Postcards

The postcards shown below are all captured from the internet after searching for “Cotswolds Postcards”.  I do not have any of my own postcards and, seeing as I live in the area was interested to see what the results would be.  The main site I found was Zazzle which is where these images come from (Cotswolds Postcards, 2021).

The images are very typical of what a tourist would capture, I myself took images almost identical to these when I first visited the area as a tourist. Looking back at how my understanding of the area has changed, I realise now that these images do not really capture the area at all, they simply portray the “chocolate box” ideal that the Cotswolds is know for, I suddenly see my own back catalogue in a new light!

In the images I have given them the captions used by the Zazzle site to describe each postcard.  What I find interesting about the captions is that many of them are not specific to the location of the image, the table below shows the actual locations based on my local knowledge.  What the site seems to do is make the cards multi purpose and so, for example, ‘Honey Coloured Cottages’ which is actually a scene from Castle Combe could be bought by visitors to that village but also, by anybody who had visited the Cotswolds and wanted to remember the general look of most villages.   This certainly gives a hint into what the popular interpretation of picturesque is as the images are relying on that feature rather than the actual location.

Is it possible to capture images with something other than a tourist view?

I think to be be a landscape photographer that is not a tourist, one has to see past the picturesque, the classic travel view, and think about the land and it energy.  How does the place make you feel and how can you capture that.  This though is still open to error as a land may make me as a visitor feel curious whereas for somebody that lives there, it is just a place that is unremarkable in the sense of being seen every day.  I live in a valley that is within an AONB, it is protected area and a sight of scientific interest (the view from my garden will be Assignment 6 of this course).  Because I live here, I no longer see it with such awe, although I do still appreciate its beauty.  Whereas visitors to our house are likely to take the classically picturesque views as seen in my assignment, I am more interested in the details, such as my Assignment 2 where I capture nature reclaiming the land from man, or even in Assignment 6 I am interested in the way that the seasons change the land rather than the scene itself.

I think this means that to really see past what a tourist sees, one has to spend time in that place.  Simply arriving capturing a scene and leaving is behaving as a tourist would no matter how hard one might try and see past it.   The images from the postcards are a good example of this, I captured much the same images when visiting as a tourist. I also carried on capturing such images for a number of years after I moved here. Having now lived in the Cotswolds for four years I would not take images such as these any more. What I cannot know is wether that is because I now understand the area better or because my photography has moved on; probably a bit of both.

Bibliography

Zazzle. 2021. Cotswolds Postcards. [online] Available at: <https://www.zazzle.co.uk/cotswolds+postcards> [Accessed 15 March 2021].