Winding rivers through green fields of lush vegetation; patches of fields with straight lines made by agricultural equipment; main roads passing through exciting farmland; farmer’s crops creating incredible patterns – these are the stunning images we see in our areal photographer Lasse Tur’s book, “Norwegian Cultural Landscapes”.
Professional photographer Lasse Tur’s academic agricultural background often comes into play when he is in the air on behalf of a customer or while creating images for one of his books, during which time he often sees and captures exciting Norwegian cultural landscapes.
After more than 6,000 hours in the air, Tur had accumulated collection of cultural landscape motives, enough for a book. The only problem he had was what the title of such a book should be:
Should the book be titled “Agricultural landscapes”? No, agriculture is producing crops like wheat, potatoes and corn. Perhaps “Norwegian Horticulture”? No, such a title was too limited.
After searching for the title, among other sources in Wikipedia, he decided on “Cultural Landscapes”, which by definition is a landscape created by human activity, not a virgin landscape.
“Sometimes it was difficult to catch the particular landscapes because of background and light,” says Lasse. “The cover photo of the book illustrates one of the more successful challenges. When I returned over that field later that day the light had disappeared and it would hardly have been a motif worth capturing.”
See other books by photographer Lasse Tur here.
The book has become as much a photo book as a book with a collection of photographs of cultural landscapes.
“My images are design oriented. By minimizing the object in the motif I have in many cases reinforced them,” explains Lasse. “I have also concerned on what people like best, by among other things following different Facebook communities. It is quite obvious that spectacular images, bright colors and few objects belong to their favorites.”
An image from Enebakk, outside Oslo, on page 2, is a good illustration. On page 11 you may see a combination of simplicity in form with several nuances. On page 18 two power pylons is a part of the composition. On page 24 the Laerdal mountains give enormous dimensions to the landscape. On page 28 and 29 is a picture showing two agricultural vessels in a huge field. “A very popular image,” Lasse points out.
“There is no message in my book,” says Lasse Tur. “It is just a collection of my pictures.”
All photos: Lasse Tur, except portrait of Tur by Tor Kjolberg