What is an industrial landscape

Nostromo

Nostromo

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I've been looking at images of industrial landscapes on Flickr and 500px and there seems to be a wide variety of styles. Some of "industry in the landscape" (power stations etc), some of factories (close up) and some of industrial machinery (close up). Are all of these industrial landscapes or just the ones that are photographed in the wider landscape?
 
Genre an artificial construct and whatever you want it to be.

There are grey areas of intersection between industrial landscape, industrial architecture and Urbex/industrial decay. Then you start considering topographics, the Dusseldorf school and a whole new path of photographic theory awaits.. :D
 
Not sure I have a definitive answer but I always think of @viewfromthenorth work when this phrase is used. His is some of the best work of this type imo (for whatever that is worth ...). For me, though it generally includes some wider landscape to give it context. If the images are part of a set and viewed as such then close ups of buildings/machinery also work. Just my view.
 
Nostromo said:
I've been looking at images of industrial landscapes on Flickr and 500px and there seems to be a wide variety of styles. Some of "industry in the landscape" (power stations etc), some of factories (close up) and some of industrial machinery (close up). Are all of these industrial landscapes or just the ones that are photographed in the wider landscape?
Click to expand...

I'd consider all of those to be the industrial landscape, although if you are looking at it from the perspective of traditional landscape photography, then it could be argued that only the industry in the landscape actually counts and everything else is simply architectural or industrial / interior. However, lets put the semantics aside as this is photography so there are no rules per se.

From my own interest and research, I've found a number of practitioners who observe it in different ways:

Michael Kenna, while best known for his fine art long exposure 'sticks in water' and Japanese landscapes is actually a Lancashire lad like me who has done three major bodies of work on industrial landscapes - The Calais Lace industry, The Rouge Steelworks in Detroit and the Radcliffe Power Station in the UK

Bernd and Hilla Becher are best known for their typological studies of industrial structures (gas holders, blast furnaces, etc) but also did some industry in the landscape here, here, here. They had a very objective approach to their photography.

Edward Burtynsky has a very interesting approach to it - part documentary, part fine art, part activist (maybe). His website is here.

John Davies is a British landscape photographer - very much of the industry in the landscape. Some work here.

Others, like myself, shoot it 'because it's there' or as part of the backdrop to documentary or photo-journalism assignments, examples such as here, here, here.

I could go on all afternoon, but hope this is useful!
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply @viewfromthenorth.
I will have a look at your links later (as I'm on my phone at the moment).
At my camera club there is a themed comp coming up, the theme being industrial landscapes.
I thought ok i can do this, then when I started to look at other people's work (for a bit of inspiration) I got a bit confused as to what what IS an industrial landscape.
I actually am quite drawn to the more, dilapidated, run down types of buildings (whether still in use or not). To me they give more of a sense of hard times and hard work.
 
Nostromo said:
Thanks for taking the time to reply @viewfromthenorth.
I will have a look at your links later (as I'm on my phone at the moment).
At my camera club there is a themed comp coming up, the theme being industrial landscapes.
I thought ok i can do this, then when I started to look at other people's work (for a bit of inspiration) I got a bit confused as to what what IS an industrial landscape.
I actually am quite drawn to the more, dilapidated, run down types of buildings (whether still in use or not). To me they give more of a sense of hard times and hard work.
Click to expand...

Well if you like the dilapidated stuff, you'll like my own websites then!!!!
 
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