They (Literally) Don’t Know What They’re Missing

One of my favorite things to do when preparing for a workshop is to scout new locations. Some might think it a safer bet to take students to places one is very familiar with, but the Creative Landscape Workshop I’ll be leading with Michael Gordon later this year is different. On this workshop the goal is to encourage creative thinking and new approaches. There’s nothing like terra incognita to ensure that no preconceived ideas come into play, and thankfully this area is very rich in opportunities for new discovery.

As usual, when out and about, my own creativity requires keeping an open mind, and once the mind is open there’s no telling what might creep in. In this particular case, I used the opportunity to listen to a few NPR shows I downloaded over the past couple of weeks. Two stories in particular caught my attention; the first about two friends who didn’t want to spend the money on a road trip and instead decided to go on a virtual trip using Google’s Street View feature and various webcams and online resources. Certainly a nifty idea but in my mind is sorta like looking at pictures of food instead of going out to dinner, or trying to get a buzz from viewing a beer commercial. The entire experience – the scale, the interactions, the smells, the wind, the weather, the whole monumental endeavor reduced to just simple visuals. Then again, isn’t that exactly what I try to do with my camera? Hmm…

This is actually not the first time I have come to this realization. In fact, much to the chagrin of fellow photographers, I often stated that images alone can never fully communicate the whole experience of time spent in the wild (see my article The Rest of the Story, for example). Therefore in my own writing and teaching I try to instill not only a passion for photography but for the subjects themselves. It’s easy to believe that landscape images have a universal appeal but my experience is that those most taken with them are those who share an appreciation for the natural world and that those who rarely set foot outside an urban setting have a hard time relating to them or even dismiss them outright.

Which brings me to the second story that inspired me deeply, as I knew it would – an interview with a man I truly revere: biologist E.O. Wilson. To my delight, not only was it a fascinating discussion, but he was able to put into words exactly what it is that “urbanites” are missing. When asked by the host about children growing up in a world made of video games and mass entertainment, Wilson had this to say:

“We need nature first of all because, to a degree that people don’t realize, including the kids with iPods and movies like Jurassic Park (…) our minds were molded by nature and our deepest satisfactions can come from nature, and nature is vastly more complex and full of surprises and delights than anything the human mind can concoct. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that no matter how brilliant and dazzling and powerful an effect our best artistic productions are that they are all products of the human mind and the products of the human mind are filtered by relatively narrow sectors of the experiences that are possible on the planet. (…) Our minds are predisposed to exploring nature and to loving it, to understanding it, so we’re really cutting ourselves off when we urbanize our children too much [and separating them] from a very important part of their existence and also a very important part of the human species’ existence.”

Tags: creative, eo, guy tal, landscape, outdoor, photography, wilson, workshop

Category: Thoughts and Musings, Workshops