What is Landscape- an Ohio Essay

excerpts from the blog Tales of a Bad “Geographer”, "So I'm Procrastinating, Dec 11, 2008, by Luke Badgerow, used with permission

What is Landscape?

I prefer to begin my stories in the middle, this way it gives me latitude to meander forward in the story through the “exciting parts” and fill in what details I need as I need them.

Not Sending weather, but ICE weather

I start with a photo of an element, or portion of a landscape. Not because the photo is the landscape, or that it contains the definitional element that I associate with what a landscape is. But more because of the fact that the image, and its relation to a number of others describes an ordering of reality from different angles.

This particular picture is of my dog, who has been a constant companion on nearly every outing I’ve made in the last six years, but more importantly this image is of the landscape, in the broader, vertical view, of a considerable portion of Southeast Ohio. The specific element or locale here is twenty feet off of the main trail, part of the Buckeye Trail that circumvents [sic] the entire state, but all the same many people don’t venture away from the cliff band and look out over this gully.

In March with four inches of snow and a veneer of veriglass ice on all rock surfaces, the hike to my perch takes around half an hour. In early December before the winter truly reaches into this hollow, the hike takes ten minutes. So time has played an important factor in the definition. Every place, every subject changes as time passes. This is as true for this particular place in the Hocking State Forest as it is for Lower Manhattan.

I draw attention to my perch one more time, only this time I take it from the valley /hollow floor on a day in April of last year as winter finally let go of its hold, but before spring gets complete control, to demonstrate a quick final point about the concept of defining landscape. I make this argument from a particular perspective or perception, but that perception changes, as does the weather, as the fog lifts from the valley floor, you still can’t see my spot… So who’s to say that it’s an actual place, or some fabrication of my mind? But at the same time, what difference does it make?

See So, I'm Procrastinating to read the entire, complex essay on Landscape.