Artist's Comments

Moving Landscapes Series

Using the instant feedback of digital photography and the minute level of control over the image that software provides, this series of panoramas was created through the unique way in which the camera records movement .

I was influenced by deconstructivism, postmodernism, performance art, and the work of Jackson Pollock, when I first began working on this particular theme in 1986. The result, often unexpected, was that of a dynamic nature in which hard objects softened to transparent shapes and sketched light traces on the film. What attracted me to the images at that time, besides the transformation of a static nature into dynamic movement, was the gesture of the artist captured through the movement of the camera, the fact that the image creation process could not be duplicated, and that the few successful images were actually the result of many attempts at capturing something articulate. I finished a portfolio of 20 to 30 black and white images and moved on to more social themes. However, my primary motivation at that point was to deconstruct the conventional landscape photograph, as well as question the perception of nature as a fixed entity. I was very excited by the energy of Pollock’s drip paintings and his emphasis on the act of creation.

I began experimenting again in 2000 with this imagery of movement with a digital camera because I could take advantage of the immediate feedback and in-camera editing features; I can photograph repeatedly in the field until I achieve just the image I seek. Making the exposures is a very interactive experience that involves physical movement and trial-and-error experimentation with shutter speeds, action and light. Afterwards in the studio I select from a stock of moving landscapes and use software intended to knit 360 degree seamless panoramas to experiment with integrating and layering images into broad vistas. Virtual Reality software is not intended to blend together non-linear spaces, so the results create unexpected merging of colors, shapes, and textures. The panoramas are retouched further with other software be adding in other layers of photographs or painting, and by adjusting tonal values.

These images are a unique integration of conventional photographic and digital techniques. They use nature to create a landscape that does not exist, except for these images, through the conventional technique of long exposure and new techniques of digital montage.

Camera movement does surface occasionally in other photographer’s work, but it is primarily used as a background feature to create a sense of timelessness or texture. I am fascinated by the manner in which I can “paint” as a photographer, literally using my camera to transform nature into a flowing river of light, a dancing and vibrant space, merging colors to form new shapes that only exist inside the camera. I am interested in deconstructing perceptions of nature, and in constructing a compelling visual experience for the viewer that enriches their life and subsequently our culture. The nature these photographs depict is one of flowing energy, as if geological time were fast-forwarded, or as if we as humans were slowed down to the living pace of trees and rocks.

The images are vignettes of a nature transformed by brush strokes of radiance and color: static branches set alight by the gesture of the artist.

-Doug Barkey, 2001