My third shoot is based on the same thing as the second shoot, however it will be shot in a different location. The third shoot will take place in St Brelade’s in the woodland area on the left side of the bay. I have decided to take images in this location to create more variety of images for my London connection photographer, this way it is easier to respond to the images that I have taken.
In my previous year in AS level photography we were given the task to present images based on 100 years of history in Jersey through a teenagers eyes. My focus on this topic was to create a scenario of a young gambler. This is something that I would like to continue in my A level photography, however this time the images will be taken in the outside environment showing the islands natural beauty. The use of wearing typical gambling suits and black and white attire is to present the concept that our gambling has an effect on the nature around us. This links to larger problems of global warming and how we are causing this problem as man.
My plan was to take the images for my second shoot around the lanes of St Lawrence, a relatively un photographed area of natural beauty in the island. St Lawrence is filled with small country lanes and fields that present the opportunity for me to place my subject into the environment. I will be using black and white filter to present the images to make the subject stand out in the environment, also it follows the images created by artist I have made references to previously.
To create the effect of a side by side response I have sent a message to a UK resident in London to respond making his own version of the image but in his living environment. This also portrays how our gamble of construction has become in previous years showing how London looks compared to the natural beauty of the countryside. However if this plan does not work I will take similar images in St Helier to present the same idea.
Environmental portraits are a very involved type of portraiture that is a very slow and methodical process requiring interviews and understanding of who the person is. In the end, it requires the photographer to deliver a product that tells something specific about who the subject is.
Jonathan Bielaski has been doing this for years, and knew that he wanted to be a photographer from a very young age. He is based in Toronto, Canada and some of his clients include, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and TFC), Sports Illustrated, Billboard Magazine, T+D Magazine, Bard Valley Dates, California Peach and Pear Growers, Home Depot, Lucas Oil, Hydro One, Ontario Pork, Dairy Farmers of Ontario, University of Waterloo, Sheridan, Laurier and the list goes on.
Bielaski said about his own life, ‘When I started out in photography I did not enjoy making portraits and was attracted to still life photography, I now know that it was my attraction to lighting and with shooting these types of images I could master light and its effects. But something was missing–when I was photographing custom motorcycles and custom made products the story about the makers became a huge interest to me. Who they were and where they lived or worked fascinated me. I wanted to capture them in their workspace. People have a story as well as their space, together they complete a visual story and you can capture who they are and what they do in a signal frame’.
I have focused on some of the work that is created by Bielaski because in my opinion it is easy to depict that the subject of focus is a type of environment, I have analysed his work to gain a greater understanding of the concept, environment. Bielaski is a perfect example of someone who captures work environments. In my study I would like to focus on the opposite of working, using the concept of leisure.
This image shows a man in his working environment, from the image we can clearly outline his occupation that is a printer and painter. The image was taken using a high quality film camera in order to pick out the vibrant display around the room. Bielaski uses the rule of 3 to make his images stand out. For example this image is sectioned into a left, middle and right side. On the left we can see the practitioner himself, middle being his working tools and the right being his working station. It is clear that this man is at work due to the way the image is presented. It is often found that the subjects of Bielaski images are found on the left or right side of the image, not often central. This gives a wider display of what is going on around the working environment.
One of Bielaski’s main inspirations is Benrd and Hilla Becher, this is because he believes that the ism they focused on was important to how photography has shaped itself today. Again it is clear that Bielaski uses typography to present his images since all of the images he creates are based around the same thing being working environments. Similar to the above picture this image shows a man in his working environment, however the man does not look so content with his job. The image below shows a happy man. This could be the concept of how content people are with their working environment.
All of the images that I took on this shoot were based around the same concept. In my previous year in AS level photography we were given the task to present images based on 100 years of history in Jersey through a teenagers eyes. My focus on this topic was to create a scenario of a young gambler. This is something that I would like to continue in my A level photography, however this time the images will be taken in the outside environment showing the islands natural beauty. The use of wearing typical gambling suits and black and white attire is to present the concept that our gambling has an effect on the nature around us. This links to larger problems of global warming and how we are causing this problem as man.
Looking around St Lawrence for a suitable location I decided that one field stood out a lot more than any of the other fields. This was because the entire field was filled with daffodils from top to bottom. This made the images more sublime in natural beauty. However the use of the man makes the image more mysterious and interesting since a plain field of flowers does not catch my attention. I think the use of the props in the image, such as the hat and suit make the image create the feeling of wonder. The images have the concept of gambling with our environment as we develop on our land as said above.
Astres noirs is the debut book for both Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick, artists who live thousands of miles apart whose peculiar photographic wanderings create a hauntingly beautiful dialogue. This book presents photographs taken on mobile phone cameras, devices used to capture their everyday in an impulsive and almost obsessional way, documenting life from their doorsteps to far afield. This idea of communication through photography to present their living environments interests me since I would like to investigate what the difference between the living environment in Jersey is like compared to that of somewhere so close, London. This is contrasting to Koenning and Protick’s work because they were miles apart, however my idea would use the same idea in a different way.
Social media today, such as facebook, snapchat and instagram are all social medias that allow someone to send or post images that they have taken. This fact would mean that using social media I can contact someone who may live in an urban area in London, where they live. Using this communication and social media they would be able to send me and image of their living environment, including their job or friends/family living, in exchange of an image of our island Jersey. Once these images have been exchanged over a period of time I will be able to present 2 images that contrast to each other side by side. For example I could take an image of someone I know in the middle of a country lane, and the London exchange image could be the same image replicated in the streets of London, a completely different environment.
These are the images that Koenning and Protick have made in their collaboration, along with many others. The images present a feeling of paranormal and a sense of the unknown. This is something that is not commonly explored or conceptualised. The image on the left was an image that was sent by Koenning and the image on the right was the response from Protick, which is a pattern continued throughout the book. In my hope this is what I would like to do when i present my work, side by side presenting two responses to two different environments. I plan to make my images high quality and set up rather than spontaneously captured images.
Anthony Kurtz is a German environmental photographer that lives in Berlin. Most of his work is based in San Francisco and in African countries like Senegal. He specialises in environmental portraiture and strives to create beautiful and unexpected photographs of people and the spaces they occupy. Combining both natural light and studio strobes, Anthony sculpts light to create a mood, an atmosphere, a photograph that tells a story and, hopefully, sparks curiosity. Similar to Goldblatt many of Anthony’s pictures are very strong and tell a story about each individual that has been captured in his images. I particularly like the clarity and quality of his images. This is because they are very sharp and make the detail of the images very clear. Lastly I like the work that Kurtz has done because many of the models in his shoots are kinky looking, for example some of his images show people wearing strange glasses or having strange props, such as a mouse.
My first shoot took place at St Catherine’s woods which is in my opinion one of the best locations in Jersey to enjoy the environment around you. St Catherine’s woods is an area of woodland almost untouched by man. This made the location perfect for the images I have recorded below. The concept of the shoot was to show how man has become one with the woodland, my images showing the subjects almost blending in to the landscape. In my opinion this gives the landscapes more meaning because in this world we are the ones who preserve the nature but we are also the ones who destroy it, but in my images the subjects are just becoming one with the nature. I also believe the images show the natural beauty of the island we live on, but the use of the black and white could be a conceptual idea that we live in a dark time besides the natural beauty.
This first image was taken on the small dam at the start of St Catherines woods. The two subjects are walking along the wall to take a picture across the lake. I like this image because the contrast works well with the great amount of natural light being used. The light allows the water to reflect the trees around the lake giving the image more texture. I have made sure that the wall the subjects are walking on is in the centre of the image so that I can use the rule of three to make a better image. For example in this image the subjects in the middle, the lake on the left and the right side of the dam and the trees on the right. The concept of this image in particular is to show how what man has built divides the natural beauty from what we have created. 
This is my favorite image from the shoot (1). The reason I believe this is the strongest image is because the environmental portrait has a strong composition. The natural light causes a blurred reflection of the subject in the water which created the effect of him blending in with the reflections of the trees around him. In the photo the subject is taking an image of the environment around him because he believes it is a particularly sublime location to be in. 
Artist references: