Since looking at the beautiful and informative work of Gregg Segal I was really inspired to go ahead with my first shoot. Using this same kind of stage photography I hope to capture equally as meaningful images that may even inspire change. My first idea for this project is to use a studio setting to depict a strongly symbolic piece, clearly demonstrating some of our most common pollution issues.
The first subject I would like to tackle in this way is the number of cigarette butts there is littering the environment compared to other waste. Later in this project, I will explore this same topic from a photojournalistic point of view to show its effect on our island. The reason I feel this issue needs to be brought to light and clearly represented is the pure fact that over 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered worldwide each year. As well as this, each of these cigarette butts can take anywhere from two to twenty-five years to biodegrade. 80% of them that are thrown on the ground find their way into our water systems and detract from the quality of our drinking water. Cigarette butts can leach chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into our marine environment within an hour of contact with water. They have also been found in the stomachs of fish, whales, birds and other marine animals which lead to ingestion of hazardous chemicals and digestive blockages. I believe, using studio techniques and symbolism, I will be able to get across the gravity of this common pollution problem. Below is my plan of action as well as two quick sketches of my original ideas for how I want these photographs to look…My goal for these two shoots is to portray a really symbolic representation of the growing problem of cigarette waste that is produced each year. These two sketches above show an idea of what I want my final results to look like. On the left shows a dirty and greasy hand surrounded with discarded cigarettes on a black background. As well as cigarette butts I will be adding a very small amount of other rubbish to compare with the amount of waste produced by smoking. By using a dirty human hand I am symbolising man-kinds connection to this issue. The image on the right will be a depiction of a flower growing from a pile of cigarettes with a black background. This is an obvious symbol of man vs nature and the problem this pollution is causing.
My plan of action for these two shoots is to use a home-studio of black paper, black fabric and a LED light to capture dark and emotive outcomes. In this ‘studio’ I will use a male model’s hand, a fake flower, cigarette buts and other waste in the way I have presented in my sketches above. The reason I want to use a man’s hand is because men are more obvious symbols of ‘mankind’ and also tend to smoke more than women. The hand is also a symbol of our species and what sets us apart from other animals as well as being what allows use to damage the environment so much. To create the greasy marks I want on the model’s hand I will use acrylic paints and capture the image whilst it is still wet. For the flower shoot I will be using a fake flower, as to not poison its soil, and a pile of waste to spread around the base. I like this idea as it is a really nice representation of the chemical damage cigarettes can do to plants and animals. These shoots are heavily inspired by Gregg Segal and his beautiful staged portrayals of the problem of household waste. Below I have added three images that show the dark tone, different subjects and style of images I am hoping to capture…
Within my new project of Environment, I wish to ultimately explore the various significant factors within my life. This varies from birth and my early years of life, through to adolescence into the point I am fast approaching now, adulthood.
Of course, I wish to present this through imagery. I am essentially attempting to tell a story, although I do not wish for this to be obvious. I want to explore various significant factors within my life, within the different shoots that I take. For example, significant people within my life or interests.
Within these shoots, my intentions are to photograph in such a way that is raw and real. Capturing true moments in order to really display a real representation of my own life, as well as the people and environment I surround myself within. Me myself, will not be the subject of my images, as I wish to use other people within my life in order to tell my story, for example the way in which one will act in front of me and the camera will help to convey a sense of the relationship I share with the subject.
ENVIRONMENT: When i think about environment, i think about the contrast between real jungles and the urban jungles, in the sense that urbanization is taking over the world and real jungles seem to be disappearing daily. Animals that were here before us, are getting killed for our pleasure and so that our population can grow even though it is clear that if we keep growing, the forests and jungles will decrease and so will our oxygen. Many people forget that we rely on our environment for clean air that we can breath that doesn’t kill us. The less trees, the more carbon dioxide which will lead to carbon dioxide poisoning and so on.
Many people believe that global warming isn’t real or that it isn’t going to effect but sadly it is going to effect the entire world and it already has. The snow gaps are melting as our air warms, this means gallons of water pouring into our oceans daily which is rising our sea level. Soon islands which we used to visit will no longer exist, New York will get permanently flooded but Jersey will be first.
Pollution is one of the biggest problems facing the earth, everything that it destroying our planet stems from pollution. Cars, Planes, Boats, Buses, Motorbikes etc.. all contribute to pollution as well as our electricity, our lights. Light pollution is real, when you look up at the sky and you wonder why you can’t see any stars this is because the light our island omits blocks out the stars. China is one of the primary sources for pollution, they have to wear masks to protect themselves, they do not often get to see blue sky, it is just grey now. Clouds are permanently over China due to the amount of cars and other vehicles on the roads 24/7 and the population of China is overcrowded and is still growing.
The government controls everything in our life and nothing we can do can change their mind on either building new houses and new offices. They will do as they please and do not care about the environment as they live in their luxury houses, waited on hand and foot and drink wine and champagne on a daily basis and they believe nothing can touch them. Well sadly carbon dioxide poisoning can magically bypass walls and windows, global warming doesn’t just effect the population who aren’t part of the government and the privileged. They will listen to no one as they only care about making money and the only way to do that is by destroying our environment and building houses and offices which people and companies will pay a lot of money to live in. However, what happens to the animals? where do they go? Do we have the right to destroy their environment just because we are classed as the superior race? If it weren’t for animals, we wouldn’t be here so we are basically killing our ancestors for money.
My first idea has originated from photographs created by Alex Hofford about Chinese people and the pollution in China. He created images with individuals wearing gas masks in ordinary places. I have been fascinated with the rate of pollution for a while as no matter what people seem to do, it doesn’t go down, this is mostly because the government controls everything and activists will never be able to get their message across to them.
This is why my first idea for my exam is to create a series of images which will be a set of 3 sequenced images going from a vivid image of an individual looking happy in a beautiful place on the island, the next image will be them wearing a white mouth and nose mask and the image will be in black and white but with low contrast so that it is not dark. The final image in the sequence will be the individual wearing a full face gas mask and the image will be very dark in black and white with high contrast and low exposure to add drama and to show the deterioration of our air.
A ‘Clean Air Network’ handout photo shows a primary school student wearing a gas mask in the street in Hong Kong to protest against the city’s high levels of roadside air pollution caused by diesel fumes from buses, trucks and minibuses, Hong Kong, China, 30 June 2010.
My second idea involves making comparisons between urban and natural environments. Real jungle vs Urban jungle. Creating images using trees then replicating them with the urban environment of Jersey. Which feels more like home to you? I will be creating dramatic images in either black and white or in vivid colour to represent the contrast/ the resemblance between them. I would also like to photograph images of trees cut down or damaged and make a comparison between building sites in the sense that trees are falling down/ being cut down whilst we are building things up. I will visit places in Jersey such as St Catherine’s and look up at trees and create images using the trees then go to town in Jersey and recreate these images using buildings instead of trees.
My third idea came from me seeing an image of a environment with a wine glass in the middle which flipped the environment upside down. I researched this photograph and found a photographer called Steve Brownstein, who created a book called the art of wine, in which he held up a glass filled with wine to different environments which flipped them upside. I think this could symbolizes that we need to look at our environment from a different perspective, the entire world needs to. The roles which humans play need to be flipped upside down as we need to start looking after and re-building our environment instead of destroying it. I could use clear water to represent those who are aware of the effects we have on our environment and blurry water to represent those who’s vision is clouded by money and who do not see the damage we are causing.
AO1 – Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
To achieve an A or A*-grade you must demonstrate an Exceptional ability (Level 6) through sustained and focused investigations achieving 16-18 marks out of 18.
Get yourself familiar with the assessment grid here:
To develop your ideas further from initial research of mind-maps and mood-boards on the themes ENVIRONMENT you need to be looking at the work of others (artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, theoreticians, historians etc) and write a specification with 2-3 unique ideas that you want to explore further.
Follow these steps to success!
Research and analyse the work of at least 2-3 (or more) photographers/ artists. Produce at least 2-3 blog posts for each artist reference that illustrate your thinking and understanding using pictures and annotation and make a photographic response to your research into the work of others
Produce a mood board with a selection of images.
Provide analysis of their work and explain why you have chosen them and how it relates to your idea and the exam theme of ENVIRONMENT
Select at least 2 key images and analyse in depth, FORM (composition, use of light etc), MEANING (interpretation, subject-matter, what is the photographer trying to communicate), JUDGEMENT (evaluation, how good is it?), CONTEXT (history and theory of art/ photography/ visual culture,link to other’s work/ideas/concept)
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, text, books etc.
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post
Plan at least 2-3 shoots as a response to the above where you explore your ideas in-depth.
Edit shoots and show experimentation with different adjustments/ techniques/ processes in Lightroom/ Photoshop
Reflect and evaluate each shoot afterwards with thoughts on how to refine and modify your ideas i.e. experiment with images in Lightroom/Photoshop, re-visit idea, produce a new shoot, what are you going to do differently next time? How are you going to develop your ideas?
To help you get started look at the starting points in the Exam paper on pages 22-25 under Photography. Look also at other disciplines such as, Fine Art, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, Three-dimensional design – often you will find some interesting ideas here.
However don’t just rely on these pages and starting points in the exam paper. Often those students that achieve the highest marks are those that think outside the box and find their own unique starting points.
Here is a folder EXAM 2017 with a lot of PPTs about varioues genres and approaches to photography: USE IT !!
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\EXAM 2017
Here are some thoughts from me on different artists whose work makes link and references to the theme of ENVIRONMENT.
Chris Jordan: Midway Message from the Gyre
Definition in dictionary (noun):
1. the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
2. the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity.
synonyms:
the natural world, nature, the living world, the world, the earth, the ecosystem, the biosphere, Mother Nature, Gaia;
wildlife, flora and fauna, the countryside, the landscape
This broad definition encompass almost everything and the obvious approach to thinking about the environment is a place. However the concept of an environment can be interpreted in different ways.
Physical – observed and recorded environment Psychological – constructed and imagined environment
Using binary opposites we can divide these environment into;
nature/ culture light/ darkness east/ west
exterior/ interior private/ public masculin/ feminine
During AS Landscape project we explored exactly this is we began by looking at Romanticism in landscape photography as exemplified by Ansel Adams and his contemporaries in Group f/64 and ended up with questioning this overtly idealised monochrome aesthetics with the advent of New Topographics in the mind 1970s – a group of photographers questioning the prevailing monochrome and romanticised aesthetic of depicting nature at it most sublime and beautiful by making images of the urban man-made world.
As A2 students we want you to develop the binary concepts of natural vs man-altered environments and combine this with what you have learned during A2 in terms of documentary and narrative and incorporate your understanding of storytelling and use of archives to enrich your photographic study.
Sea / Coast / Marine Environment In the Photographic Archive at the Society Jersiaise there are significant works by early Jersey landscape and architectural photographers such as Thomas Sutton
Remains of ruined coastal defence tower, Tour du Sud, La Carrière, St Ouen’s Bay, Jersey. Plate from Souvenir de Jersey, published 1854.
Other photographesr in the Photo-Archive who explored Jersey landscapes, topographical views, town, countryside, build-environments etc . Samuel Poulton, Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith , Edwin Dale, AK Lawson, Paul Martin, Godfray, Frith (put in surnames first for searching online catalogue here.
Baudoux, Ernest. View of Victoria College, St Saviour, with boys standing informally outside
Gustave Le Gray (French 1820 –1884) was an early pioneer of seascapes.
Combination printing, creating seascapes by using one negative for the water and one negative for the sky at a time where it was impossible to have at the same time the sky and the sea on a picture due to the too extreme luminosity range. Combination printing was an early experiment of HDR photography where you expose for bright and dark areas of a landscape scene.
Contemporary approaches to views of horizons between sky and sea, see inspiration from Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto whose monochrome images are minimalist and spiritual in their expression.
If you intend to explore sea landscapes you must do contextual research in relation to the art movement of Romanticism – see below. Technically you must make images exploring diverse quality of light, expansive views and weather patterns at different times of the day. Make sure to use a tripod, cable release and apply exposure bracketing and experiment with HDR techniques in post-production. Other techniques such as panoramic images and Hockney ‘joiners’ and Typology studies are also appropriate.
Jersey west coast has unique identity and geography. For many it is place of refuse from work, school and where they go for relaxation, leisure, beach, surfing, walking. If we think about Jersey and an island surrounded by water and with a one of the fastest tidal moments in the world you can look at photographers who has explored the notion of sea or water in interesting ways.
Michael Marten: Sea Change Excellent use of diptych and triptych and exploring low vs high tides to see how it changes a landscape scene
Mark Power: The Shipping Forecats Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the shipping forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4. For those at, or about to put to sea, the forecast may mean the difference between life and death. InThe Shipping Forecast, Mark Power documents the 31 sea areas covered by the forecast,
Subject of water – both studies done on the Thames River in London
Roni Horn: Dictionary of Water
Water is a series of photographs of the surface of the Thames. It is ever-changing: now swirling, now scrunched like black tin foil, now in Turneresque lemon and flame colours, now plucked up into dune shapes. Each is annotated with tiny numbers, which refer to footnotes. The footnotes, hundreds in total, worry away in small type under the images – they happen, in other words, under the surface, and concern what the water suggests and conceals. (“Black water is sexy. / What is water? / What do you know about water? Only that it’s everywhere differently. / Disappearance: that’s why suicides are attracted to it. / You can’t talk about water without talking about oneself. / Down at the river I shot my baby.”)
[no title] 1999 Roni Horn born 1955Mark Dion:Archeaology
Archaeological excavations aren’t limited to ancient Egypt or Stone Age villages. In 1999 during the Tate Thames Dig artist Mark Dion and volunteers collected found objects from the river bed and displayed in the cabinets.
Tate Thames Dig 1999 Mark Dion born 1961 Purchased with assistance from private benefactors 2000 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T07669
Nature as Environment: In their most recent collection of work, The Meadow, photographers Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelley explore the connections and relationships formed between humans and the natural world. Over the course of a decade, the two have taken numerous photographs of an area of land in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Combined with Kelley’s writing, the collaborative project resulted in this uniquely-crafted work. The land they have chosen serves as an ideal subject, composed of paths and abandoned farmland reclaimed by the vibrant foliage.
The Meadow Barbara Bosworth
Embodying a diaristic style, the final product has the feeling of a handcrafted scrapbook recollected from someone’s bookshelf. Tucked as if by accident between the pages are small booklets bearing the photographers’ experiences, and the occasional fold-out triptych which embellishes the arts-and-crafts vibe. A detailed appendix documents the numerous foliage, fungi, and pebbles found during the exploration of the meadow. They even transcribe the logs of the previous property owner, who chronicled day-to-day the teeming life he discovered on a series of wooden doors.
Finn Larsen, Tracks
Walking 50 km of a train track from one end to another over a 5 year period in different seasons and light recorded the landscape along a track that you ordinary only would see in fleeting glimpses travelling at high speed.
Other who has explored nature vs man-made environments within a confined parameters albeit on a much larger scale is Richard Misrach who for decades have photographed the border and desert like terrain between the USA and Mexico. See books Violent Legacies and his latest installment Border Cantos – a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man’s complex relationship to it in a unique collaboration with composer and performer Guillermo Galindo.
The Wall, Jacumba, California an image Misrach captured in 2009.
Galindo fashions instruments to be performed as unique sound-generating devices. He also imagines graphic musical scores, many of which also use Misrach’s photographs as points of departure. A unique melding of the artist as documentarian and interpreter, the book will include several suites of photographs drawn from a number of distinct series, or Cantos―some made with a large-format camera as well as an iPhone.
Culture as Environments
Within the history of landscape photography the wild west hold a particular fascination in the minds of early explorers, settlers, scientist and artists. Early landscape photographers include Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton E. Watkins and William Henry Jackson whose work was a major influence on people like Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White
Timothy Taylor
In American cinema the advent of the genre, Westerns where frontiers people battle native American indians against a backdrop of sublime Grand Canyon. Another more serene rendition of the American West can be seen in the road movie Paris, Texas by filmmaker Wim Wenders – who also uses photography for location shoots and photographic books.
Wim Wenders
Others who has explored the unique landscape of the wild west or America’s deep South is John Divola, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Richard Misrach, Ron Jude, William Eggleston
We looked at Alec Soth during the Documentary module as a poetic lyrical story-teller who combines landscapes, portraits, still-lives and other visual material in his photo books.
By way of a follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi (reveals the unique characters and landscapes Soth encountered during a series of road trips along the Mississippi River) Alec Soth turns his eye to another iconic body of water, Niagara Falls. And as with his photographs of the Mississippi, these images are less about natural wonder than human desire. “I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,” says Soth, “the relentless thunder of the Falls just calls for big passion.”
Alec Soth: Niagara
Alec Soth Niagara
Using a large-format 8×10 camera like Ansel Adams Soth worked over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls. He depicts newlyweds and naked lovers, motel parking lots, pawnshop wedding rings and love letters from the subjects he photographed. We read about teenage crushes, workplace affairs, heartbreak and suicide.
Theo Gosselin goes on roadtrip with his friends and make a set of images evoking a cinematic quality
Theo Goselin Sans Limites
Ron Jude: Lick Creek Line
Lick Creek Line extends and amplifies Ron Jude’s ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction. In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and
beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States. Through converging pictures of
landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretiveprocess of trapping pine marten for their pelts, Lick Creek Line underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.
Ron Jude
Typology means the study and interpretation of types and became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art. They were interested in the basic forms of these architectural structures and referred to them as ‘Anonyme Skulpturen’ (Anonymous Sculptures.)
The Becher’s were influenced by the work of earlier German photographers linked to the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s such as August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert-Renger-Patzsch.
August SanderKarl BlosfeldtAlbert-Renger-Patzsch
See also the work by Americans, William Christenberry and Ed Ruscha’s photographic works on types e.g. Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1964). Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966). Or Idris Khan‘s appropriation of Bechers’ images.
Ed Ruscha, 26 Gasoline Stations
William ChristenberryIdris Khan
See previous blog post for more guidelines and a photo-assignment.
Not least of the Bechers’ legacy is their lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists who use the photographic medium today, most notably the students taught by Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy between 1976 and 1996. Among his most renowned students are Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth.
Andreas GurkstThomas Struth born 1954 Ferdinand-von-Schill-Strasse, Dessau 1991 1991Thomas RuffCandia Hofer
From Germany, apart form the legacy of the Dusseldorf Kunst Akademie headed by the Becher’s another school of photography, the Werkstatt für Fotografie (Workshop for Photography) was founded in Berlin by Michael Schmidt who invited several leading American photographers, including William Eggleston and John Gossage, to teach there.
Michael Schmidt Waffenrufe
Responding to the wall between East and West in Berlin Schmidt produced a seminal work, Waffenrufe. Another body of work Berlin Nach 45 show empty streets of East Berlin made in the early hours as a quite testament to post war German architecture and urban city planning
Conceptual approaches to natural/ man-made environments
Tanja Deman is a Croation artists who will be Archisle’s International Photographer-in-Residence in 2017.
Her art is inspired by her interest in the perception of space, physical and emotional connection to a place and her relationship to nature. Her works, incorporating photography, collage, video and public art, are evocative meditations on urban space and landscape. Observing recently built legacy or natural sites her work investigates the sociology of space and reflects dynamics hidden under the surface of both the built and natural environment.
Tanja Deman Fernweh
Fernweh series explores the concept of a modernist city through its extreme relations to the landscape. The images are placed on a blurred line between a past which reminds us of a future and a future which looks like a past. Scenes are referring to the modernist ideas and aspiration of a man conquering the natural wild land and subordinating it to the rational order, and the consequences of those aspirations, which switched into the longing for an escape from urban environments.
Tanja Deman Collected Narratives
Collective Narratives is a series staging a moment of contemplation of nature and built environment. Natural spectacles, framed in theatrical space are contemplated by an audience. These constructed images consolidate: geological formations; a projection of an urban environment; an arena; a deep chasm; a theatre and a crumbling slag-heap through a very active kind of watching.
While making the series ‘Collective Narratives’ I was interested in different types of spectatorship and architectural settings in which they are taking place. Moreover, the notion of a ritual in which a large group of people gathers and participates in order to experience something together by observing, intrigued me. I see these spaces for cultural and sports spectacles, as zones of pure potential, where the world must be rebuilt or re-imagined every time they are in use. Having liberated them from their utilitarian, commercial restrains, and the environments in which they were created, I allow them to cross the boundary of reality.
Together these scenes examine time and the strange modes of spectatorship attached to the inanimate world. A collective witnessing of phenomena that are usually experienced in private atmospheres.
Staged / Constructed Environments Land art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs
Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty
Land art was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous land art work is Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty of 1970, an earthwork built out into the Great Salt Lake in the USA. Though some artists such as Smithson used mechanical earth-moving equipment to make their artworks, other artists made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape such as Richard Long who simply walked up and down until he had made a mark in the earth.
A Line in the Himalayas 1975, printed 2004 Richard Long born 1945 Presented by the artist (Building the Tate Collection) 2005 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12035
Land art, which is also known as earth art, was usually documented in artworks using photographs and maps which the artist could exhibit in a gallery. Land artists also made land art in the gallery by bringing in material from the landscape and using it to create installations.
Parallel Stress 1970 Dennis Oppenheim
As well as Richard Long and Robert Smithson, key land artists include Hamish Fulton, Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheimand Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Hamish Fulton(born 1946) is a British walking artist. Since 1972 he has only made works based on the experience of walks.
Wind through the Pines 1985, 1991 Hamish Fulton born 1946
William Christenberry making typological studies of vernacular architecture traditional to the deep American South.
Christenberry also made little sculptures or 3D models of some of the buildings he had photographed
Photography and sculpture
Photographic installations which are site specific and 3-dimensional is very in vogue right now. In the exam paper starting point 4 is about artists exploring the material nature of a photographic image and the idea that photographs can be sculptural. Here are a few artists to explore
Felicity Hammond is an emerging artist who works across photography and installation. Fascinated by political contradictions within the urban landscape her work explores construction sites and obsolete built environments.
The Space Between @ ART ROTTERDAM 2017
The Space Between @ ART ROTTERDAM 2017
In specific works Hammond photographs digitally manipulated images from property developers’ billboards and brochures and prints them directly onto acrylic sheets which are then manipulated into unique sculptural objects. http://www.felicityhammond.com/
Lorenzo Venturi: Dalston Anatomy
Lorenzo Vitturi’s vibrant still lifes capture the threatened spirit of Dalston’s Ridley Road Market. Vitturi – who lives locally – feels compelled to capture its distinctive nature before it is gentrified beyond recognition. Vitturi arranges found objects and photographs them against backdrops of discarded market materials, in dynamic compositions. These are combined with street scenes and portraits of local characters to create a unique portrait of a soon to be extinct way of life.
His installation at the Gallery draws on the temporary structures of the market using raw materials, sculptural forms and photographs to explore ideas about creation, consumption and preservation.
Watch our exclusive interview with Lorenzo.
Boyd Webb (born 1947) is a New Zealand-born visual artist who works in the United Kingdom, mainly using the medium of photography although he has also produced sculpture and film. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1988. He has had solo shows at venues including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
Boyd Webb Abyssogramme, 1983
Initially he worked as a sculptor, making life casts of people in fibreglass and arranging them into scenes. He eventually turned to photography and his early work played with ideas of the real and the imagined. Through mysterious and elaborate compositions created using actors and complex sets built by the artist in his studio. In later years his focus shifted to a cool observational style, his work less theatrical and technique less elaborate.
James Casebere pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. For the last thirty years, Casebere has devised increasingly complex models that are subsequently photographed in his studio. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table-sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Casebere’s abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative and oftentimes suggestive of prior events, encouraging the viewer to reconstitute a narrative or symbolic reading of his work.
Caspar David FriedrichJames Casebere
While earlier bodies of work focused on American mythologies such as the genre of the western and suburban home, in the early 1990s, Casebere turned his attention to institutional buildings. In more recent years, his subject matter focused on various institutional spaces and the relationship between social control, social structure and the mythologies that surround particular institutions, as well as the broader implications of dominant systems such as commerce, labor, religion and law.
Thomas Demand studied with the sculptor Fritz Schwegler, who encouraged him to explore the expressive possibilities of architectural models at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Bernd and Hilla Becher had recently taught photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer. Like those artists, Demand makes mural-scale photographs, but instead of finding his subject matter in landscapes, buildings, and crowds, he uses paper and cardboard to reconstruct scenes he finds in images taken from various media sources. Once he has photographed his re-created environments—always devoid of figures but often displaying evidence of recent human activity—Demand destroys his models, further complicating the relationship between reproduction and original that his photography investigates.
Christian Boltanski(born 1944) is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style. Boltanski’s subject matters are history and life duration. Vulnerability is his strength, and reflecting upon absence is his way to express his passion for what is real. And so Boltanski builds his own archives, moves shadows around the gallery space, or brings forgotten memories back to the surface through the eyes and faces of strangers that emerge from found photographs; he synchronizes the sound of the human heartbeat to the rhythm of history; he creates settings with old clothing so that individual stories may not be dispersed; he investigates fate and challenges, through irony, the transience of things to propose the art of time.
The Reserve of Dead Swiss 1990 Christian Boltanski born 1944 Presented by the Fondation Cartier 1992 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T06605
Anette Messenger
Letha Wilson Marlo Pascual
Environment and Street Photography
Classical approaches between the flaneur (Cartier-Bresson) and confrontational (William Klein) see – previous blog post and ppt here.
Within the context of environment lets look at: Eamon Doyle – Dublin Trilogy Richard Wentworth vs Eugene Agtet Michael Wolf Peter Bialobrzeski: Cairo Diaries Kyler Zeleny: Out West John MaClean: Two and Two, Hometown, New Colour Guide Lee Friedlander: America by Car Antonio Olmos: The Landscape of Murder Jason Larkin: Waiting
Christopher Anderson: Capitolio Capitolio is New York documentary photographer Christopher Anderson’s cinematic journey through the upheavals of contemporary Caracas, Venezuela, in the tradition of such earlier projects as William Klein’s New York (1954-55) and Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958). It presents a poetic and politicized vision, by one of today’s finest documentary photographers, of a city and a country that is ripping apart at the seams under the stress of popular unrest, and whose turmoil remains largely unreported by Western media.
Abstraction with a city environment: Saul Leiter Ernst Haas Nagoya Hatakoeyama: River Series Stephen Gill: Talking to Ants, other projects Siegfried Hansen: Hold the Line Antonio M. Xoubanova: A Small Universe
A Small Universe is my imagining of the universe in 2.5 seconds and 10 linear metres of street.” “The project is a 2.5-second-long feature film comprised of images and sequences which reference the beginning of things – technology, religion, the universe, the street, love, matter and its different forms, the basics of the human condition, contemporaneity, advertising and the end of existence.” “The images in the book represent a space according to their size; they are containers of time. An image captured at 1/40 second shutter speed is physically 10 times larger than another shot at 1/400 second. The size of each image is determined by the amount of time it contains. The book is therefore an attempt to materialize something as minimal, abstract and complex as 2.5 seconds of existence – a fragment of matter, or a small space.” “If the universe is defined as the total sum of all matter, time and space, this book of “street photography” is the attempt to address a controlled universe and the elements it contains, which in the end reveal themselves to be complex and uncontrollable.”
Focusing on people, faces and private space Satoshi Fujiwara: Code Unknown
City or nature at twilight/ night
Awoiska van der Molen: Sequester Christen Lebas: Blue Hour Todd Hido Rut Blees Luzembourg Bill Henson Maciej Dakowicz: Cardiff After Night Richard Renaldi: Tales of a City Ken Schles: Night Walk Chris Shaw: Life as a Night Porter (link to Sophie Calle) Oscar Monzón: Karma – takes a voyeuristic look through the car window.
Case-study: Environment as one site
Anders Petersen: Cafe Lehmitz Krass Clement: DRUM Klaus Pichler: Golden Days before they End Andrew Miksys: Disko Ciaran Og Arnold: I went to the worst of bars…
Environment as a Personal or Psychological space
Cindy Sherman: film-stills
– image hanging of door – girl who committed suicide Claude Cahun Elina Brothers Patrick Willocq
Anne Hardy Robert Frank – recent work such as his trilogy: You Would, Park/Sleep and Ta UF, Tal AB
staged environments (tableaux)
Tom Hunter, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michaels, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg
Environments for animals:
Raymond Meeks: Animal Shelter Nico Baumgarten: How the Other half lives Christopher Nunn: Ukranian Street Dogs Gary Winograd: The Animals
Documentary vs Staged Photography
If we examine documentary truth (camera as witness) versus a staged photograph (tableaux photography) all sorts of questions arise that are pertinent to consider as an image maker. Remember our discussion we had at the beginning of September when we began module of Documentary and Narrative. We discussed a set of images submitted at the World Press Photo competition on 2015.
Tableaux Photography and the Staged photograph
Tableaux photography is a style of photography in which a pictorial narrative is conveyed through a single image as opposed to a series of images which tell a story such as in photojournalism and documentary photography. This style is sometimes also referred to as ‘staged’ or ‘constructed photography’ and tableaux photographs makes references to fables, fairy tales, myths and unreal and real events from a variety of sources such as paintings, film, theatre, literature and the media. Tableaux photographs offer a much more ambiguous and open-ended description of something that are subjective to interpretation by the viewer. Tableaux photographs are mainly exhibited in fine art galleries and museums where they are considered alongside other works of art.
Tom Hunter, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Duane Michaels, Sam Taylor Johnson (former Sam Taylor-Wood), Hannah Starkey, Tracy Moffatt, Vibeke Tandberg, William Wegman.
Tom Hunter, Eviction order after VermeerJeff Wall Invisible ManGregory Crewdson Twilight
Watch video behind the scenes of Gregory Crewdson shoot
See my PPT om Tableaux Photography for more details
Mishka Henner, Trevor Paglen, Doug Rickard, Daniel Mayrit all use found images from the internet, Google earth and other satellites images as a way to ask questions and raise awareness about our environment, state operated security facilities, social and urban neighbour hoods, prostitution, and London’s business leaders of major international financial institutions.
Mishka Henner, Levelland Oil Field- Texas
US oil fields photographed by satellites orbiting Earth.
Mishka Henner Dutch Landscapes
Mishka Henner: I’m not the only one, 2015
Single channel video, 4:34 mins
Photographer Trevor Paglen has long made the advanced technology of global surveillance and military weaponry his subject. This year he has been nominated for the prestigious The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize which aims to reward a contemporary photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution (exhibition or publication) to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year. The Prize showcases new talents and highlights the best of international photography practice. It is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. Read more here
Trevor Paglen
Doug Rickard is a north American artist / photographer. He uses technologies such as Google Street View and YouTube to find images, which he then photographs on his monitor, to create series of work that have been published in books, exhibited in galleries.
Months after the London Riots in 2008 (at the beginning of the economical crash) the Metropolitan Police handed out leaflets depicting youngsters that presumably took part in riots. Images of very low quality, almost amateur, were embedded with unquestioned authority due both to the device used for taking the photographs and to the institution distributing those images. But in reality, what do we actually know about these people? We have no context or explanation of the facts, but we almost inadvertently assume their guilt because they have been ‘caught on CCTV’.
In his awarding book: You Haven’s Seen the Faces.. Daniel Mayrit appropriated the characteristics of surveillance technology using Facebook and Google to collect images of the 100 most powerful people in the City of London (according to the annual report by Square Mile magazine in 2013). The people here featured represent a sector which is arguably regarded in the collective perception as highly responsible for the current economic situation, but nevertheless still live in a comfortable anonymity, away from public scrutiny.
See also this book Looters by Tiane Doan Na Champassak
Photography and Performance
Tableaux photography always have an element of performing for the camera and the exam themes lend themselves really well to revisit Performance in Photography and explore fantasy, fiction, parody, alter-ego, identity etc. Read my blog post from last Summer when we were exploring Tom Pope’s practice in Photography and Performance and the themes of Chance, Change and Challenge . You should be able to find some starting points here
For example, write a manifesto with a set of rules (6-10) that provide a framework for your performance related project. Describe in detail how you are planning on developing your work and ideas. Think about what you want to achieve, what you want to communicate, how your ideas relate to the themes of Truth, Fantasy or Fiction and how you are going to approach this task in terms of form, technique and subject-matter.
A list of art movements that you may use as contextual research. Many of them also produced Manifestos:
Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism, Situationism, Neo-dadaism, Land/Environmental art, Performance art/Live art, Conceptualism, Experimental filmmaking/ Avant-garde cinema (those studying Media make links with your unit on Experimental film)
Here are a list of artists/ photographers that may inspire you:
Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Yves Klein, Bas Jan Ader, Erwin Wurm, Chris Arnatt, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Francis Alÿs, , Sophie Calle , Nikki S Lee, Claude Cahun, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, Allan Kaprow, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade, Andy Warhol’s film work, Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Marina Abramovic, Pipilotti Rist, Luis Bunuel/ Salvatore Dali: , Le Chien Andalou, Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera
images
Photography and Sculpture:
Images produced through transformation of materials and making things to be photographed. See work by: Lorenzo Vitturi (Dalton Anatomy), Thomas Demand, James Casebere (see Emily Reynolds work), Vik Muniz, Chris Jordan (Midway Atoll), Stephen Gill.
For those interested in exploring identities, stereotypes, gender, alter-egos through self-portraiture using varies techniques such slow shutters-speeds, use of dressing up, make-up, props, masks, locations (mine-en-scene) Often these images are questioning ideas around truth, fantasy or fiction.
Francesco Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun, Yasumasa Morimura, Gillian Wearing, Sean Lee (Shauna) Juno Calypso
Stranger than Fiction: Should documentary photographers add fiction to reality?
Documentary photography belongs to the realm of truth, yet some photographers are testing the boundaries between reality and fiction in a bid to reach a public that is accustomed to these narrative forms in the literary and cinematic worlds. In contemporary photography today your have what some people call Fictional Documentary (similar to TV genre such as doc-drama) where you interpret real or historical events through fiction. This is often expressed through a personal and artistic vision which are operating somewhere between fiction and fantasy with some elements of truth or historical data that has been re-imagined.
See the work of: Cristina de Middel (Afronauts, Sharkification, This is What Hatred Did), Max Pinckers (Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty), Vasantha Yogananthan (A Myth of Two Souls), Ron Jude (Lick Creek Line), Eamonn Doyle ( i ) Paul Graham (Does Yellow Run Forever), Yury Toroptsov (Fairyland, House of Baba Yaga, Divine Retribution), Gareth McConnell (Close Your Eyes), Joan Fontcuberta
Cristina de Middel AfronautsMax_Pinckers_from_the_series_Will_They_Sing_Like_Raindrops_or_Leave_Me_ThirstyVasantha Yogananthan ‘A Myth of Two Souls’Ron Jude Lick Creek LinePaul Graham Does Yellow Run ForeverYury Toroptsov House of Baba Yaga
Below are the photographs from my first shoot where i experimented building a den within my garden. Overall i quite like some of my final images and it has made me consider quite a few elements of my dens in order to plan better for my next den project. I did however manage to get the perfect weather as it was sunny but then also slightly windy.
After completing this shoot i have learnt firstly that i need to consider the angle in which i plan to take my process photographs more carefully so as to be able to capture as many elements of the process as possible. I do think this will change depending on the environment as other environments will hide the dens structure less than this first garden environment. I also think it did work really well to have bright colours within the environment as well, the yellow blanket looking the best within the den. I therefore think i’m going to experiment a lot more with using really bright and vivid colours for my dens rather than matching them to the environment. Having a bright sunny day also worked really well within the photographs as the colours of the materials became more intense and created an almost childlike wonder to the den. The close up shots of element’s of the dens also worked really well as a compliment to the process of building the dens. I quite like the focus on these smaller elements of the structure as well as the process photographs of how it all came together.
The first two sets of photographs are the process photographs that i took. I composed the process photographs from two different angles because of the first learning curb that i found when building my den. When i composed the tripod so that i could take photographs which would be a little series, i positioned the camera in such a way that it got the bet composition of the environment as a whole. I didn’t really think about how the den might be hidden too much by elements of the environment which is what i found after doing the first progress photographs. While they do work it is very difficult to see all of the different stages as elements which are added are hidden and therefore you can see little change in the photographs. Therefore as i took the den down i moved the camera and took a second set of shots which considered the den and trying to show how all the elements were added within my composition. The second set of images are face on to the entrance of the den and therefore you can see the walls being added in a lot easier then the other composition.
I do really like the composition of my first progress photographs i just think its a shame you cant really see all the different elements being added in. I composed the frame using the rule of thirds so that the den was more to the left side of the frame. I also composed the distance from the den so that the den was in the background of the frame and therefore it gives more of an impression of the den blending into its surroundings.
While i prefer the first composition better the second set of process photographs give a better sense of the den making process. I composed the camera closer to the den but once again used the rule of thirds to an extent to create the photograph. In these second set of photographs there are more elements in the immediate foreground of the photograph which i think adds a different element to it. In the composition of both photographs included in the framing is the house on the other side of the fence as it gives a garden feel to the photographs. I think the cobble stones also add to creating the environment as i haven’t really included any elements heavily associated with gardens within my composition.
I quite like the composition of the photograph above in giving a general impression of the outside of my den. I took the photograph from below looking up at the den as i wanted to exaggerate the scale and grandeur of the structure. As children when building a den there is always a sense of pride and even awe at what you have created. I felt like by taking the photograph from below i was mimicking both the sight line of a child entering the den as a smaller person then me and also conveying how magical the structure is. I photographed the den from this angle as it is the entrance of the den and you can clearly see the opening. I quite like how the inside of the den is dark and so you can’t see inside completely. I feel like this makes the inside of the den appear more mysterious and therefore creates a snese of intrigue. The inside of the den is the darkest point of the photograph and is in the center of the photograph so the darkness sort of draws you into the den. I also used the really bright yellow blanket at the entrance of the den as i really like how the colours match the leaves. The golden yellow colours of the leaves in the foreground emphasis and bring out further the colours of blankets in the background. I framed the image with the little tree plant right in the center of the photograph as if it is the main subject of the image but then the blankets of the den in the background are what cause the plant to stand out and therefore they become the focus. The colours within the photograph all compliment each together perfectly with the greens, blacks and yellows. The brightest point of the photograph is the middle of the frame in which the light from the sun is hitting the stones. The foreground of the photograph is almost over exposed as the focus of the camera is on the background which is darker. The over exposed foreground works really well with the viewer’s eyes beginning in the foreground and then working back into the background and into the entrance of the den. In this picture you can’t really see the movement of the den but you do get the tension of the material in how its hanging.
The above photographs are all small details which held together the den. I quite like them as detail shots to go alongside the photographs of the main den. So often with dens people look at the final structure and don’t consider the process. As these photographs in this section of my project are all about process and how the structure comes together, as much as the final product i think these photographs work really well as part of the series. In particular i like the 3rd photograph which suggests the movement and tensions of the material in creating the den. I composed the photograph according to the rule of thirds, the peg which joins the material positioned to the left top corner of the frame. From this point the material billows out at an angle which suggests it is being blown from behind. I quite like how the background is over exposed as the light outside is so bright as it causes the material in the foreground to be more prominent. You can also see to an extent the light shinning through the blanket which adds another dimension to the photograph. Most of the blankets were held up by pegs but i also tied parts of the blankets to trees which is what the last photograph shows. I think the last photograph also works quite well in showing how the structure comes together. I used a very small aperture to blur the background of the photograph to have only the knot itself in focus but the point at which the blanket flowed out the picture as blurry. I quite like the angles within this photograph as you have the angle of the branch going in one direction and then the blanket goes off in another direction but with not such a harsh angle because of the flowing material.
The above and below photographs show the inside of the den looking out. I composed the photographs in this way because i wanted to give an impression of what its like to be inside the den, the whole point of building a den to be inside the space you have created. The light and movement is what makes these pictures really work. The above photograph is composed to look towards the entrance of the den from an angle. The blankets on the floor of the den are in the foreground suggesting that the photographer is in some unseen cosy space further inside the den. I really like how this composition doesn’t remove all the mystery of the inside of the den as you still don’t get to see the entire inside space. I think a big part of the intrigue of these dens is the imagined cosyness and safeness that you feel inside of them. I think this is more an associated feeling rather than a reality you can see in a photograph so i want to keep this element of intrigue. The light in this photograph works really well in creating this magical impression as it shines through the blankets to the inside of the den. The impression of the photograph is that the light is trying to intrude into the space inside the den, both by shining through the materiel and also under it to fall upon the blanket as well. The light shining through the blanket creates an orangy yellow colour which matches the yellows and reds of the leaves on the floor. This works really well in creating a sense of unity of colour throughout the picture as there are these flashes of colour throughout the image. The greens of the blankets then also match the green flashes of colour in the picture throughout as well. The light in the picture is also fairly bright to the point of over exposure in places. The composition of the picture also suggests movement as the blankets are not hanging straight and are instead at odd angles due to the wind. The blankets even cover each other as they blow which give a more snug impression. The picture also has a lot of texture to it as it has the contrast of the soft material with the stones.
I also really like the above photograph in showing the varying angles of the den. I think the above composition is really interesting as it shows the angles of the material at abstract angles. The main light of the photograph comes from the background. Once again it is an overexposed background as the light is really bright from in the background. The angle of the photograph is really different to my other compositions as it has from the left hand side of the den and therefore gives a slightly different perspective. You can see more clearly through the entrance of the den to the outside space then in my other compositions. The light once again also shines through the material to make it more vivid colours than it normally is. The light is also trying to seep into the den through the entrance which is apparent from the areas of both light and dark shadows. I think the balance of the composition of the material is what works in this picture as the material frames the top half of the photograph through being low hanging and me having photographed the entrance which is obviously created by blankets to either side. The roof of the den billows downward which i like as it suggests the imperfections of dens that not all elements are perfectly structured. I feel like the lower roof also creates a more cosy atmosphere. To the left hand side of the frame there is then the material held together by a peg which you can see is being pulled taught by the gaps and lack of the material matching up perfectly. This creates more interesting shapes as the material is curved where it billows out and the straight sides of the material don’t match up which means the den doesn’t have a rigid feel to it.
My goal for these two shoots is to portray a really symbolic representation of the growing problem of cigarette waste that is produced each year. These two sketches above show an idea of what I want my final results to look like. On the left shows a dirty and greasy hand surrounded with discarded cigarettes on a black background. As well as cigarette butts I will be adding a very small amount of other rubbish to compare with the amount of waste produced by smoking. By using a dirty human hand I am symbolising man-kinds connection to this issue. The image on the right will be a depiction of a flower growing from a pile of cigarettes with a black background. This is an obvious symbol of man vs nature and the problem this pollution is causing.
