For this project, which we will be working on until our exam at the beginning of May, we have been asked to explore the chosen word of ‘Environment’. Although we were given themes to start from in our provided exam papers, we have also been encouraged to interpret the word freely and really explore our individual ideas. For me, when thinking about the endless ways the word can be seen, I decided there was really only one thing I wanted to explore. Due to my future aspirations for a career in photography, I decided to concentrate this project on the wide area of environmental awareness. This kind of photography, along with conservational photography, can expose environmental problems like nothing else, it can help get people to care and maybe even make a change in themselves.

Fortunately, there is already a massive amount of research and statistics done about our local and global environment which will help inspire and inform my shoots. The specification for this exam project is to produce a final selection of inspired and beautiful photographs based of our own ideas. Although we are unsure at this time how these images will be presented, I would like to think of my project as a potential documentary e-book.  To explore the theme of environmental awareness I want to be using a mixture of abstract, staged and straight photography techniques. This is because although my main goal for this project is to inform my viewers about our islands pollution, I also want to intrigue them and make them think about our environment on a global scale. To sustain my work I will be looking at multiple resources, these not only being statistics and facts but also artistic approaches. The first artistic inspiration I will be gathering will be looking at photographers Gregg Segal and Steven Hirsch. I hope to interpret their artistic approach when also doing more serious documentary work. To also give my project more depth I will be trying to collect images from an archive to look more into the history of the subject. My initial inspiration for this project is the prospect of one day being a conservational photographer and using my work to perhaps make a difference.  Below Is a handwritten mind map with my ideas on how to portray the subject using both documentary and symbolic styles…

After figuring out what to base my project on and what to look at specifically in this mind map I next created a small mood board to show some of the subjects I want to capture and the themes I would like to represent. The hardest thing that I am going to attempt to portray is the ever-growing and terrible problem of loss of habitat. Although I will definitely still be able to show this with my receding landscapes idea, because of the size of our Island, I will not be capable of depicting it on a large-scale (like it is occurring all over the world). I hope to counteract this set back by using interesting perspectives and creating a sense of the grander scale of things outside of where we live. To do them I will be using different methods of straight and abstract photography, looking at things as they really are and creating symbols for big issues. These images below show some amazing ideas on how to beautifully portray such a grim subject. I chose to add them here to give a rough idea of how staged, and in the moment photographs can work together and give a wide depiction of these many global problems…– Mixture of stock images and other artists interpretations of this theme.