Land Is a Community to Which We Belong — Slow Photography Movement

In Making Connections, we examine the ways in which we share our work, the impact our images have on the subject and the audience, and how our images create opportunities for connection.

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

My journey in photography began decades ago, as a young guy toting around a Nikon FE2 loaded with various iterations of Kodak black and white film. Although my technical knowledge was limited, my interests, subjects, and style back then was the same as they are today. I naturally gravitated towards the woods and farms surrounding my central New Jersey home. What has always captured my imagination are scenes of nature seemingly untouched, or lightly touched, by human hands: hedgerows bordering a fallow field, an old path winding its way into a woodlot, a glacial erratic sticking up into the landscape as if intentionally placed. As time passed, those scenes have changed. Not through natural succession, but rather at the steady influence of human development. Many of the vanishing landscapes of my childhood home, that were written about and photographed back in the 1970s, are now gone. Regrettably, I am now seeing landscapes around my upstate New York home falling victim to the same inexorable result of infringing development.

My interest in photography has waxed and waned over the years, and my technique has changed as I’ve moved from film to digital photography. What has remained constant is my concern for our natural heritage. So, when friends and colleagues starting expressing interest in purchasing my work, and I considered how to start a small photography business, I knew that my concern for the environment was going to be the central theme. I structured it around that concept of service, using income from the sales of my art to help support conservation organizations that work to protect the places I photograph. This business model may help with market differentiation, but it’s really an honest and intentional attempt to help protect the landscapes that are meaningful to me, and raise awareness for their conservation. If I can help people to “see the land as a community to which we belong,” then maybe my efforts can motivate them to treat these landscapes with more love and respect. In so doing, the loss of these places may be halted, or at least slowed. This model decidedly subtracts from my profit margins, but those never were the motivation behind my work.

“This helped me to become a more contemplative and thoughtful artist, one with larger meaning and context for creating work which can help to benefit a greater good.”

Identifying organizations to support was a difficult process. Although there are numerous organizations that work on conservation issues, I found many of them to be inefficient in their finances and in their utilization of donations to achieve conservation goals. This is true for many charities, including those involved in issues outside the realm of nature conservation. The selection process took time, but I have managed to identify a handful of organizations that I am proud to support with my work. We share a common vision for these wild places, and together have built a positive relationship. It’s an honor to support their work through my art, and a real pleasure to share their message with my clients and those visiting my gallery.

Spring Storm Over the Adirondacks / James Rodewald

One of the interesting outcomes of this venture has been its influence upon my artistic process. The subject matter of my work has not changed much over the past few years. That is, not much beyond the normal evolution of subject and approach typical of an artists’ development. What has changed, however, and in a positive way, is the intent and motivation of my work. Nature photography is a solitary process that involves a good deal of time alone, often going out when the rest of the world seems to be sanely catching more sleep. Motivation is a challenge in this line of art, one that can quickly vanish when the weather turns sour, or the ups and downs of the work week have taken a toll on your energy. Knowing that my work helps to support conservation has proven to be a significant motivator. I would hesitate to say there is a dependency in the relationships, but there certainly is an underlying meaning for getting up and out at it, more than ever before in my creative life. I have always enjoyed the process of picture making, but with this evolution in meaning there is an even greater satisfaction to all of it, a satisfaction I would encourage others to explore in a way of their own design. This helped me to become a more contemplative and thoughtful artist, one with larger meaning and context for creating work which can help to benefit a greater good. It not only informs my subject matter, but it also helps to keep me exploring the natural areas which mean so much to me and others. This way, I hope that my work helps to move some people towards the notion of treating our natural areas as resources to be conserved, rather than as “commodities to be sold.”