel very strongly that no form of editing should ever be allowable, but I disagree. It depends on which genre you’re shooting in. If you’re shooting in the fine art genre, defined as shooting for your own artistic pleasure, then anything goes, and using a technique like compositing is not only acceptable but a celebration of artistic freedom, a nod to the imaginative play that’s foundational to our human creativity.
Mirroring Ansel Adams, who ingeniously modified his station wagon for elevated perspectives with a bespoke wooden roof platform, my own roadside view of these holiday homes in Skegness was obstructed by a continuous ‘hedge’ of long grass, so extra height was essential. A huge tripod and stepladder, or Ansel’s roof platform, would have been the traditional solutions, but in this modern era, technology grants us wings. The drone, an essential part of our kit, not only elevates our viewpoint above the distracting foreground but also optimises our angle of view to render middle-ground elements more evocatively and create a more three-dimensional composition.
In these challenging times, it’s never been more important to maintain a light-hearted approach; making photographs should be fun, and allowing our playful spirit a voice celebrates artistic liberty and our inherent instinct for imaginative exploration.
But don’t just take my word for it – Andy Warhol summed things up perfectly when he said, ‘Art is whatever you can get away with’.