As anyone who actively deals with images will tell you, whether they do so from the position of creator, custodian or connoisseur, a sea of images drenches us daily. Even those who have no interest in the visual arts cannot escape this flood because it issues from so many sources; consider how content from television, magazines, newspapers and billboards washes over us every day. Paradoxically our appetite for visual stimulation is in danger of being eroded by the sheer volume of images demanding our attention.

So where does this situation leave someone who feels compelled to be an image-maker, not for reasons of profit or some kind of short-term gain, but as a way to communicate something special and enduring? If they stop to consider the sheer volume of paintings, photographs and graphic works already in circulation, they might well feel they are adrift with little hope of being heard from the shore. The weakest will indeed sink without trace but the more tenacious, and alas more numerous, will strive to introduce some kind of novelty into their work in an attempt to render it somehow distinct and original. Like an overzealous suitor bombarding the object of his affections with flowers, unless such offerings come sincerely, from the heart, they deserve to be rejected.

Fortunately there is a third category of image-maker who succeeds by applying what I believe to be three fundamental principles. I will aim to explain this type through example by considering the work of the photographer Per Porter but, before we move on to the images per se, I think it is important to say something of Porter’s approach to equipment and materials. For Porter the modern digital world — where the acquisition and manipulation of images is made easy for even the most inexperienced photographer through sophisticated technology and software — is renounced in favour of a traditional Canon SLR and 35 mm film. This is not, however, through any fear or unfamiliarity with technology; his choice is a conscious one, driven by the belief that considerations of colour balance, exposure and composition should be made ‘in camera’ at the time the image is captured. The image is modified before pressing the shutter by such material decisions as exposure, focal depth and aperture, and most importantly composition driven by viewpoint. A tripod, filters and a tilt-shift lens are used to influence the outcome but, after the image is captured, any further modification by photo-editing software such as PhotoShop is verboten. In this respect one may consider Porter as operating under the dictates of the French Impressionists who painted en plein-air; alternatively, the more philosophical reader might be reminded of that maxim by Heraclitus: ‘You can’t step into the same river twice’.

For Porter the decision to press the shutter is a critical act of will, and the degree of care and deliberation he invests in reaching this point is considerable. First there is the decision over destination, formed months or even years in advance. Then, closer to the time, perhaps some research into the history and geology of the area follows. Shortly before the trip the weather forecast will be consulted, and on the day all the variables such as wind direction, cloud cover and terrain will be taken into account. After the viewpoint is established and the equipment put in place, there is nothing left to do but wait patiently for the right moment. Unlike a painting, which is a sum of many moments involving both subject and painter, photographer and photograph will be pinned in time to this critical moment of truth.

I think this respect for the temporal is evident, not only in Porter’s physical, rather than digital, approach, but as a recurrent theme that links otherwise unconnected pictures. Layers of time reverberate in such images as Painshill Park 1 and Uffington Manger, and whether it is found in the remains of an abbey enduring in an 18th century landscape, or in the cows grazing in a valley formed in the last Ice Age, the sense of great swathes of time between the image ‘as-is’ and the implicit ‘as-was’ is, for me, unavoidable. Again and again Porter seeks out locations where he can confront tranches of time that dwarf a human lifetime: from the rugged majesty of green pre-Cambrian schists in image ‘Cwyfan solitude’ to the overwhelming melancholy in Wreck of the Helvetia, we are faced with images founded upon incredibly slow accretions or attritions, where Nature, not Man, dominates. In the latter image, the heavy wet sand continues to consume the rotten Norwegian barque five generations after it sank, and also started to do the same to Porter as he was taking the photograph. One wonders if the camera’s ‘space-time’ provided some kind of psychological refuge from this 19th century Ozymandius. Certainly the spectacle afforded by time’s unremitting advance finds its rebuttal through the dictates of the captured moment, and it is with this idea I present the first principle of how to survive on the sea of images:

A single puff of white cloud floats across the azure sky above St Ives, but in the short time it takes to adjust the tripod for what might be better composition the cloud has moved on. St Ives Light is one last nod to our previous theme and the first example of our second: the importance of light and colour. Both are absolutely central considerations for any photographer, and it would serve little purpose here to talk in general terms. Suffice it to say that light as a function of time, and colour as an aid to composition and mood, are successfully employed here and in other images as varied as 'Dawn with boats', Fire and Ice 2, Southwold beach huts, Abbostsbury month and 'Winkworth Boathouse'. I will, however, single out Knot for further comment as here colour itself is the subject, with Porter revelling in the irony that the colours in the rope that secures the boat are echoed in the decrepit body of the boat itself. What at first seems a simple image becomes playfully complex through the medium of colour. This image also provides us with a fine example of the second principle of survival:

The apparent absence of the human figure in Porter’s work is notable and triggers my third and final theme. The subject matter is landscape, but I feel this label isn’t adequate to accommodate all layers of meaning. Firstly, if we consider viewpoint we will note two types: those that the viewer could easily achieve were they exploring the same location, and those that required significant effort and risk to attain. Consequentially every landscape image in fact does have an implicit human dimension to consider: behind the focal plane the lone photographer also becomes the first viewer. At this point the world — that is every ‘other’ than the photographer — falls away and will only exist on the other side. This principle of the inferred human is also commonly found when appraising architecture, and of course the Renaissance grew out of the belief that ‘man is the measure of all things’. In Porter’s work I think it has a strong presence, especially in images Stone Circle, Jules Verne, Magna Carta dawn, and Hexham bridge.

With this sense of the inferred human in mind I would like to reach the third principle by discussing the marvellous images Sycamore gap, Iceland Light 2, Hard and soft 2 and Dawn clouscape. In each, elements of the landscape subtly allude to aspects of the masculine and feminine — perhaps here a breast, there a back — to convey something that is neither purely landscape nor figure, but I would only diminish the wit of ‘Sycamore gap’ or the sensuality of ‘Dawn cloudscape’ if I expounded further.

We have moved far away from consideration of materials and are dangerously close to the esoteric, but this means we have at last reached the third principle:

Through this short exposition I have attempted to touch upon some of the inherent challenges and ambiguities of picture-making. The requisite qualities are always uncovered by the journey the artist makes inwards, prompted by the majesty and mystery of experience. Porter is such a photographer, sailing full of integrity and promise.

This essay is the foreword to '36 Exposures: Landscape Photographs' by Per Porter. The images and more information about the book can be found on his website.