David Ward - Landscape Photography - Into The Light

"Beauty pains and when it pained most, I shot" Ernst Haas

The notion of beauty is universal in human society, though it may be expressed differently in different cultures, yet for almost a century the high priests of Modernism have sought to deny its power. They have claimed that beauty is beguiling, deceptive, a product of mere surface appearance. These Modernists sought to apply science to art, to treat it as a purely intellectual pursuit. But for me art is about passion, something personified by beauty.

From the Ancient Greeks onward beauty has also been linked with truth as in the famous lines by John Keats:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know

It is this deeper meaning of beauty that I strive for in my images, a quality that demands and holds your attention. It's not at all the anodyne decorative quality celebrated in beauty contests. A photograph with this quality makes you see something fresh again, with the wonder of a child, and more importantly reveals something that you had never noticed before.