Activity 3

Compare and contrast a landscape photograph with a landscape painting. Discuss the expressive possibilities of each medium using your examples to illustrate your argument. Choose your examples carefully as representative of the medium.




Gwen Meyerson

Doug Marshall


When you look at a painting and a photograph and compare the two, you can definitely see the contrast. A painting will always be more grainy and animated whereas a photograph, will be extremely clear and sometimes even more so then your own eyes. However, both have require various steps in order to capture the moment.


The painting I chose for this example, is one of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is obviously a painting because it looks like something out of a cartoon and most paintings will look like that. The good thing about a painting however, is that the artist can choose whatever colors they want for the moment because it a creation rather than a capture. In a creation, the artist has 100% control over properties such as lighting, contrast, shadows, and more.


In my photographic example of roughly the same image, you can see how the image portrays the Golden Gate Bridge in a crystal clear fashion. It is so clear, that in fact this image was taken at night and you can still see the small details on the bridge. This couldn't have been done with a painting. But the photo is not better than a painting.


The main difference between painting and photographing, is that one is capturing and the other is creating. Capturing requires patience with you and your subject's surroundings, while creation requires patience with yourself. Both require an intense amount of concentration, patience, and skill.

Landscape: Activity 2: Blog

Find two landscape photographs that question social values or act as a metaphor for personal issues that the photographer is trying to express. Discuss whether the communication is clear or ambiguous and how this communication is conveyed.






This image is representing how fast your surroundings can change. You would think that the somewhat flat landscape would keep going, but then it stops with an enormous mountain. The communication becomes clear over time. By that, I am saying that you will not get the message at first and instead you will admire the hugeness of the mountain. But admiring the hugeness of the mountain is all apart of the steps to get you to see the whole picture (see what I did there?).

To me the image is saying to not get used to your surroundings because it can suddenly change.






This image is portraying American exploration and discovery. The American flag in the image is symbolizing national pride and the tourists at the viewpoint represent the admiration for such a discovery. The communication is very clear in this image because you instantly feel the sense of American pride from the American flag.

The image speaks to me in the sense that the beauty in our country deserves respect and it ultimately because a symbol for our nation.