Peter Henry Emerson was a 19th Century British photographer intensely active beginning in the early 1880s, and ending about 1895, after which he photographed for his private consumption and did not publish. During his prime years he created a portfolio entitled “Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads,” a watery area near Yarmouth, north and east of London. He wrote a famous book on Naturalistic Photography, worth reading; however I learned most from direct study of his imagery. In a majority of photos he included figures in the landscape, people in action fishing or tending livestock. Occasionally he produced pure landscape compositions, still including a few cultural artifacts. He was a master at combining human and natural elements. He incorporates a strong diagonal — or multiple diagonals — in nearly every image, adds other hard straight lines, and blends this all beautifully with the irregular natural shapes of rivers and trees, sloughs and small lakes.

(You see above a modern scene from Owens Valley, California.)