Places of emptiness and desolation might not immediately demand the attention of the photographer, but they have a haunting beauty that is all too easy to overlook. For one landscape photographer, the quiet magic of these neglected spaces has often been the source of his inspiration.
As somebody who loves to photograph desolate and abandoned spaces myself, the kind of photography featured in this video has a special place in my heart. I’m a firm believer in the primacy of the idea that, above all else, the practice of photography teaches us how to see.
Beyond the evident beauty of the natural world that landscape photography typically places front and center, there has always been an appreciation for the kind of quiet beauty that can be found in the banal and the everyday. The portfolios of photographers like William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, and Todd Hido are replete with images of the everyday world that we see all around us—the spaces we create in which to live our lives and the imprint of our endeavors on the natural landscape. In the busy rush of our daily lives, it’s easy to pass by these outwardly ordinary scenes without so much as a second thought.
But for Colorado-based landscape photographer Alex Burke, these places are a source of inspiration—so much so that he is willing to tote his bulky and cumbersome large format film camera out to remote locations to capture their beauty. And if you’ve ever used a large format camera yourself, you will appreciate the considerable sacrifice in time and cost that working with one of these cameras requires of the photographer, in comparison with the relative convenience and low cost of shooting digital.
Alex is fortunate to live in one of most scenic regions of the United States, and while his portfolio is rich with amazing images of natural beauty—of the kind we more typically associate with landscape photography—this short video explores some of his less traditional landscape work, showcasing the quiet magic of these empty and neglected spaces. The images he shares with us in the video are inspiring and perfectly demonstrate that there is beauty to be found in the everyday things we see all around us, so long as we take the time to learn how to see it for ourselves.
