Creative Digital Landscape

[Michael Campbell]

I first felt compelled to attempt to paint and photograph when I was a 21 year old geology student working on my geology masters thesis, which I eventually published as a book, on the geological history of the Isle of Iona in the Scottish Hebrides. The amazingly rugged, three mile long island consists of some of the oldest rocks in Europe 2,800,000,000 years old.

Apart from its fascinating geological history, Iona has one of the most interesting histories of any place in Britain. In 563 AD, Saint Columba came from Ireland to Iona. He founded a Monastery on this site. The abbey grew quickly and soon became one of the largest religious centers in western Europe. Monks from Iona set up religious centers as far away as Switzerland. I spent one of my 4 week session there sleeping at night in one of the monk’s cells. Many early Scottish kings and chiefs, as well as kings from Ireland, Norway and France are buried in the Abbey graveyard. (There are thought to be 48 kings there.) These include Duncan - the victim of Macbeth as well as Macbeth himself. Last year my son Alex (then 12 ) and I went to the top of the highest mountain on Iona and scattered my aunt's ashes in to the strong winds of the north atlantic.

Shortly after this I took the picture shown below looking north, following the route of her wind blown ashes, from Iona towards Staffa and the outer Hebrides.

It is not the usual postcard view of Iona which abound in every tour guide and gift shop, but something more intimate and personal. A tiny scene probably unnoticed and ignored by the millions of visitors to the isle. Creative digital landscape consists of more than materials and technique and the recording of a certain place and time. The personal landscape can be an expression of an emotion which is impossible to verbalize.

While its subject is nature, the patterns, not nature’s, but rather the artist’s arrangement of natural elements, which is often very different from reality. This order is rooted in the artist’s sense of the aesthetic, and includes unity rhythm, balance, proportion, and integrity. Frequently, a serious editing of the unnecessary is required for the sake of clarity. Knowledge of nature is crucial because all components of the landscape are interrelated and not just a matter of adding a rock here or eliminating a few trees. Diverse elements must add up to a pleasing whole and have focus. This is a cognitive process that is not required when the artist or photographer is fastidiously documenting reality.
Even after making the original camera exposure the digital artist continues to make decisions to do with color, texture, contrasts and the treatment of edges. In addition the creative landscape must embody the artist’s mastery of execution for an impact to occur. The mind’s eye must be able to glide over all the components as a single entity. This may evoke a harmonious blending of the present with memories on many levels, including sentiment, mood and attitude.

For me the island I know better than any other place on the planet has more memories for me than I could ever begin to relate.

[Michael Campbell]

While the straight photograph is essentially a documented fragment in time, a painting be it in oils watercolor or digital, is the artist's response to a fragment in time. In Susan Sontag's book on photography she admits "It is the nature of a photograph that it can never entirely transcend its subject, as a painting can. "

In our lives we seem to experience less and less tranquility. The creative landscape, which is a version of reality edited by the artist, is a gentle reminder of the existence and importance of tranquility. In addition to symbolizing a balance in physical and emotional health, it can be seen as a metaphor for clarity of thought.

Emerson said there are voices we hear in solitude which grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.
When we apply simplicity to art, we are not referring to the undeveloped or unevolved, but the elegance of the unencumbered.

As Thorea said."Man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can do without." Maybe the same can be said of a interpretive image. The sand at teh north end of Iona is made up of comminuted shells a shimmering layer of mother of pearl. As the ocean flows over it, a magical light seems to radiate from below the waved. A liquid emerald.
In this image I tried to express this amazing gem of nature echoed by the iridescent green seaweed clothing the rocks which point their way out to sea.

Others may seen noting in these images worth looking at but as Stieglitz said, .."try to please yourself, if you set out to please another you end up pleasing neither them nor yourself." Man Ray said . "I photograph what I do not wish to paint, and I paint what I can not photograph. " Digital photography perhaps gives us the best of both.

[Michael Campbell]

I have always loved to be by rivers and waterfalls and last year I returned to the Loire, where many many years ago in early autumn I cycled with a beautiful girl, a basket to hold some French bread, some cheese* and a bottle of wine,* down the Loire Valley to* Orleans. In that* broad,* green valley are countless ancient chateaux each one more fairy-tale-like than the last. With their terraced gardens, their airy galleries, their triumphal chimney-pieces, their spacious stairways, their conscious provision for the elegant enjoyment of all seasons in turn, here surely were the new abodes for the new humanity of this , poetic, picturesque age.*
Between Angers and Nantes, the Loire is probably one of the finest rivers in the world, the breadth of the stream, the islands of woods, the boldness, culture, and richness of the coast, all conspire,* to render it all eminently beautiful.

Another day we breakfasted early and left to smell the air when the lemon green of the vaporous morning droped wet sunlight on the leaves in* the forest of Fontainebleau.* It lies spread out* behind* the village of Barbizon where the early 19th century artists* used to paint: Rousseau, Corbet, Corot, Millet, Delacroix and Chintreuil, and later Pissarro, Monet, Renoir,* Bazille and all that impressionist* gang. *
There we strolled through paths scented with memories of sunny summer days. The yellow sunbeams were are hurled like glowing lances* between the massive branches of the trees, from the rising sun.*

One day I will return and lay,as I did years ago, listening to the lapping of the water, in a quiet boat drifting* with the current* near Taillebourg. * The river reminds us there is a headlong tide that bears away both man and* his fantasies* like a straw, and runs fast in time and space. *
We must all set our pocket watches by the clock of fate.* The river widens out towards the bridge, and glistens like a sheet of ice under the placid sun.* Straight ahead on the wide, green, level plain, the light foliage quivers, and the poplars rustle their few remaining leaves.* The sky is flushed with brightness; the air is flecked with diamonds between the slender branches; the verdure clothes itself in softer tints, for though nourished by the stream, the sun has touched it into brown or gold.* The eyes are at rest amid this deeper coloring; there comes to us* a sense of joy as they sweep the radiant surface of the* water, and life once more seems gracious and kind................