On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:02.222)
Hello and welcome to Armour Landscape. Any questions? I'm here with Joe Cornish and Guy Tsel. Hello to both of you.

Joe Cornish (00:09.126)
Have a good one.

Guy Tal (00:09.5)
Tim Jo.

Tim Parkin (00:10.414)
If nobody's familiar with the format, if you've just come to join this one, we've got a series of questions that have been submitted by readers and people who follow either Guy or Joe, and we'll generally chat about them for the next hour. And I'll try and keep things quick. So a quick start, getting at the deep end. One of our readers, Adam Pierchalla, put a question in.

And I'll read it in full. There's a lot of encouragement to express yourself in landscape photography as it is this that makes a photograph meaningful. However, I like many others find joy in the beauty of details and nature and occasionally wider vistas too. But I don't have a particular message to put across. I just photograph what catches my eye and therefore those photographs are meaningful to me. Discuss or in summary, can an eyewitness photograph be artistic and expressive without intent?

Go on Guy, you first.

Joe Cornish (01:07.313)
you

Guy Tal (01:07.643)
Okay, well, you know, I've been championing creative and expressive photography for a long time, and I just want to make sure that I don't intend that to be a value judgment. It just happens to be the type of photography that I enjoy creating and that has made my own photographic journey most meaningful. I have done the documentary, beautiful scenery type of photography for a lot of years. I enjoyed it very much. I still have a...

huge library of coffee table books and then other photography books that I visit every now and then just to see beautiful places and then beautiful photography of these places. So I don't want to make it into a value judgment. Philosophically though, I'm just by nature someone who doesn't like to stay in one place for very long and so I'm constantly looking for the next thing.

And when photographing beautiful scenery has just become mechanical, it's just become an exercise in travel and operating a camera, that just ceased to be exciting for me. And that's when I decided to marry some of my other interests with photography, especially philosophy, my understanding of science, of art, of visual expression, which is to me an ongoing learning journey.

And so the more of that I incorporated photography, the more exciting and interesting photography became for me. Until at some point I realized that having practiced photography now for close to 40 years, it's been one of the most persistent threads in my life, exactly because I don't like just doing the same thing over and over again. I keep finding new ways, not just to pursue photography, but to express myself visually, to...

bring in concepts that I learned from art and philosophy and writings and other art forms. So to me, that's just what keeps my photography or photography interesting for me.

Tim Parkin (03:09.6)
Come on Joe. Yeah.

Joe Cornish (03:11.932)
Yeah, well, doesn't follow that. think what's interesting about Adam's question to me is that there isn't really, I mean, I relate to it very closely because I too like photographing details of nature and distant views and the pictures that link the two as well. And it's very, I think that I feel that when we go out with our cameras, in a way our primary kind of goal is to

is to find out what catches our eye. And I think that changes with time. And very often it will reflect our cultural experience and our personal views and a sense of impression, whether that's intentional or not. whether one can actually deliberately set out to make truly meaningful pictures or significant photographs every time you get out with your camera, I think is unlikely, to be honest.

And the times when it happens, it's usually almost by accident, as if you've been, you know, like received a kind of blessing from somewhere, which is completely unaccountable. It's a very unscientific word, by the way, but I can't think of a better one at the moment. it's, and when it happens and you recognize it, it feels wonderful and surprising. And sometimes you don't know until later that that's happened.

But I think the intent for me, photography is very much a practice. It's going out, continuing to try to keep an open mind onto all the possibilities of the wonders that surround us. And there might well be that intent to find metaphor or symbolism in what you see. And I think that can ebb and flow through the day, sometimes with your own energy.

There could be all sorts of reasons why that happens. Sometimes it'd be a trick of the light or a magic moment, or the light could be as flat as anything and you can still sometimes come up with a wonderful image because, you know, maybe the force is with you on that day. It's very, very difficult. I think almost probably impossible to describe the creative process in that sense. But I don't think Adam should worry about it. I the most important thing is that he should enjoy his photography.

Tim Parkin (05:37.87)
I think that's what what's missing for a lot of people is is the style and your expression can be can be one of various things. It could be. I like to think for a lot of people, it's an emergent property by working in a consistent way. And that doesn't matter if it's representational or stylistic. End quotes. So if you're a photographer who just happens to go around the same area continuously and you have an interest in a certain aspect of that area.

then something in that photography will be expressive because of that in an emergent way. Or alternatively, it may be a photographer that's more interested in an aspect of the human condition and travel a lot and intend to find things that reflect that. So it's very difficult to come up with a solid definition of what emerges there. I think it's probably easy to say what it doesn't emerge. I think

it probably doesn't emerge as consistently as if you are have a goal of trying to create great photographs. Because that that's intervening on a technical level into your flow of whatever you're thinking about and how you relate to the land or the your own condition. Does that make any sense?

Guy Tal (06:56.627)
it does, absolutely. If I may add just a couple more dimensions now, I realized that I've missed a couple of bits in my original answer. I mentioned that photography has been something that I've been pursuing for almost four decades now, making it a very persistent thread in my life. The one thread that is more persistent than that in my life is being a naturalist going on close to 60 years now. So for me, being out in nature, I still hike, I still backpack, I still climb, I still canyoneer.

I still spend a lot of time out in nature because for me, that's where my life is. That's what gives my life meaning. So guess maybe the linchpin here is how important it is to have direct representations of those experiences in photographs versus having photography just be part of the experience, maybe not a constant or consistent part of this experience. And so for me to be out and witness beautiful things

doesn't necessarily mean that I need to grab the camera and make my experience about making a photograph, which very often I will not. can tell you, know, given the recent transitions in my life, I have not felt very inspired to photograph. I have not made a photograph that I consider good, probably since April. And even then it felt a little bit forced, but I've spent a lot of time outdoors. So I guess for me, it's just decoupling these two experiences.

has been something that overall, think, has made things better for me. I've gotten to a point where I have enough photographs in my files that I don't feel compelled to just make beautiful pictures at any cost. And so I can afford to wait for those times when photography feels meaningful and when I can conjure something that is expressive, that is creative, that is of my own and not just a record of something beautiful that I've seen.

Tim Parkin (08:49.622)
It's a hard challenge for people who don't have much time to take photographs to try and create that consistent exposure in a way to photograph things. Yeah.

Guy Tal (09:00.587)
I agree with that and you know, mean there's no two ways about it. That's part of the reason why I have made this my life. That's part of the reason why I've become professional because it was just not something that I could do in a satisfactory way alongside other things. I mean other professional pursuits.

Tim Parkin (09:18.438)
There's a local climber. mean, I've got quite interested in climbing a mountain recently. his question is, how do I become a better climber? That's the one he gets asked all the time. And his answer was move somewhere with mountains. It's fairly obvious answer. But I think if you can do things like that, if you can change your environment or learn to love the environment you're in in a different way, that's sometimes harder to do depending on where you are. But right, have a second question from Chris Taylor. I'm not sure if...

either of you know Chris, but he's written a long question. And I'll pick out from the background, he's basically saying that the goal of the question is about play versus discipline. And he says he loves your book. And he also loves Rick Rubin's book on the creative act, a way of being. And the question he says is, given your deep exploration of the artistic process and the balance between technique and personal vision,

How do you reconcile the need for play and spontaneity with a disciplined approach that many photography experts advocate? Specifically, do you still employ improvisational methods to challenge your creative boundaries and set up some disciplines around your creativity?

Guy Tal (10:37.087)
Maybe Joe can take this one first.

Tim Parkin (10:38.742)
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the same thing. Yeah, is, is, do you apply discipline or do you're mostly spontaneous now?

Joe Cornish (10:47.592)
Well, that's a really interesting question, but I guess that the answer is it's a bit of both and which Chris probably won't be surprised to hear. mean, I think I sometimes, you know, the serious intent is obviously very important in photography, I always, all in discussions I have with workshops, on workshops, my heart tends to sink a little bit when I hear people say, when I went the...

the well -worn phrase when I get serious about photography, because it sort of makes me think, well, yes, but actually the most serious you could be about photography is to be truly playful with it. And I think they're trying to restore that, the state of creativity that children have, which is so natural and spontaneous, almost a, is we tend to get it drummed out of us through our teenage years and as young adults.

And in a way, think the journey of an artist, if that's the form of photography that you wish to participate in, is to try to return to some of that freedom, that childlike sense of wonder and play that comes from just having a completely open mind and enjoy being out there with your camera.

Tim Parkin (12:04.664)
That could relate to the previous question about style as well, is if you are open and playful, your own style or expression will come through more easily as well. Anyway, sorry, go on, on, Joe.

Joe Cornish (12:14.658)
Yeah, no, I think that's true. And just, you know, to go to the matter of discipline, I mean, I think that where this sometimes creates problems for certainly somebody like me is that because I have a dedication to the idea of, of the physicality of reality, I'm very interested in detail, I love the detail of natural things, you know, whether they're near or far. And so I've attended my, I suppose my technique is that a built up around

control of focus to an extent. And I realized that has its limitations. And sometimes it can inhibit spontaneity because you tend to have to be quite precise with the camera. Use a tripod and all of that. As it happens, I've recently taken delivery of a rather nice, fast zoom lens, not a wide ranging one, but with a focal length that I typically use.

as a 1 .8 maximum aperture on a Sony. And I've had a lot of fun just fiddling around with it wide open and finding that that softness of the background can express something else. So there's a new where a tool can become a toy in the best possible sense. Then that opened my mind a little bit as well to other possibilities. So I do think that

And yet at the same time, I'm fascinated by this physical presence of the natural world. So the two go together and I think it's just being aware of how the kind of technological straight jacket that photography could be sometimes is affecting you is important. So if you have that awareness, think it's possible to navigate around it. But I don't know if that answers Chris's question, but I honestly think it's a bit of a...

Guy Tal (14:04.723)
Again, actually I'm glad that you brought this point back because that's the one that I wanted to touch on, that it's a little bit of both and maybe I'll put a more of a formal twist on it if you actually read about creative processes. It's a combination of two types of thinking known as convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Whereas the creative light bulb goes out in your head often or most often as a result of something called divergent thinking.

Joe Cornish (14:04.804)
And now over to you, guy.

Guy Tal (14:31.953)
And divergent thinking means going into the world, into situations without a preconceived outcome. And I think that's where the playfulness comes in. You experience things, you let your brain run free, you remain open to the experiences, to inspirations, to new ideas, to combining concepts. That is, to me, the playful part of photography. Once you have a pretty well -defined idea of the photograph that you want to make,

then you make the switch to convergent thinking. And that's where the seriousness and the discipline comes in. Because at that point, you already have a concept. You have something that you want to express in your photograph. You might even have some idea of the composition. You get into that mechanical exercise of deciding on your choice of equipment, your choice of process, maybe even visualizing what your final print is going to look like.

So to me that combination, and I'm glad Joe that you brought that up again. I mean you open your answer with that and then you brought it up again at the end. That is a combination of both. And I think for most people that's something that is worth exercising consciously. Where you go out into the world, you go out to experience, you go out with an open mind, and you just be playful. But when the time comes to quote unquote get serious, then you switch to that convergent mode, to that discipline procedural.

to make sure that you have the best quality capture and that you're using the right angle and that you've got your composition properly and all the normal things that come from making a photograph. And I think perhaps a pitfall of creative photography or why most photographers don't invest a lot of creativity in their work is they stick in that convergent state of mind. They pre -plan what they're gonna do before they even leave the house.

So they start with the discipline and they remain disciplined the whole way through. It's just today I'm going to go to this location at this time and the sun will rise at exactly this point and I'm going to need to be standing here with this kind of lens on and then I will get this composition that I've already seen somewhere else. And if you never break out of that convergent thinking mode, you have no hope of being creative. You're only repeating what you already know, what you've already seen other people do.

Guy Tal (16:44.235)
So that playfulness, the diversion part, that's something that I think is worth investing in consciously. And I think it's very scary to a lot of people to just go out with no preconceived outcome, with no guaranteed return. But really, that's a skill that needs to be exercised and developed. And maybe the first time you won't be successful, and the second and third and tenth time you won't be successful.

But you are exercising that brain circuitry of divergent thinking, of trying to come up with ideas, of working things as you encounter them and not as you preconceive them before leaving the house. And so you will get better at it eventually.

Tim Parkin (17:21.868)
I like the idea of the discipline being, you can be disciplined going out, but it's not a discipline and this is what I'm going to do. It's a discipline in saying, this is how I'm going to set up the conditioners to play in. So I'm going to go out to a certain area and maybe at a certain time, not to create a photograph, but because things might happen at that point in time.

Guy Tal (17:42.653)
Yeah, and at the same time, part of the discipline of the, guess, the combination of discipline and the play maybe comes into play in terms of mindfulness, of just making sure that you are paying attention to what's around you, that you are immersed in your experience, that you're not being distracted so you actually notice what there is to work with. I guess that would be a form of discipline too, but that one can be combined with the playfulness.

Joe Cornish (18:07.384)
Exactly. one thing I feel that has changed for me over the years is I've become much less concerned about what anyone else thinks, which helps. I mean, maybe that's partly because there's been less work for clients and more and more work that is purely for my own pleasure. And that's a great gift to be able to say that and to do that in life to have.

Guy Tal (18:15.752)
Absolutely.

Tim Parkin (18:17.944)
That's a challenge sometimes.

Joe Cornish (18:35.772)
to have your expressive work just be for your own benefit. But I'd like to think that's partly as a result of that, my work has continued to change and evolve and I hope it's improved, but maybe that's a value judgment and I don't even really worry about that. It's more that does it give me pleasure and joy in the making? it probably does more now than it ever has, after like guy 40 years of doing it.

more than 40 years actually, so almost embarrassed to admit. But yes, it's a real, when you're young, I think there is often a lot of pressure to conform and you feel there's a certain way of doing things. And, know, as Guy will, I'm sure be able to confirm, know, especially many people in photography have an engineering of scientific or very rational analytical backgrounds and

for people from those backgrounds, it's tough to learn that, taking that step into the kind of relatively unknown, almost return to childhood or return to a very open minded state. Because after all, nothing that we do is going to lead to anybody dying or breaking or causing a disaster. That's, if we quote unquote fail in our photography, doesn't really matter. And maybe that's a concern because

People love to have a purpose and an intent. But I think learning to navigate that is important. Or at least has been for me, realizing that my best work is often done when it's just in that spirit of having a what if mindset. What if I tried that?

Tim Parkin (20:20.57)
One of the interesting things I had in my photography is when I started large format photography, it took me a while to get over the start of how everything worked, exposure and tilt focus. But the nice thing happened is when I got familiar with that, there was no upgrade, was nothing beyond that to learn. in many ways, it got rid of that as a barrier to creativity. And also taking less photographs was an interesting one as well, because you don't commit as often.

I do the same now with my digital camera. I have one zoom lens and a camera, and that's it. I'm very familiar with it. I know Joe changes cameras fairly often, but you've got a very regular practice to become familiar with them.

Joe Cornish (21:05.628)
Yeah, I'm one of those sort of crazy people who uses two different formats, which I totally disapprove of, the way, medium format, digital and 35 millimeter. it's honestly, in a way, I wish I wasn't that way. But I don't see it as terribly different to being able to speak two languages, just as with, you know, digital editing, I use a Photoshop Lightroom, Capture One, whatever.

Guy Tal (21:11.665)
you

Joe Cornish (21:34.598)
whatever's to hand really, and I enjoy all of them. And so for me, I don't feel it inhibits me too much. I tend to use the same focal lengths or equivalent focal lengths, let's say, and just the smaller format, it confers a certain freedom of approach, but I love the performance of using a big camera and the control of focus and perspective and there's something quite beautiful about the precision.

and the kind of state of mind, Tim, as you say.

Tim Parkin (22:04.558)
You're incredibly familiar with that camera now. I've seen you set up taking pictures when the light's been moving fast and you know exactly what's going on. And I think that comes from using the camera regularly when you're at home as well.

Joe Cornish (22:16.932)
Yeah, it does. It helps. I mean, clearly, think anybody honestly uses a big camera and can handle it well and only ever uses it occasionally as a genius because it needs a lot of practice in order to be able to have a reasonable degree of control of it. And as you implied in your answer, if you can't use it relatively freely and easily, then it just gets in the way.

Tim Parkin (22:45.531)
Guy, you a... Do you change camera systems very often or do you try and keep with the same system now it does what you need it to do?

Guy Tal (22:50.943)
No, actually, I only change cameras when cameras break. I will hold onto a camera for 10, 15 years if I can. I am very active. work outdoors, so eventually they do break. But yeah, if I have a 10 -year -old camera, that still functions the way that I need it to. And I can tell you every camera that I've owned in the last 15 years, I can't even tell you what features are in it. I know the shutter, the aperture, the things that I can manage with my two fingers, and that's really all.

I'm used. So yeah, for me, unless there's a reason to change camera, reason being that the camera that I use doesn't meet certain needs or doesn't work, I will not buy a new camera. I hope my cameras will never die.

Tim Parkin (23:36.694)
Yeah, we have a question from Daniel Eek. This is going to be interesting one is, is I'll say Kai Thompson's question at the same. So Daniel Eek's question was, what do you think makes a good picture? And Kai Thompson's is what challenges you when you're photographing? Perhaps there's a connection there.

Guy Tal (23:59.127)
Sure, mind if I start this one, Joe? Okay, so for me, a good picture is a picture that I feel good about making before anything else. And it can mean a lot of different things. So in other words, it's not necessarily about any observable or measurable qualities of the photograph, not the capture file, not the format or anything like that. There is a famous philosopher who studied art. His name is Arthur Danto.

Joe Cornish (24:01.638)
Go for it, guy.

Guy Tal (24:27.739)
And he tried to define what makes art because art is such a nebulous concept or so many different definitions. And finally he said, art cannot be determined by the contents of the work of art. He said art really only is one thing and that is embodied meaning. And so if a photograph to me is meaningful for whatever reason, it's a good photograph. If it was worth my while having made that photograph, even if...

something is technically gone wrong, but I really got something out of the process of making it, that would still be a good photograph for me to make. Obviously, we all want to have technically good photographs, photographs that are usable for other purposes, and that's a kind of goodness, but that is not the measure of goodness, at least for me. And again, I'm approaching this from the perspective of an artist, not as a commercial photographer.

not as someone who likes to socialize around photography. For me, a photograph is like any other discretionary activity that I partake in, which is it has to be meaningful to me. It has to be a good use of my time. has to feel like it was a good use of my time. So I guess that might be kind of a nebulous measure, but it's hard for me to think of any other common denominator.

Tim Parkin (25:39.648)
Yeah, can I follow up for our followers up with an interesting when do you know a picture is good? Good. Is that can it happen when you're taking a picture or does it happen when you get home and see it? Does it happen maybe when you rediscover it five years later? And conversely, can a picture become not good over time as well?

Guy Tal (25:55.441)
it.

Joe Cornish (25:59.16)
All of the above.

Guy Tal (25:59.439)
It can be, yeah, it can be any one of these is what I was gonna say. Usually for me, it's when I feel there is a picture there before I even start the process, and so I already am excited about making it, and to me that box is checked. But yeah, sometimes I will go into my archives and I'll find something that, I didn't pay attention to this before, and maybe now I've learned some different techniques, or maybe something kind of piques my curiosity, and I might spend minutes or longer just.

Tim Parkin (26:00.759)
Yeah

Guy Tal (26:26.707)
working that and coming up with something that I like that I didn't even realize at the time. So yeah, it could happen anytime.

Tim Parkin (26:34.126)
to.

Joe Cornish (26:35.718)
Yeah, well, I mean, similar really, I guess. I hate not to be original, but I think that, I think of recognizing it at the time, there's often some spark, realization that what you're looking at or the way that you've seen it, there's something remarkable there. However, sometimes the translation as a photograph is unpredictable. And so there's always that element of uncertainty. And of course that was particularly true with film when you couldn't see what was gonna happen.

during that translation. And even now, you know, with being able to see a playback, it's still not the same as the final image. I guess there's something quite... Well, the uncertainty, I think, is a big important part of the kind of creative process, really. And I'm kind of fascinated by the thought that you can go back to your archive having left a picture

maybe just not really given it any time after you've taken it and discover you actually had a brilliant idea and you should have, there's no should really, but it has got a life, it has got something about it. I mean, and on that note, I think that the way I would answer the question perhaps as simply as possible is a good photograph is one that has a life of its own.

And that's also a nebulous answer, but it's one where I think there's a common quality in really good art is that it usually will outlive the maker and that it maybe has a kind of element of universality so that others will find something in common. And of course, it's hard to talk.

about photography in those terms, but I think if we look at literature and music going back through centuries, we can see that certain images and certain pieces of writing, think of Shakespeare, for example, keep being rediscovered by current and future generations. And I think that is indicative that something has happened in the creation of that work, which has touched a kind of universal

Joe Cornish (28:58.374)
button, whatever that may be. I mean, and I don't think any of us can control that. It's just one of those things. I think you just do your very, very best as an expressive, as an artist, as a creative person to reach deep into your, you know, inner world as you're doing what you do. And with luck, that may then turn into something more lasting. a life of its own, I think that's part of

Guy Tal (29:03.377)
and

Tim Parkin (29:26.776)
Okay.

Joe Cornish (29:26.778)
What we have to do is to find that life when we go out into the world and look around us. And also, given that we live in a digital age, just as our predecessors had to do that in the darkroom, so we have to do that in editing to an extent as well.

Guy Tal (29:44.597)
John, I correcting that you have some background in philosophy? think I've read that somewhere.

Joe Cornish (29:49.296)
Well, I'd like to think so, Guy. Not to the same level as you, I'm afraid. But I've thought about it constantly. Not an academic one, but an interest in, I guess, yeah, I've many friends who and members of my family have particularly preoccupied with the meaning of life, let's say, and the significance of, you know, of this journey that we're all on. so

Yeah, I guess it's inevitable. mean, I find it, in a way, it's what makes life kind of fascinating to me is how we discover our purpose or our place here.

Guy Tal (30:24.393)
Did it?

Guy Tal (30:33.881)
It just struck me, yeah, it struck me that your answer is very close to one that David Hume came up with back in the 1700s. He wrote an essay called On the Standard of Taste where he tries to define what makes a good work of art and similar to you, he essentially says eventually only history can judge what makes good art, things that survive in time and things that are still appealing and considered important beyond the life of the creator.

But then he goes on to say, well, we don't really know obviously in advance which ones will be proven by history. And so he tries to define who we can rely on today to tell us what works of art will most likely be considered as historically important in the future. And that is the standard of taste that he's trying to define.

Tim Parkin (31:22.19)
Out of interest from both of you, how do you feel when you have an image that perhaps doesn't work particularly well for you, but people latch onto as saying this is amazing and all of a sudden you've got this dichotomy. It's almost like the problems you get when critics make their own selection of the artist's best work.

Guy Tal (31:31.401)
Mm.

Guy Tal (31:42.919)
Yeah, I have several examples of that. In fact, maybe some of my most popular images fall into that category. Again, going back to some philosophical writing, there's a concept in postmodern philosophy known as the death of the author that pretty much says that once you create a work of art, once you are an author of a work of art, as soon as that work of art goes out in the public, the author dies and then it becomes up to...

the readers, the spectators, the viewers to determine what its value is subjectively for themselves. And I'm okay with that.

Tim Parkin (32:18.882)
So.

Joe Cornish (32:19.706)
Yeah, I agree. And I think you have to you have to live with it, don't you really? mean, I think personally, because I don't really social media, I perhaps don't have quite the same level of consciousness about it as as you're implying that to him. And it's not just social media. I mean, I've spoken to David Ward frequently about he I know he's been frustrated to discover that whenever he puts what he regards as a relatively run of the mill

picture up on Facebook invariably attracts huge amount of admiration, whereas his more eclectic and personal work maybe doesn't. And in a way you can you can say that, you know, use that as evidence that you're ahead of the game in some way.

Tim Parkin (33:04.942)
I had a friend of mine who's a painter and a 10 -8 photographer. He was at art college and one of the lecturers said to him, if your pictures become popular, you're definitely doing something wrong.

Guy Tal (33:22.724)
Yeah, think Matisse said that he became embarrassed when his work became popular and he was afraid he will become doomed to a life of producing nothing but masterpieces.

Tim Parkin (33:32.866)
Yeah, we've got a friend here called Paul Kenny who's famous for annoying art galleries by stopping his series that works so well and sells so well. Paul Kenny.

Joe Cornish (33:45.616)
But there's also so many examples of the other. think Van Gogh, you you think of Van Gogh and he's like the epitome, in a way he epitomises our concept of the tortured artist and everything. There's nothing he wanted to do more than sell his work. It was the most frustrating thing for him. And he was very close to it, by the way, you know, when he died, the irony is that his, I think his brother Theo had just secured a

Tim Parkin (34:02.872)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (34:15.176)
a show for him. you know, from, you know, his work went on to become, of course, celebratedly popular. And it still is. you know, fascinating thing about Bankov, he is one of those artists, I think, whose work has definitely stood the test of time. We recognise that it both achieves a kind of a personal and a universal quality in his use of

paint, the sheer exuberance of the work on so many levels, it really does have a life of its own. And that's a good example, but it certainly wasn't for want of being successful. He'd love to have been successful and popular. And there's also many examples of painters whose work was very successful and popular during their lifetimes. I mean, you think of Rembrandt, Rubens, for example, Velázquez, mean, numerous, you know, iconic artists.

who through the centuries, their work has been very, very well received. mean, thinking in American terms, the great painters of the American 19th century, Albert von Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, Frederick Edwin Church, for example, these were very successful painters. were great landscape painters. Their work has fallen out of fashion at various times, but it's probably recovering its fashionable.

Guy Tal (35:24.403)
some groups.

Joe Cornish (35:38.79)
popularity these days. So, you who knows what the long term future will hold for that work. But I think the whole thing is just really, really fascinating. And I think that the idea that we shouldn't be popular is perhaps, you know, maybe a little bit wide at the mark. But I think it's also very important to have that realization that popularity is not necessarily a good judge of good art.

Tim Parkin (36:06.19)
we've got a question from John Harper, but it's talking about photographer style and the fact David Ward had written a recent article in that outdoor photography on it. But I think we've covered a lot about style there. I'm going to go to Ian Mead's photographs. It says back in 2018, in an online scape essay, Thoughts on Beauty, you wrote, can a computer program analyze a picture and conclude whether a human mind will find it beautiful? And the conclusion at the time was no, but given

given the rapid improvement in AI and it becoming possibly more perceptive than humans at some point in time in many ways, maybe not always. Do you think AI will be able to see beauty at some point or assess whether humans will find something beautiful?

Tim Parkin (36:56.622)
Joe, go on. It's for Guy because you kind of wrote the essay, but I think, what do you think, Joe?

Joe Cornish (36:58.748)
shi

Guy Tal (37:02.344)
Okay, I'll touch him.

Joe Cornish (37:03.004)
Well, I found that I've read that essay of Geiser and it's brilliant. And I seem to remember that you came to a conclusion, actually, maybe it wasn't you, but another academic had said that perhaps at some point in the future that we'll reach a point where artificial intelligence could reach 10 to 20 percent of a realization of beauty. I mean, I don't know enough about the technology, but my understanding of it as we

we are here at the moment is that AI is not human. And for that reason alone, I really don't see why it would be able to get to the point where it could recognize beauty. And beauty is, in a way, a, well, what is it? We don't know. It's a mystery. And maybe it's partly culturally received. It's historical, it's personal. It's so incredibly complicated.

that even a very powerful machinery still can't become a human being, I don't think. Well, not at least, I hope it can't, otherwise we're going to be redundant. So my own feeling, my suspicion, at least during our lifetimes is we won't see it being able to do that.

Guy Tal (38:20.947)
Okay, so let me just put a little twist on that is first of all, you're very correct that we don't have a hard and fast definition of beauty other than an effect, a cognitive effect. What creates that cognitive effect is very much subjective, very much driven by culture, very much driven by things that cannot be objectively measured. So it's not like AI can run some metrics and decide this is more beautiful than the other. But what AI can do is it can analyze enormous amounts of data.

to derive popular taste. So AI can decide that picture A is gonna be more popular than picture B very, very easily. And that's obviously used to some nefarious intent right now by making fake videos and fake images that are designed to appeal to popular taste because AI can derive that popular taste based on analyzing responses to various things. So is that beauty? It's kind of hard to say.

But yeah, AI absolutely would be able to do it and AI will, at least in theory, be able to do it potentially better than humans. So the question is not so much, you know, aesthetic, mass aesthetic appeal as a measure for beauty. The measure is a more complex, I think, understanding of beauty. What makes things beautiful? You know, if you talk to a mathematician, they will point to, I don't know, Euler's identity and say, this is a beautiful equation, right? What does that mean?

It doesn't have colors, doesn't have tones, it doesn't depict anything appealing or useful. But it is beautiful in the way that it represents, in the way that it says something that is interesting, that reveals something of the deepest order of the universe. So there are different ways to think about what beauty is. And I think there are certain realms of beauty that AI will not be able to reach for the simple reason that AI cannot be creative.

So these are things that one human being just based on creative imagination can produce something or discover something that is completely unknown, not just based on analysis of huge amounts of data, but something that is just completely, you know, or not completely, but largely out of the blue, some combination of things that have never been done before. And you can see that a lot in the sciences. You can see that a lot in mathematics. There's all kinds of problems that go back hundreds and thousands of years that have not been solved yet.

Guy Tal (40:44.199)
So a mathematician will come up with that and the whole mathematical world is gonna applaud. This is such a beautiful proof, right? So maybe, I mean, if we just stick to aesthetic appeal, then yeah, I think AI is gonna have the upper hand if it doesn't already. But if we think of beauty as something deeper than that, as something that reveals something to us through aesthetics of any kind, then I think humans still have a good fighting chance.

Tim Parkin (41:08.736)
Yeah, it's one of these things I think they'll be able to make. Well, they can currently make beautiful pictures, very popular pictures. But what they can't do is generate pictures consistently with meaning or, or style. And I think I wonder whether this introduction of AI, creating art of some sort will make the connection that artists have for the landscape and their processes of work more important to people.

than just the picture.

Guy Tal (41:40.707)
Tim, sorry, go ahead. sorry. I just wanted to read a passage from a philosopher named Roger Scruton. You guys might be familiar with him. I think he's not as well known as America as he is in Britain. He wrote a book about beauty. This is from the opening of the book, which I think is a great way to put it. He writes, our need for beauty is not something that we could lack and still be fulfilled as people.

Tim Parkin (41:42.678)
Yeah, so, go on, go.

Guy Tal (42:06.333)
It is a need arising from our metaphysical condition as free individuals seeking our place in a shared and public world. We can wander through this world alienated, resentful, full of suspicion and distrust, or we can find our home here, coming to rest in harmony with others and with ourselves. The experience of beauty guides us along this second path. It tells us that we are at home in the world, that the world is already ordered and our perception is a place fit for lives of being like us.

And I think that this characterization of beauty is something that enriches life. That's something that AI can at best simulate based on what it understands meaning of life to be based on analyzing information. But it's not something that obviously that it can feel and generate new meanings, which is, I think, at least for now, the realm of the human mind.

Tim Parkin (42:57.806)
I can't see any day where an AI could go in the field like David Ward and find a piece of inconsequential land and create a work of art from it.

Guy Tal (43:11.053)
I think that's a dangerous statement because honestly we don't know what AI will be able to do.

Tim Parkin (43:15.68)
Yeah, yeah. There's there's because I suppose I'm saying because the AI works on analyzing what's out there. There is very few things out there to learn from they would have to learn from probably David or a handful of other people who can do the same thing. So that's when it gets interesting.

Guy Tal (43:32.184)
Yeah, yeah, it's more nuanced than that is the way that AI represents that information and derives possibilities, know, possible uses for it, which can exceed the capacities of the human brain, at least theory.

Tim Parkin (43:50.102)
Interesting question from Ian Meads as well. Can you describe how you perceive the difference between picturesque? He says picturesque, beautiful and sublime. Or maybe picturesque, classical and sublime. I'm not sure how you want to split the three. But Joe.

Guy Tal (44:08.051)
Mm.

Joe Cornish (44:09.03)
Gosh, yeah, I'm looking forward to listening to Guy's response to this actually. That's quite a fascinating question also. Picturesque. I suppose picturesque sounds superficial. I don't think it has to be by any means, that suggests something which is already kind of culturally received, where you can predict.

the kind of patterns and the layout of an image. I think the classical, was that the second one? Beautiful, beautiful as we've already discovered is a much more kind of nuanced and difficult kind of concept, but such an important one for, you know, being something about, actually, sorry, just briefly to go back to the kind of Roger Scruton introduction that.

Tim Parkin (44:45.654)
Yeah, well, beautiful or I'd say classical.

Mmm.

Joe Cornish (45:04.902)
that Guy introduced us to, the idea of it somehow being life -affirming, I think, quite in itself a beautiful idea. And so that is a kind of key point for me in that regard. But I do think that beauty can be very unpredictable. Sublime is, gosh, that's a very contested word. I think we've all heard the misuse of it. So you look sublime, darling.

Tim Parkin (45:29.827)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (45:34.029)
That would be quite terrifying wouldn't it?

Joe Cornish (45:34.78)
I have tried to little bit of research on it recently and I've forgotten a lot of it already but it has multiple meanings going back much further, much beyond the chapter 8, 17 which everybody is somewhat familiar with. Who is that guy you will know?

the writer who wrote on the sublime in the 17th maybe.

Guy Tal (46:08.43)
Yeah, there were a few of them. Burke. Burke.

Tim Parkin (46:11.118)
Thomas.

Joe Cornish (46:11.724)
country Thomas Burke. And in many ways, I think what's happened is that it's supposed to embrace an idea of awful and terrifying. it isn't necessary, and many philosophers have disconnected it from beautiful. Whereas today, I think that the idea of it being awesome

Tim Parkin (46:13.944)
Yeah.

Guy Tal (46:16.146)
Edmundsburg.

Tim Parkin (46:17.357)
headman there.

Guy Tal (46:25.778)
Absolutely.

Joe Cornish (46:39.204)
not a word I'm particularly fond of, you know, think we know what it's intended to mean. And beautiful have kind of synthesized a little bit. So when we think of something as sublime, we might also use the more popular term epic, which is, is also somewhat misused, think. But but the implication, at least, I suppose would be, for me, that something that is sublime in photography is something that's inherently

dangerous and beautiful, if I put it simply. And I think probably all three of us have been in situations where we could probably think we've encountered something relatively sublime, be it a storm or a collapsing glacier face or an avalanche or anything like that, where our lives have been threatened by juxtaposition with a remarkable event. And yet it's kind of...

it's given us that frisson of life becomes more meaningful as you feel it's in danger. And that's where I would put sublime, think.

Guy Tal (47:53.339)
Tim, might remember, I actually wrote an article on the sublime, on landscape. It's a concept that several philosophers have written about. I'll get to a couple of my favorite ones in a second. It goes back to, I think, a Roman soldier named Longinus who wrote about it first. But that article by Burke that Joe mentioned is considered the Seminole and then Immanuel Kant built on that and then Schopenhauer built on that further.

Tim Parkin (47:55.597)
Yeah.

Guy Tal (48:16.971)
And Joe is absolutely correct in that the distinction that they make between beautiful and sublime is that sublime has an element of fear. I think Burke outright says sublime is rooted in terror. It has to be something that would have, you know, existential risk. It possibly kill you and at the same time be so incredibly beautiful that you stand there in awe. So that's the difference or at least the philosophical difference between the two. And you heard me clicking away here.

One of my favorite saying specifically about that is from Immanuel Kant, he wrote, whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure, but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt. So it's pretty much facing something that is so overwhelming that you know you're gonna fail trying to completely grasp it or trying to completely realize the implications of it.

you have to try to go as far as you can and just trying to assimilate that emotional effect. So yeah, beautiful is just something that's appealing, something that gives aesthetic pleasure, but sublime needs that additional element where it's just overwhelmed. It just terrifies you to even think of the full implications of it.

Tim Parkin (49:35.135)
almost like there's a religious implication to sublime of seeing, of seeing something and I don't mean necessarily God religion, but maybe the or in the world, or in the universe and that you see something and maybe it transports you into that space where you're considering things so could, you could see it in a cloud, you could see it in a group of flowers on the ground, perhaps. So I think that's how it's changed over time into, into possibly that more secular feeling of sublime.

Guy Tal (49:38.316)
I think in a lot of contexts.

Guy Tal (50:03.983)
Yeah, and actually I think the sublime can be detached from aesthetics completely. If you look for example at some of the first people that contemplated the implications of quantum theory, right? It was terrifying to realize what it actually says about the nature of reality. So that would be another form of sublime sublimity.

Tim Parkin (50:14.838)
Hmm. Yeah.

Joe Cornish (50:19.888)
Yes.

Tim Parkin (50:22.584)
Would that be like the fear of switching on the Large Hadron Collider just in case it collapsed the universe?

Guy Tal (50:26.447)
Yeah, they thought would create a black hole and would suck in the universe.

Joe Cornish (50:27.906)
No!

Tim Parkin (50:30.424)
think it's hilarious that people actually sat around the table and considered that should we switch it on or not.

Guy Tal (50:33.672)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (50:35.004)
Well, also, I mean, isn't that somewhat equivalent to what happened before the Manhattan Project? It was this very, very slight possibility that they might bring around the end of the world just testing it.

Tim Parkin (50:40.519)
Oppenheimer analysis.

Guy Tal (50:41.683)
Yeah, the atomic bomb.

Tim Parkin (50:52.582)
We've got a last question from Douglas Butler. And his question, actually we've got two. have another. Douglas Butler asks, is revisiting landscapes important? Can you make consequential work when you first see a landscape and never see it again?

Joe Cornish (51:11.028)
I could jump in straight away. think that again, both are true. know from my own experience that sometimes that amazing first encounter, especially if you happen to be in a good place, I mean that internally as well as externally, probably more internally, and maybe the light and the force are with you, then you can certainly make good work the first time. But I also think it's something

Tim Parkin (51:14.892)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (51:38.778)
very, very important about the creative process to be able to return over and over and over again to places that you love that maybe that are easily accessible, you know, be it in in guys backyard, which is pretty spectacular, or in mine, which is less so, but still to me very inspiring. And, and find and find wonder there. And so yeah, both things matter, for sure. And both things can work, I think. And there's no

No hard and fast formula.

Guy Tal (52:10.481)
I agree with that, but I'd like to distinguish between objectively good and subjectively good. So for example, know, objectively good, he would look at a photograph of, know, Joe mentioned my neighborhood here of Mesa Arch, it's a spectacular landscape, right? Any photograph of it in the right light, it's just gonna be quote unquote a good photograph. But I think for me, there's a further subjective dimension for that, that essentially translates into

breadth versus depth. So I know that when I first encountered this landscape that I'm in right now, it was extremely exciting. And some of the photographs that I've made then were some of my most meaningful and some of my most treasures. And yeah, in that sense, absolutely, you can do something the first time. I would not make the same photographs again today because today when I go out to the same places, these are no longer satisfying photographs for me.

today, I go in much deeper today, I look at much more in detail, I understand the environment better, I understand the seasons, the cycles of the light, the flora, the fauna, the things that I'm looking at, I understand the geology, understand a lot of things about it, that to me feed into a very different kind of photographs. So yeah, I could make the same kind of photographs that I made on my initial attempts here, and they would probably still be, you know, good in the sense of being aesthetically pleasing. But

subjectively to me, they would not be as good because they are not as original, they are not as expressive, they do not reflect everything that I've learned and come to feel about this place in the last decades that I've lived here. So yeah, like Joe said, both are true, but subjectively, which is most important to me, it's not the same photograph is always good and the same photograph is always bad. As you evolve a relationship with the places and the subject that you work with,

your definition of what makes a good or satisfying photograph, I think, evolves and deepens.

Tim Parkin (54:07.027)
If there anything to be said for the fact that the first reaction to a place, I mean, particularly, let's say, I know, like a place like Iceland, where many people go, that first reaction is common, because many people can have that first reaction. But the deeper reaction to a place is the one that's obviously less common and more unique to yourself.

Joe Cornish (54:27.706)
I think that's true. And it comes back to the breadth versus depth kind of argument that Guy's making, which I think is absolutely right. also because there is another view in creativity that familiarity becomes, you some people will just get jaded around it and lose a sort of interest and excitement. Whereas I think if you can preserve that sense of wonder,

and surprise when you go out to familiar places, then your pictures do get better and they do become more meaningful. But some people will never do that because they will simply not get past that point of it being, well, I've seen it all before, move on. So that's a state of mind, essentially. I'm a great believer in, you know, if you think of the X and the Y axis of breadth and depth, that

that when you go to new landscapes, you have the novelty, have the, you know, expands your view of what the world might look like in certain places and so on. But it's your homeland, your backyard that gives you the Y axis, the depth axis. And that the two are complimentary, because you learn about the world through perhaps sometimes travel, seeing, having new experiences. But when you

revisit your own landscape and bring new eyes to it, which I think, I forget which philosopher said that, you it's not about new landscapes, it's about new eyes, then you ultimately make more satisfying pictures, I think.

Guy Tal (56:10.727)
Actually, as I was clicking away here, I want to read you a sentence from my new book that actually talks about that. says, in those cases where beauty and meaning may be at odds, my advice to use this, choose meaning. And Joe brought up the word meaning that immediately clicked in my head. I can make beautiful photographs because I'm in a beautiful landscape and I've been a photographer long enough that I know the mechanics of producing visually appealing photographs, but it's not necessarily going to be meaningful.

And if I get to a point where I can make a very meaningful photograph or a very beautiful photograph, I'd rather make the meaningful photograph.

Joe Cornish (56:47.46)
And the two may not necessarily be different.

Guy Tal (56:50.404)
No, and actually in fact the more meaningful photograph might not even be understandable to anyone other than me, but that would still be my priority.

Tim Parkin (57:00.682)
I've got a last question from Igor Donkov and talking about the difference between black and white and colour. And his question is, is black and white capable of being more expressive than colour? And he says, is that why virtually all museum prints are in black and white? I think there's a different answer to that. But I'll give it to you, Guy, first about the difference because I know you've worked in both mediums.

Guy Tal (57:24.413)
I do, yes. And I wouldn't unequivocally say that one is more expressive than the other. It's really in how you put them to use. But I will give you a fairly, I guess, plain scientific explanation. The way that our brain makes meaning from visual information, color is very, very high in that hierarchy of how we associate certain feelings, perceptions with a gestalt, with a visual arrangement of things. You take away color.

you take away the king and then the things that are below the king become more important. Things like tonality, things like shapes, things like patterns, textures. And so it's really, if you're talking about in terms of expression is where is the story? Where is the thing that you want to express? Is it expressed better in color? Is it expressed better in tone? Is it expressed better in juxtapositions, in sharp contrast, in textures, in lines?

So whatever expresses whatever it is that you want to express should determine whether you are better off going with color black and white, but it's not that one is necessarily always better than the other.

Tim Parkin (58:31.256)
Ciao, ciao, yeah.

Joe Cornish (58:32.378)
Great answer. Yeah, we'll just very briefly, I think that black and white always to me feels more detached from reality and that's its kind of superpower and you don't expect it to be reality. So I mean, I know a lot of people naturally react to black and white thinking it's more artistic for that reason. So that's rather superficial answer. Personally, I love, I tend to prefer to work in color because

I suppose I see in color and I feel that color represents a bigger challenge, a more exciting challenge in a way. I think making an artistic black and white photograph, it's not that it's easy, but it feels a little bit more straightforward. Whereas color is this huge kind of range of possibilities and relationships that remain, you know, I feel like I'm still on the bottom rung of the ladder learning that.

And that makes it particularly a wonderful challenge in my eyes. So, but that's different to the question that we're confronted with here. So I just think that they are different and the great thing is we're lucky to have both.

Tim Parkin (59:47.064)
Out of interest, do either of you go out with the intent of taking black and white pictures or is it mostly a post hoc conversion, a recognition that something might work? Guy.

Guy Tal (01:00:01.375)
I'd like to say post hoc because it sounds like the correct and purest response. In truth, it's not always the case. For example, out here where I live, the summer, we get these gorgeous big monsoon thunderstorms. And I photographed them in color. They're extremely impressive. But I know historically the images of these storms and these clouds and these impressive skies.

that I've made have always been more satisfying and expressive to me when I ended up with black and white. And so I think my brain is on some level primed when those conditions happened to be more attentive to possibilities of black and white. So much as I'd like to say, you know, I have a complete blank slate and I go out and just let the experience speak to me. I think we're all have some of these predispositions, whether we're aware of them or not, for certain conditions in certain places.

Tim Parkin (01:00:57.036)
And deep, deep recognize things in black and white on location, Joe, or is it mostly.

Joe Cornish (01:01:04.028)
Yeah, I think it's interesting because I listened to Guy, I'm thinking of I'm just thinking of Ansel Adams and you know, the fact that Ansel could always make pictures in almost any any light because black and white was so you know, however harsh, you know, he was able to sort of overexpose and then pull the development time and control the contrast so beautifully that way and so on. Whereas in my own case, the only time I'm likely to be

pre visualizing in black and white is almost the opposite is in probably in flat light and in a green woodland in the UK, where often there is beauty that's revealed without the excess of green, which tends to be rather overwhelming in color. But other than that, I would also agree that on the whole it's after the event that I would.

tend to think a picture has perhaps more potential in black and white. No, and sometimes it's a negative reason. So there might be a color quality in the landscape that's too dominant and there's really no other way of solving it except to go to monochrome. whereas the picture works in most other respects, does that make sense?

Tim Parkin (01:02:21.472)
It does. And that's it for the questions and we're down to an hour. So I'd like to say thank you, Guy, for being our special guest. It's been a pleasure. It'd be great to have you back again sometime. And thanks again, Joe. That's another good, any questions? So.

Guy Tal (01:02:32.265)
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Guy Tal (01:02:40.669)
Thank you guys, great honor and I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

Joe Cornish (01:02:40.866)
Thank you, Guy.

Tim Parkin (01:02:44.354)
I should also point out that Guy has a book coming out soon, so check his website. It will be good. I've not seen it, but I know. So thank you.

Guy Tal (01:02:52.287)
Thank

Thank you.