Rural Landscape

I visited the Kindardine area this past summer and made several photographs.

The land near Lake Huron south of the town is very flat and has been farmed for generations.  It yields views which are reduced to few elements and go for a long way, almost to infinity.

Over the years we have become inured to what ought to be in a rural landscape photograph or painting and this one fits the “rules” and we feel comfortable with it.

This is what it really looks like:

There is a great deal of discussion in the area about the visual impact on the landscape of the giant wind turbines that have been built over the past five or so years.  “Stop the Wind Farm” signs are a regular sight on mailboxes and fenceposts.

In the past and currently, the presence of hydro (telephone) poles in this photograph would be quite acceptable.  I suppose that is because we have become used to seeing them in photographs and in our everyday viewing of the landscape.  The addition of windmills to such a scene these days is visually disturbing to some (many) who, one supposes, were comfortable with the traditional view from this spot and see them as visual blight.

Of course a painter can just leave them out and we would be none the wiser.