There is an apocryphal story of the painter J.M.W. Turner having himself lashed to a mast during a storm and deciding that if he survived the experience he was bound to record it. I say apocryphal for it appears that Turner was as good a showman as he was a painter. It is a story that sticks, an unctuous and oily legacy despite Turner’s light hand with paint, to any attempting to work with landscape, even photographers. There is a demand that nature must be experienced so that it can be translated, it must be seen as wild, irrepressible and above all sublime.
