Maybe I am a landscape photographer

Recently photographer Eli Dijkers contacted me with some questions about the Pentax 645D I own. Naturally I invited him to dinner to talk photography and art. Eli Dijkers graduated from the Fotoacademie in 2012, he is now making some beautiful work and exhibiting too. During our conversation he mentioned that my landscape photographs looked a lot more authentic than my later work, I shouldn’t let the Fotoacademie force me too much into doing it their way he said. Teachers at the Fotoacademie itself also encourage us aspiring artists to find our own voice by staying true and close to ourselves and so on and so on by the way. Eli only started to develop his voice after graduation, which I am trying to avoid but that is not as easy as one would like.
A few days later I had a discussion at the Fotoacademie with Liselotte Schuppers about my work. Mainly evaluating the fact that I have not succeeded in creating anything “fashion” the past few months despite her help and my determination. People (including me) keep wondering why I am focusing so much on things I am not good at. Well, that’s because I assumed that I would learn heaps from it. I want to find out what it is that enables other artists to create stunning portraits and moody fashion images. On top of that I think people will ultimately always want to see themselves in art and putting people in the image is the most literal translation of that notion. But maybe literal is not the right approach for me. And maybe I can still learn something from this. Maybe I can discover which part of the current failure is “me” shining through the work.
Liselotte strongly suggested (again, and I of course agreed, again) that I concentrate on what is currently present in my work and build on that, try to improve the things I am already doing well. Which might be creating fairly distant, maybe even frigid, mathematically composed images. I must confess, the examination of this period at the Fotoacademie approaching, I really don’t know anymore. Liselotte has not seen any of my landscapes yet, so she gave me this assignment: create self-portraits through landscape photographs. That one is for next period.
Meanwhile I missed the deadline of the SWPA for lack of actual photographs to enter, so no traditional SWPA post this time from me.
I’m ending this post with some images I shot with Rosalinde recently, improving on a previous shoot with her. Thank you for taking the time again Rosalinde!