A brief note on a new book that has been sitting in a pile of other recent acquisitions that are waiting, as patiently as books can, to be looked at in proper detail, that is beginning to show its relevance to the work that will no doubt be involved with this course.

I first came across Sugimoto’s seascape photos at the Stills gallery on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh, possibly as long ago as 1997, and was immediately struck by their haunting, almost abstract quality and have admired them ever since. Until then I had not really thought about the possibility of making landscape work that does not in itself tell you anything about place, or time. Such identifying information is available only through the accompanying captions. Their impact was enhanced by their physical size, as some were the better part of four feet by six, which gave them something of an immersive quality.

So when this new edition of his book was issued I snapped up a copy.

The sense of scale is unfortunately lost as the book is just less than a foot square. Nevertheless there is still a significant impact from simply having so many images gathered together, 150 or more. Apart from a brief introduction there is no text, just the photos and their bare, minimal captions, so the pictures have to speak for themselves. From this mass what comes across surprisingly clearly is that although all are in the same mode, a sea view with a more or less distinct horizon with any sight of land, and in black and white, there is so much variety.

What I suppose this work is saying to me now in the context of this Landscape course is that there are far more ways of depicting a landscape or environment besides a straightforward, pictorialist view. Apart from playing around with the idea of homage while working on EYV (https://markrobinsonocablog.wordpress.com/2017/10/04/exercise-5-2-part-2-homage/), in which I included my own Sugimotoesque seascape (below) I have not felt directly influenced by this work. Nevertheless I think it is something that is going to be at the back of my mind as I work through this course and I would not be surprised if my awareness of it does start to open different possibilities for viewing and representing landscapes that I encounter.

Sugimoto, H, (2019).  Seascapes.  Bologna:  Damiani Editore

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