Wild Things - John Brownlow

John Brownlow has been working on his Wild Things project for at least the last couple of years (hadn't noticed he was up to Wild Things XV already...). While he does use 4x5 for some of the work, he is very good with the Noblex pano, which seems especially suited to this kind of view. In fact in general I think I have probably seen more pano shots that fail rather than work, but not in John's case - he has certainly mastered it. He has also worked some in black and white and some in colour - though I think (as I find for my own "twig" project) the black and white seems to work best.


Brownlow is part of a small group who have been throwing ideas back and forth about photographing this same subject from somewhat different perspectives and under different names - Wild Things, Only A Green Thing, Immersive Landscapes, Twigs, Bethicketted....

While John really works with the whole tangled and messy aspect of these views, what also comes across to me a quite powerful lyricism in the pictures (and it's also well worthwhile to the links on John's website to see bigger versions of the panos - the size on Blogger really doesn't begin to do them justice). I'd really like to see some of the big prints John has made of these.

"The tree that moves some to tears of joy
Is in the Eyes of the others only a Green thing
that stands in the way.
Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity,
& by these I shall not regulate my proportions;
& Some Scarce see Nature at all.
But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination,
Nature is Imagination itself.
As a man is, So he Sees.
As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers."

William Blake