Welsh landscape photochroms in the Library of Congress Flickr collection

[Roman bridge I, Bettws-y-Coed (i.e. Betws), Wales] (LOC), a photo by The Library of Congress on Flickr.

I was astonished to see a great many photochroms of Wales in the Library of Congress Flickr collection. They come from either an American or German company, both used a photolitho print process in the 1890-1910s. The colours and ways of seeing influenced landscape painting through the Great War and up to the 1950s. This photochrom shows the so-called Roman Bridge over the Afon Machno, near to Penmachno and Betws, an 18th-century bridge which just might re-use a Roman bridge location. Although the matter is obscured as the welsh for bridge is a Latin loan word, pont = pontus.

There are plenty of Scottish and Irish landscapes but -and this is probably a 21st-century sensibility- I assumed that Wales was less well known internatioonally, despite the country and landscape being close to my heart, as it was the holiday destination of choice for Blackcountry folk when (and where) I grew up.

Compare with a modern digital photo

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamishfenton/4205088231

See alo Percy Shakespeare Oil on Canvas "View from Artist's window" of Kates Hill from the Wren's Nest from http://www.lissfineart.com/display.php?KT_artists=Percy+Shakespeare  a painting style influenced by photochroms

Via Flickr:
[Roman bridge I, Bettws-y-Coed (i.e. Betws), Wales]

[between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900].

1 photomechanical print : photochrom, color.

Notes:Title from the Detroit Publishing Co., catalogue J--foreign section. Detroit, Mich. : Detroit Photographic Company, 1905.
Print no. "10533".
Forms part of: Views of landscape and architecture in Wales in the Photochrom print collection.

Subjects:Wales--Betws-y-Coed.
Wales--Snowdonia National Park.

Format: Photochrom prints--Color--1890-1900.

Rights Info: No known restrictions on reproduction.

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Part Of: Views of landscape and architecture in Wales (DLC) 2001700652

More information about the Photochrom Print Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.pgz

Persistent URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.07380

Call Number: LOT 13408, no. 044 [item]

Cornwall to get a Landscape Observatory, in advance of London.

It is a truism that major metropolitan centres consider themselves to be fast-paced and at the cutting edge of "what is happening", and universally they're the most parochial, small-minded and behind-the-times sort of places. Rather than surging forward, they act as sheet-anchors for a culture that is disappearing elsewhere. 
So too in the case of Landscape Observatories, where Cornwall is going to get one ahead of London - sometimes the advances take place in the periphery, (including the marginalised) and work there way by degrees to the centre. Not only is the Cornish Observatory from the geographical periphery of England, but also it is an initiative to integrate formerly marginalised youth into the process of landscape policy making. "The Cornwall Landscape Observatory is an exploratory project working to understand and implement the idea of appreciating landscape as an asset to help children and young people integrate into their disadvantaged neighbourhood; and secure access to their social rights" 
http://www.catpaisatge.net/docs/cornwall.pdf A seminar will launch the fledgling Observatory on Wednesday 30th November 2011 "Students from a variety of disciplines and age groups will introduce their perspectives on landscape followed by plenary sessions at this one-day seminar. The outcomes of the seminar will be placed on a dedicated website and we will work to develop a Cornish Landscape Observatory through our European connections."
Sponsored by The Centre for European Research within
Cornwall (CERES) and hosted by Truro College register your interest by email to Mr. John Fleet of the CERES secretariat at: johnfleet1924@btinternet.com

West Midlands "Heart of Landscape" and London?

An interesting example of attempts to implement the European Landscape convention is the West Midlands Heart of Landscape website , which facilitates public participation in landscape policies by allowing folk to highlight aspects that they like. There's also a "Heart of Landscape" booklet  to accompany the website and provide policy background.

Where are the opportunities for Londoners to express their priorities about the London Landscape?  Are not the 7million+ Londoners denied their treaty-rights to participate in Landscape Policies, by law? and mightn't this be actionable by court action in Europe?  London better get it's act together.

Meanwhile, Laura Oldfield Ford's Psychogeographic Blog provides one of the few inciteful commentaries on the London Landscape