There Is Poetry In Landscapes

When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.

Robert Frank

I didn't always like poetry. At grammar school it was one of those misunderstood subjects for me. I remember a few embarrassing moments when I had to stand up in front of the whole class and explain what the poet meant by the words I didn't understand. Things changed when I started studying French. It was our professor's contagious love for poetry that got me interested in the works of a French poet Jacques Prevért. I started to understand that a poem doesn't need an explanation. That the emotional response to the words is more important than a logical analysis.

I developed the real love for poetry when I started to spend more time outdoors. Admiring the beauty of the surrounding world brought a need to share it. That's when I started to fully appreciate the beauty of words, and people who can use language to bring us closer to their own experience. Expressing myself through the images created with my camera made me realise that photography and poetry are closely connected. They have the same language. The language of love and emotions. To me it is the love for landscapes and the emotions evoked when experiencing moments spent in the outside world. Poems are pictures painted with words. Words that fill you with powerful feelings; the same overwhelming feelings that you can experience when looking at a stunning photograph, or when watching magnificent scenery unfolding in front of you.

From enjoying our beautiful world, developing passion for capturing it, to appreciating the beauty of words, I completed the full circle. In a perfect world I would be able to write poetry. However some things still elude me, so I will have to leave it to the people with the real talent. I will simply stay inspired by poetry in landscapes and landscapes in poetry; and hope that my love for both will show in my photographs.

There Is Poetry In Landscapes
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

George Gordon Lord Byron

Share this story

Comments Expand -
  1. Very true Vanda. Art is a means of expression, and we each have different ways of expressing ourselves. Whatever form we choose, the important thing is that is connects us with beauty – however we define it – and through our appreciation of art, or through creating it, with each other.

    1. I’m so glad, Michéla that you have the same outlook on what is most important. The fact that we can see the beauty around us connects us all, no matter what tools we choose to use to share our vision.

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *