Images from the Edge

The Edge. I began to think about the concept of the edge in the early 1990's as a way to understand why, on a visceral level, some photographs "worked" while others didn't. My first lecture on this theme was to an audience of the GDT in Lünen, Germany, in 1993, entitled "Bilder vom Rand" and have continued to use the title "Images from the Edge" from that time to define my approach. In my 2000 book, The Art of Nature Photography, I describe the concept of the edge thus:

The search for great photos starts at the edge. The concept of edges provides most of the recurring, popular topics in nature photography; your dedication to the search for edges will be reflected in the quality of your photography.

Some years ago, I tried to figure out why some pictures of nature moved me so powerfully when others didn't. Why did some strike a chord while others, seemingly just as impressive, left me cold? I now believe that a commonality exists between evocative images of the natural world, a commonality that is bound up in the concept of edges.

Edges, for our purposes, are zones of transition in time or space or being. More simply, they are places where change occurs and contrasts arise. Edges are the extremes, distant from the middle, the everyday, the usual. The concept of edges, literal and metaphorical, is at the root of most of the recurring, popular topics amongst nature photographers from sunsets and autumn colours to penguins and bull elk. There seem to be three broad categories into which most of the topics fall: edges in space; edges in time; and, in a metaphorical sense, edges in being. Let's put some meat on the bones of this idea.

The places where the land meets the sea are zones of great biological productivity. They represent one of the edges in space. Such places are peripheral to the centres of human activity and man's control of the environment here is less complete and more vulnerable. Man is also out of his element in the sky and where the land meets the sky represents the other great edge in space. This is the realm of the silhouette and the bird in flight. There are few outdoor photographers who aren't drawn to these topics sooner or later. Geographically remote areas represent the spatial edge on a greater scale.

If even at this stage you doubt the validity of the edges concept, ask yourself why people prefer to walk along the seas edge rather than in the fields behind the sand dunes. Why are people drawn to the mountain's summit rather than to a shoulder half way up? Why do we like to scare ourselves by edging up to the rim of a crater rather than walk a safer distance back? Why, for that matter, jump from a tower with an elastic cord around your ankles? I don't really know either; it's just what people are like. But it is the very same instinct which draws the nature photographer, even unwittingly, towards edges.

For example, sunrise and sunset are amongst the most popular topics of all. These are the edges of the day when the quality and temperature of the light can even affect our mood. Similarly, spring and autumn often yield more stunning pictures than high summer, in temperate latitudes. Times of transition; edges in time. These peaks of activity in the natural world don't necessarily coincide with ours - how often have you witnessed a glorious sunrise all by yourself or enjoyed the first bud of spring while others are hankering after summer? Once again, photographers go beyond the boundaries of everyday human experience to glimpse the natural world at its liveliest.

Edges in time and space are easy to recognise, but what of edges in being? Well, consider the appeal of the young elk calf or the massive old bull. Aren't most of us drawn to these individuals rather than the mass of the population that lies between? The seedling of a pine juxtaposed with its aged gnarled parent is compelling. One way to interpret this tendency is an attraction to the edges of life - lives which have only just begun and those soon to end. Hence, perhaps, our macabre fascination with pictures of 'the kill', particularly where cubs feature. Likewise, we are drawn to creatures and plants which live in extreme environments be they emperor penguins in Antarctica or saguaro cactus in the Sonoran. More prosaically, the saxifrage growing out of gneiss rock contrasts not only living and inert matter but also extremes of time too - Lewisian gneiss of the north west of Scotland has a 3500 million year history; the yellow mountain saxifrage sprouting from a fissure may have been there for only a couple of years. Wherever the hold on life appears to be tenuous, or life itself seems incongruous, we can find edges in being.

So much for the theory; the concepts don't always come readily to mind in the field when you're searching for the picture. At these times, it is more helpful just to think of edges as the most. The sandstone with the most wavy lines; the most brilliantly coloured part of the sky; the squirrel with the most curly tail. These too, are extremes; we haven't just settled for the first example we've come across. This attraction to extremes would also explain why macaws are regarded as more attractive subjects than rooks (they are more colourful and do more interesting things - unless you are another rook) and red-faced macaques in Japan draw more attention than gibbons in Africa. There is just something out-of-the-ordinary about seeing monkeys in snow.

It seems then that what we do as nature photographers is simply an extension of how we behave as curious mammals - we have a deep-seated need to explore the boundaries of our world, even if that is just the neighbourhood spinney and to discover our personal limits. Creative success comes from being able to channel these instincts into our photography.