With so many forms of art and truly so many mediums to choose from, over the years I have been asked why people often choose Landscape Photography for their homes versus oil paintings? I believe that this topic has many different answers pertaining to aesthetic and personal preference all the way to people remembering a moment themselves and Fine Art Photography makes it real again for them.
The essence of a great Fine Art Landscape Photograph is not to trick the eye, nor is it to dilute what Fine Art means to an old regime of Fine Art critics. Fine Art Photography in my eyes is meant to capture the reality of moments and places that we have experienced or felt before in our lives. I believe that there is a young one inside all of us that is alive and tells us willingly on a daily basis what we like or dislike. I also believe that this childlike magic within us all remembers fond moments in time where we ourselves can be drawn back into a scene within our own lives that was defined by a certain feeling. The depth and context by which that experience resonates within us is generally only as deep as we allow our subconscious being to explore and oftentimes it is simply something that we can gravitate towards as being pretty or beautiful. Without a doubt, I feel that we all can connect with Landscape Photography because we all come from the earth and have memories that harken us back to those profound, raw and real moments we have experienced within this lifetime.
I grew up in the household of an American Master oil painter. She was so revered and highly regarded that people spoke of her with an almost spirit like magic, even if she was standing right next to them. I always just saw her as Mom, however, everyone else didn’t see it that way. I can remember learning to mix a palette like she taught me and how I would often paint next to her as she taught me how to touch brush to canvas. I spent the better part of a couple decades painting oil on canvas. We would often go out into nature to capture amazing moments and then come back into the studio to recreate them with oil paints over stretched linen canvasses. I remember thinking to myself looking at our photographs that this moment was perfect and is just how it was; however, I can also remember how I never really connected with painting in oil as my form of expression that characterized that moment. After completing any artwork, I always had a profound sense that I had interpreted that moment the way I wanted to versus how that moment was in real life. I distinctly remember the moment I shifted from an oil painter who took photographs to one that decided to be a Fine Art Photographer. That journey was an interesting switch within myself, one where I longed to perfect the capture of a moment of light that wasn’t mine to interpret but that of our natural world and one that made me feel something that could never be painted on a canvas.
Cholla Garden By Marlon Holden. Part of the Origins Collection
With this in mind, I began my journey as a Fine Art Landscape Photographer. I was not interested in going to a bunch of popular destinations, nor was I interested in capturing a bunch of iconic places simply to take a photograph, as I wasn’t collecting a bunch of bucket list images in my attempt to copy what has already been done. I rather desired strongly to capture light in a way that left me breath taken for the moment that I had just lived and to be able to share it with everyone who would look upon the finished Fine Art image and feel it in the same way that I did. This is the true reason why I ultimately put down my brush and took up my camera, never to look back again. I knew in my heart that the land held everything mysterious and enchanting that was necessary to exemplify what was grand about Fine Art. With Photography, I did not need to make believe, I no longer had to embellish my work with wild colors or abstract concepts. I simply sought out and chased wild light! This pursuit has been my fulltime passion for much of my life and now I simply listened to that calling.
If we are ever truly lucky in this life, we will hear ourselves speak deep within. There is a voice that guides us internally, many people call this their gut or their intuition and many never listen to it. For some, they simply don’t know what that is and never really feel any sort of calling, however, if you do know what I am talking about right now it is important that you do not ignore it. Listening to your hearts greatest calling is literally the most honorable thing that you can do with the essence of your life’s force. I have now spent the better part of three decades traveling the earth to many magical places both near and far. In no way is there any contest or award that prompts me to do these things. Simply said, I am fueled by the pursuit to fill my heart with unique experiences and raw moments that I am able to capture and share with my collectors to whom these moments in time resonate with.
Within my pursuit of chasing light, there is no trophy, there are no awards and the context of winning acclaim through critique has no measure with me. I am not interested in where I measure up against another, nor am I in a competition with anyone. When I am in nature, I am free. When I am capturing wild light, I am exhilarated and alive! The only measure of my success is through my collectors who have continued to support my work and their simple love for the light that I create while abroad. The only acceptance I require is their patronage as they welcome my work into their homes. It is by grace and love through the unbounded spirit of human connection that fuels me. In these moments of amazing grace, I am rewarded with the reality that I bring people closer to the earth with each click of my shutter and that as we all draw closer to our connection with the earth through this medium it is not about me so much as it is about something so much greater than myself; we become united and unbounded through the love of our spiritual energy as a way to experience Fine Art in way previously unimagined.
Experiencing Fine Art through real emotions from places that many have shared with me on an exact stretch of beach where they had visited or a place fifty years ago marriage where a once young man had asked his lifelong sweetheart to marry him, a lone oak that once held a childhood swing or the sunrise over a stretch of mountains on a Western ranch. These are but some of the moments that connect us to the earth and my work as a Fine Art Landscape Photographer. These are the very reasons “Why Landscape Photography” and why a painting simply did not make the cut. Because Fine Art is much more that something pretty to hang in your house for decoration, Fine Art is much more than the bragging rights to a work created by a passed-on artisan, Fine Art is about celebrating life and living emotion! Fine Art is about experiencing light in your life in a way that correlates to your values and how you turn a house into a home. A collection of moments along your journey, that fill the storybook of your life! Fine Art Photography is about that voyage and the characterization of the way in which you feel your way through this path with what is tangible and real, without ego and without critique. For it is my belief that all artwork lay in the eyes of the beholder and when it comes to inspiration, everything comes from one true source, that being the earth and its energy that we all seek to be closer to.
As you may notice by now, I am a bit more complex in my thoughts about Why Landscape Photography impacts us in the way that it does. I am in no way undermining the way that all art has impacted, shaped or created our beliefs as it has with myself as well; I am simply delivering a message that photography has quite literally become the medium by which most everything else is measured.
Having our Studio Gallery in downtown Laguna Beach, we are quite literally surrounded by many other Fine Art galleries. As such it is interesting to note that over the years, the feedback we have received and Fine Art Photographic acquisitions through us have shown that there is a change in the tide with regard to what people want in their homes these days. A clear and resounding voice which has undeniably given us everything we could have ever asked for. As I continue to chase light, I carry with me a flame within my heart that burns brilliantly for that of connection and deep within, I know that I am fulfilling a lifelong quest to connect others in a meaningful way. This connection through Fine Art crafted in nature, forged by my own spiritual journey is one that I have invited you all to enjoy and I am thankful for every day that I might fulfill each breath I take with the reward of a new day to chase the light!
Sukakpak Enchantment by Marlon Holden. Part of the Night Skies Collection