Reading and Research: Tuscany, Inside The Light; Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barret.

I first came across Joel Meyerowitz when I was studying for my Level 2 Landscape course and read Cape Light.  When I was planning a road trip to Italy to visit Umbria and Tuscany, I came across this book and managed to acquire a copy second hand.  It is a book full of beautiful but subtle landscape images of the Tuscan countryside through the seasons.  It works well with Project 15 of the Landscape course.  The photographs are accompanied by Maggie Barrett's beautifully evocative descriptive prose.  The images are subtle and understated with quite restricted colour palettes and almost as if they have been slightly desaturated, reminiscent of a slightly faded 1960s or 70s transparency.  Meyerowitz does not seem to seek out dramatic sunrises and sunsets and his photographs could well have been taken in the middle of the day.  He does favour misty scenes, however, and I am sure these will have been taken early in the day.  Something that inspires me about these images, though, is that they could have been taken in the Lincolnshire Wolds, my local area.  I shall forever think of the Wolds as Tuscany in miniature.  One or two of the images remind me of some that I have taken in Lincolnshire.
 Plate  43 (Wheat Field, Late Afternoon), his first summer photograph, reminds me of the ones below that I took this summer in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

 Plate 46 (Hayfields) of a harvested field with large round bales brings to mind  similar ones I took this summer.

Similarly Plate 56 (Sea and Sky) makes me think of one I took in Robin Hood's Bay last week, although in slightly different weather conditions.

With being muted colours and a restricted palette Joel Meyerowitz's photographs are very different to many many  practioners' work such as Joe Cornish or Galen Rowell, which I admire but which tends to be taken in the golden hour and is richly saturated.  It is perhaps more akin to the work of David Noton.

I shall certainly be looking at The Lincolnshire Wolds with new eyes and using this book as inspiration for my future photography.