Seascape, 1955

In 1946, Wynn Bullock moved with his family to California’s Monterey Peninsula – a place famous both for its natural beauty and its artistic community. Bullock was profoundly inspired by fellow photographer Edward Weston, whom he met in 1948. Weston’s early mentorship guided Bullock’s reverent visual explorations of the landscape around California’s central coast. Wynn Bullock: Naturally online exhibition is at Laurence Miller Gallery until 30 June. All photographs: Wynn Bullock/1955/2021 Bullock Family Photography LLC

Boy Fishing, 1959

Bullock began introducing the human figure into his landscape photography in the 1950s. This proved instrumental in developing his unique voice as an artist

The Pilings, 1958

Wynn’s daughter, Barbara Bullock-Wilson, has devoted herself to distilling her father’s thoughts from written notes, conversations, articles and audio tapes. He once remarked: ‘My photography is the best way I know of bringing me closer to some of the mysteries of existence. To make a good picture is part of my search’

Lynne, Point Lobos, 1956

Barbara writes: ‘As an artist, Dad was never aloof from his family. Many of his well-known images were taken on family outings. Sometimes, he would go off and photograph by himself while Mom and I and my younger sister Lynne would explore the environment, collecting shells, rocks, leaves, driftwood. If we happened to be nearby, he would often invite us to look through the ground glass as he was creating his pictures. Occasionally during these outings, Dad would ask one of us to be a part of the photographs he was making’

The Mast, Cannery Row, 1968

‘Mysteries lie all around us, even in the most familiar things, waiting only to be perceived.’ Wynn Bullock

Cactus, 1958

‘Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say’

Woman and Dog in Forest, 1953

Bullock said that by photographing figures within his landscapes ‘I stopped thinking in terms of objects. I was seeing things instead as dynamic events, unique in their own beings yet also related and existing together within a universal context of energy and change’

Child and the Unknown, 1955

What emerged from Bullock’s work with figures in the landscape was a vision of human beings nested within a natural world that is at once wondrous and deeply mysterious

Point Lobos Rock, 1970

Bullock’s pictures are both tied to a particular time and place while at the same time speaking in universal terms

Rock, 1971

His embrace of nature as a source of profound truths is indelibly linked to the artistic communities that were drawn to the rugged beauty of the coastal landscape around Big Sur in California

Woman on Dunes, 1972

‘I totally disagree with the belief that nature was only made for the use of people. Human beings are not the centre of the universe, and, if they are to sustain themselves, it is vitally important for them to be awakened to how closely they are linked with the rest of nature’

Barbara through Window, 1956

Wynn Bullock’s photographs offer us wise counsel – suggesting that to understand nature is to understand ourselves, and that harmony is in embracing the truth that we are the same thing