Gohlke the Sublime Photographic Art

Gohlke The Sublime Photographic Art of Frank Gohlke Frank Gohlke is considered one of the preeminent American landscape photographers of the late 20th and early 21st century. As manifest in "Between 165-05 and 165-09 85th Avenue" (2003), this photographer uses simple, seemingly unremarkable landscapes to evoke a subjective, visceral response in the viewer. Former subjects tackled by Gohlke include the beauty and remoteness of his native Midwest, and the contrast between serenity and turmoil after a natural disaster, such as in his photographs of the aftermath of the eruptions of Mt.

St. Helena and tornados (Watkinson 1984, p.260). Gohlke has described his use of the landscape in photography as a kind of still-life "theater" in which the "sublime can be experienced without embarrassment or irony," as the extremes of human and natural life are rendered meaningful and visible, but without special effects or adornment -- "gloom, terror, vastness, and awe" are the aesthetic characteristics of Gohlke's works, even though the subjects are often simple (Watkinson 1984, p.260).

Gohlke's subject is almost always how the natural, or in this case, the urban landscape is changed by human or natural intervention, even if his subjects are not overtly dramatic -- rather he encourages the viewer to see the drama inherent in landscapes, making subtle changes manifest even though he focuses on images that lack explicit "dramatic features and obvious human references" that "are easily overlooked" and would be taken for granted without being captured by his lens (Minichiello 1992, p.108).

Photographic truth for Gohlke is realized by showing 'the thing itself' but through a subjective perspective, accepting the contextual relativism of postmodernism without attempting to alter the piece with overt artistic tampering. Gohlke has long loved wilderness photography for its apparent purity, although he also obviously finds inspiration in the remote qualities of areas in cities. Gohlke focuses the viewer's intention on content and subject, not his technical virtuosity as a photographer or an imagined past history or connection to a larger history of art (Minichiello 1992, p.108).

The viewer's involvement and experience with the landscape on.