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PETER CORBETT
Fine Art Landscape Photography
Magnificent fine art photography prints of South Africa by master photographer Peter Corbett, an artist who specialises purely in landscape photography, Corbett's prints are not only artistically impressive but also technically brilliant. This portfolio of photo wall art prints was taken over a fifteen years while Peter was living in Cape Town. During this time he travelled through South African and Namibia in search of landscape scenery of diverse nature. His photographs include land, ocean and cityscapes. Recently Peter has moved back to the United Kingdom, the country of his birth where he continues to practice his craft. This collection of his most famous prints is dedicated to his love for Southern Africa and the diversity of the landscape itself...
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Landscape Print Collection
Open and Limited Edition fine art photographic prints individually priced
Biography
ARTIST STATEMENT
There is a phrase I heard somewhere, which I like – it also lurks: 'detached reverie'. Some mood or state-of-mind where flow happens; one doesn't make appointments here, both a blessing and a nag, a paradox to be sure. Once you have been to the well, then the effort to get back so often negates the very quest. But I do have these times when the noise stops and my art begins. Once again the outcome, the end game, my end game, a Fine Art Print does not always result, but the pleasure of those times when one can contemplate the moment when the light and form wait for the shutter and the pure joy of being there is the stuff of the landscape photographer.
I started taking photographs when I was 16. Inspired by David Bailey and the 1960’s film Blow-Up, I imagined the life of a sharpshooter for Vogue. Circumstances, social and other, determined something else as a career for me; however, from then on, I was never without a camera. More importantly, my awareness of the physical world around me increasingly became "not just out there" but how I could capture that particular slice of time and make a print.
Captivated by Ansel Adams landscapes; his iconic images irrevocably changed something inside me. At that stage, I had no specific photographic genre. Although my initial inspiration was Bailey, I found I didn't have an intense interest in photographing things that move and talk! Ansel Adams' meticulous, obsessive techniques centred on his Zone System permeated my DNA to the point where various photographic institutions had me teaching the concept part-time, despite my strenuous job running a small manufacturing business.
The principals don't change, and I would encourage anyone at any stage interested in photography to learn and understand the latter; I guarantee exposure will be your friend. As the digital (photographic) era surfaced in the early nineties, specifically inkjet printing, my interest acquired new impetus as I dabbled with this fledgeling technology. There was no tortured transition from film to digital for me, I used both, and quickly realised the potential of digital, especially printing – I was not irrevocably hooked on selenium or bromide. After a lifetime of fixing, making, selling and managing, I was done with going to work in the conventional sense. I retired from all of that and moved to South Africa in 2004 to become a professional fine art photographer.
I thought I was a good photographer, and sure enough, I was a seriously skilled amateur with some talent. The mistake I made was to think everyone in South Africa understood what fine art photography was and that they (the public) would feel the same as me about my work and buy – they didn't at first. It was a hard lesson, but it pushed me relentlessly over the last ten years to improve my technique, my artistic vision and my marketing skills. My real entry and subsequent success in selling my work came as a result of my dedication to my printing.
As stated in my artist statement, I have always believed, and worked with the concept of the final print in mind and considered it my artistic responsibility to articulate the seen image through to the final print. Printing for other photographers not only inspired me but, sustained my belief in my work and the love of landscape photography. Printing also made me realise that a Gallery was my goal, a dedicated centre for displaying and marketing actual work as opposed to the Internet.
This is not a story of exhibitions, awards and an incremental career – more a tortured stop-start erratic progression of self-belief and an obsession which I love and enjoy immensely.
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