Here are my two final contrasting images displaying the stereotype of the angry new wave feminist that I supposedly conform to. The image on the right was inspired by the topless protests of the radical feminist group FEMEN and was intended to depict a snapshot of a similar protest. I selected the words “my body my choice” to paint onto my torso because I felt that it was a slight nod to the shock factor associated with the nudity of the original FEMEN protests. I decided to use the blue backdrop for this image because of the masculine connotations of the colour blue, this side of the stereotype goes against what most people would consider to be “lady-like” as exposing your breast in public is not socially acceptable in western culture. I feel that the image captures a sense of anger, desperation, power and beauty.
The image on the left depicts a more socially acceptable side of the stereotype. A white, middle class female student who has read a few books on feminism and feels the need to lecture anyone who conform or reinforce gender stereotypes or denies the existence of the wage gap. I created a sense of self importance by the disapproving expression and the casual inclusion of a coffee cup as a prop to give a more “young student” vibe. I decided to a pink backdrop for this image to contrast the one on the left with the blue background. Pink also has feminine connotations and this side of the stereotype is certainly more social acceptable and “lady-like” than the previous.
In my previous shoots exploring performance and mirrors I used myself as the subject . These images however are selected from a series of shoots I did with my sister as the model. I think this idea could be interesting to explore further in reference to artists such as Claude Cahun and the creative collaboration with her half sister. I found these shoots easier than using myself because I was able to focus more on composing the shots especially when using the mirror because It was difficult to position myself and the camera in order to get the reflections and angles that I wanted as well as ensuring everything was in focus. In some images I considered previous studies I have done with my sister based around classical painting and pre-raphaelite compositions. I also experimented with using a mirror on its own to reveal different sections of environments and I also photographed my sister alone interacting with the landscape for example blending in with the trees. I employed similar basic editing techniques such as cropping, black and white, colour correction and vignetting when adjusting this set of edits.
Here are the two final outcomes from my blonde photo shoots. As previously stated I do not think that I will be using the “Mean Girls” Regina George inspired image on the left due to the stereotype being heavily reliant on the viewer having seen the film. I also feel that the stereotype doesn’t really make sense out of context but I wanted to conduct the shoot to show that I had this outfit in my wardrobe and I have in the past conformed to this stereotype in one form or another. I am however, very happy with the composition and characterization of the image and still feel that it is a well executed photograph.
The image on the right depicts a more obvious stereotype of the “dumb blonde”, as seen in my planning post I took inspiration from public figures such as Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Reese Witherspoon’s depiction of Elle Woods from the motion picture “Legally Blonde” and the blonde pop culture icon, Barbie. I selected the image above on the right because I feel that it captured a perfect combination of confidence and absentmindedness. The pose connotes glamour and confidence but the vacant expression reinforced the stereotype of blondes being airheads. I plan to combine this strong image with another contrasting stereotype of mine.
Below is a set of outcomes from some initial experiments I have done based around portraiture and performance. I tried a number of different approaches to this and I tried to incorporate a mirror into these to explore how it might work as a prop. I used myself as the subject in the images in reference to the artists that have inspired and influenced this part of my project. Overall I took around 1,500 images and in Light-room I edited them down to this selection and made adjustments to the contrast, brightness and saturation. I cropped the images and experimented with black and white and sometimes added a slight vignette. The aim of these shoots was to explore the relationship of the human body to the environment with a focus on natural, outdoor locations. In order to develop this idea further I am considering exploring similar ideas in relation to interior spaces. The process was fairly spontaneous and unplanned although I had some ideas for the use of mirrors and reflections but I wanted to capture this exploratory nature to some of the images by photographing in locations that I was unfamiliar with.
These images were my first attempt at using myself as the subject and I initially approached this by setting up the camera and filming while I interacted with the space and experimented with different compositions. This allowed for more freedom and I didn’t have do keep returning to the camera because film involves around thirty frames a second. I then saved still images from the video after importing the footage into Adobe Premier in order to have the stills in a high resolution (rather than taking screen shots) . From here I imported them into Light-room and edited them. The problem with this is that the motion blur is captured in each frame which means if you view these images enlarged the movement is very obvious and while I think this can be quite effective i’m not sure if it was the desired effect. I now know that if I adjusted the frame rate I could probably have more control over this.
I also did a brief experiment photographing at night based around the idea of exploring movement through long-shutter speeds. I have seen this can be quite effective and it is something I have not tried before but I wasn’t especially pleased with the outcomes. I think they could have been better if I had introduced more artificial light and executed them in a technically more accurate way. The idea was to have a shadowy, mysterious tone to the images with the human figure (myself) standing out against the black background.
In these images I photographed myself using a tripod and set timers. I explored the use of slow-shutter speeds as well as the use of a mirror and shadows. I think the use of shadows is something I could potentially explore further.
I have several ideas about how to develop this concept of performance and environment. This work was influenced largely by my research into performance photographers but could also have some connections to other areas I have researched such as Earth art in that it considers the human connection to natural landscapes and is ephemeral. I think that I am going to focus my project around this idea more specifically than in my initial planning where I specified some more varied approaches such as s focusing on objects left by humans within environments to show their presence. I think it will be more effective to focus on one area and explore this in more depth.
Goussin and Hortense are a french duo working together to create their own freelance photography business known as the ‘Forlane 6 Studio’. Hortense Le Calvez was born in 1988, she studied at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and graduated in 2010 from Wimbledon College of Art in London. Mathieu Goussin was born in 1985, he studied at the National School of Merchant Navy in Marseille and often works on large ships as a mechanical engineer. Together their practice explores themes of ‘environmental dystopia’, ‘eco-anxiety’ and terrible human influences. Their water-based works depict irrational aquatic fictions in the form of sculptural installations. Currently, the pair live in Greece and work on their sailing boat turned home studio, Forlane 6. They have been exhibited in France and abroad, were shortlisted for the Coal prize Art and Environment and participated to several artist residencies with a strong link to the sea.
I chose to explore scuba diving artists, Goussin and Hortense, as inspiration for my own underwater shoot because of one of their collections in particular. This series concentrates on using underwater sculptors to perfectly portray our oceanic trash problem. These resultant images address this issue beautifully, using plastic streamers, garden furniture, old clothing, and bottles as well as highly controlled lighting. Submerged, the objects lose their lifeless plastic appearance and make a transformation into what look like living organic creatures. As they put it, “this weightless and slow aesthetic contradicts the usual way objects are consumed and disposed of in an inconsiderate speed.” Finding that strange space between reality and fantasy is very much part of the work, says Le Calvez. “We want to have an ambiguous image that maybe doesn’t read as underwater at first glance,” she explains. “We do find a lot of inspiration in existing sea creatures, from the bioluminescent plankton to the small fish mastering the art of camouflage.”Although each is unique, the duo says they’re always going for the same “post-catastrophic” aesthetic, “imagining the future of objects wandering in the sea, trapped in the plastic soup.” Below I have chosen two of my favourite images from this collection to analysis…
The meaning behind these images is to portray our oceanic trash problem by creating sculptures that look like living organic creatures. This, therefore, creates the sense of a bleak future for oceans and represents how we are ‘replacing’ marine life with deadly pollution. These pieces are clearly influenced by humanities modern consumer culture, and although beautiful, illustrate a very ominous subject. The first image on the left depicts a metal sculpture portraying a ‘jellyfish-like’ creature captured from just below the ocean’s surface. I chose this piece as an example as the reflections of light bouncing from the strands of metal create an amazing sense of movement. I also love the deep ocean blue tone of this image and the ripples on the surface really bring the scene to life. The next photograph on the right is a much lighter and softer version of the same kind of creature, this time made from thin strands of blue plastic without the surface of the water in sight. I love the soft tones and colours of this photograph along with the calming rays of sunlight streaming through the composition.
Kim Preston:
Kim Preston is an Australian based photographer with a background in fine art and experience in the working life of a digital art director. Preston covers a range of subjects with her work from small illustrations to help engage children, to a high-quality photographic series on the perils of plastics accumulation in our ocean. Regardless of the medium or the platform, her aim is always the same; to create unique content which clearly and effectively communicates with the viewer, educating and inspiring them. Kim Preston’s current work is a variety of fashion, beauty and commercial Photography, using high contrast and unsaturated colours. She enjoys capturing honest emotions and tries to avoid true centring when framing her images. Growing up in Pasadena, CA Preston attended Cal State Northridge where she received her BA in Photography. In 2009 she was published in Cosmo Hong Kong and Sure magazine Korea. In 2010 through 2012 she has been in 5 shows in Los Angeles, San Bernadino, and New York.
The reason I have chosen to use her as an inspiration for my next shoot is because of her beautiful and appropriately named photography project, ‘Plastic Pacific’. This series explores the devastating impact of plastics accumulation in our oceans by transforming everyday household objects into the sea creatures choking to death in the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. Surprisingly this collection was actually made by Preston as part of a school assignment that expressed her concern about the ‘trash vortex’ of the North Pacific Ocean. In 2012 it won the ACMP Student Photographer of the Year (Advertising) award and was immediately picked up by several online publications, both of photographic and environmental interest. Because her images are so eerie and strangely beautiful, she states that her hope “that they will engage viewers who would otherwise be turned off, or even somewhat immune, to the more obviously depressing reality.”Preston feels that art is the perfect medium by which to inspire independent thought and give the viewer pause to reflect and question what they think they already know. Below are two of my favourites from this amazing collection…
Much like with the work of Goussin and Hortense these images represent a bleak future for our oceans by creating seemingly living organic creatures from common household pollution. Again these pieces were influenced by humanities modern consumer culture, as well as being particularly inspired by the catastrophe of the ‘trash vortex’ in the North Pacific Ocean. The first image on the left shows basic shower caps floating together like a perfectly framed swarm of jellyfish in the vast blue ocean. I love the simplicity of the subject matter in this as, although it is obvious what they are, the shower caps are brought to life by their perspective, depth, and shape. The next image is of a plastic bag tied at the bottom to create the shape of a fish. I love the perspective of ‘the fish’ swimming away and the gradient of dark to light blue in the background, much like you would see in the ocean. I believe these types of photographs will be great pieces of historical evidence in the future, either to state our acknowledgement of the changing world or how we managed to save it before it’s too late.
Other Inspirations – Steven Hirsch:
As well as these amazing artists above, I will also be looking back at the work of a previously researched photographer, Steven Hirsch, for inspiration in my next shoot. This is because of his influential project, “Gowanus: Off The Water’s Surface”, and its perfect representation of depicting interesting and alluring water pollution through photography.
I love the way Hirsch has taken something so horrible and turned it into something beautiful, thus subtly informing the public of their society’s environmental problems. I hope to use this technique for my next shoot, representing pollution in our oceans as something intriguing and beautiful that will catch the viewer’s attention. Although I know I will not see any toxic waste (like there is in Brooklyn’s Canals) in Jersey’s seas, I hope to create these same kinds of beautifully abstracted pieces, of this very unpleasant ocean pollution subject. Below I have chosen to present again, four of Steven Hirsch’s images as a reminder and inspiration for my next underwater shoot.
Having confirmed a plan in producing photographic responses to my travels throughout the Mediterranean, I wanted to investigate some methods in making this kind of photography more original unique. As discovered in my previous blog post, the genre of Travel Photography is now very crowded due to its accessibility and ease of involvement. There is little originality in documenting the landscapes and atmospheres of foreign locations as it can essentially be done by anyone. Consequently, I may have to indulge in some peculiar methods in order to make my work more personal and distinctive. With this plan in mind, I began looking at the work of Carlos Spottorno. Carlos Spottorno is a Spanish documentary and Travel photographer with an artistic background who has focused his main personal projects on subjects related to power shifts, economy, and social issues that shape the real world. Born in Budapest in 1971, Spottorno has travelled all across the globe, generating editorial, commercial and personal projects that possess some fork of message or deeper meaning.
One of his projects called “The PIGS” bears some visual resemblance to the work I am producing due the synonymous European environments explored. For this project, Spottorno intended to capture Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain through the eyes of the economists. PIGS is a term coined by the business and financial press as a way to refer to Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain during their current financial plight. These countries are all united in facing vast loss in historical prominence and are hence grouped together under this banner. What started as a pejorative label used by neoconservatives, mainly from English speaking countries, was eventually taken up for some time without any qualms by the media. Excessively high levels of public and private debt, government deficits, a property bubble and very disappointing political and economic policies, have put the PIGS in the crosshairs. It is alleged that the PIGS won’t be able to bear the pressure of sharing a common currency with their stronger European brethren. Spottorno states:
“I have often asked myself how, after so many centuries of splendor, could these countries have come to their current destitute state. What happened to Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization? What became of Italy, heir to the Roman Empire and endowed with one of the richest artistic heritages in the world? What went wrong with Portugal, the first global naval power in history? At what point did Spain and its empire, on which the sun never set, see the onset of their decline? I believe the root-cause of our countries’ current sorry state of affairs is to be found in the distant past. Issues that for many centuries piled up on our doorsteps are now rearing their heads and plain to see.”
Spottorno continues, arguing that the PIGS view themselves, rightly, as the architects, and as the stem cells from which the idea of Europe developed. Southern Europe resists admitting its loss of political stature in the global political arena, seeing itself as the wellspring of Western Civilization. Spottorno sees The PIGS as old, cynical and individualistic countries. I think this is a really interesting concept, and I something that I have frequently thought about in the past. Its quite staggering how these countries were formerly, some of the most powerful and dominant forces on the planet and now are simple, weak shadows of these former identities. I think that Spottorno had an excellent lead for a photographic project here, due to the passion he had behind the project. He attempts to illustrate the stereotypes brought up by the term PIGS. In other words, what we would see if we were to translate into images the articles we read in the financial press. He intends to present how he imagines economists perceiving these countries. The result is a collection of clichés, some true and incomplete. The same way a travel guide carefully avoids anything seemingly unattractive, this book shows much of what we find embarrassing, oftentimes rightly, and at times unfairly. What stands out the most is the glaring absence in these images of all that is positive, beautiful and promising in these countries.
In this photograph, we see a young gipsy holding his horse after cleaning it. In some parts of Portugal, like in other european countries it is still possible to see working horses in urban context. Nomad gipsies settlements are in the middle of town, generating sometimes troubles between them and the other people living in the areas. They are accused of being dirty and chaotic, besides dealing with drugs and crime. This is a clear highlight of the plight endured by Portugal and he transformation experienced through history. I like this photograph a lot, a powerful composition evoking a lot of emotion. The boy and the horse are stood central dominating the frame and drawing the attention of the viewer. Nevertheless, in the background, we see the urban landscape, a white blocky building providing the context and message. The building features an interesting lighting setup as certain faces are shrouded in complete shadows and others in complete light. A nice contrast is created that doesn’t distract from the subject and his horse but ensures our eyes naturally meet this component.Carboneras, Almería: hotel “El Algarrobico” was built in a protected Natural Park with the complicity of local authorities. Popular activism and the pressure made by Greenpeace stopped the project, although after a decade of legal activity it has not yet been demolished. Nevertheless, It’s interesting, though, that many locals would like the hotel to start operating, and revitalize the poor local economy. This photograph is really interesting as we see a lot of opposition and clashing of certain messages. Typically we associate tourism with lush landscapes, clean architecture and bright, vivid colours. However, within this photograph this idea of tourism which is ushered in by the family sat upon the beach, is conflicted by the surrounding landscape. This abandoned hotel that still remains to be demolished is just sitting there, whilst the dingy colours of the surrounding environment produces quite a depressing tone. We truly see the repercussions of this failing economy and stereotypes surrounding Spain have been challenged.
The photographs within the PIGS project represent, visually, my initial intentions for this study. The photographs concentrate primarily on the landscape and significance of the local environment which is what I wished to do as well. They occasionally feature a subject within the foreground who can provide context and intrigue surrounding the narrative. Nevertheless, my travels around the Mediterranean do not possess the same kind of depth and meaning that Spottorno has here. The reason why the PIGS project is so successful is due to the direct, concentrated proposition organised by Spottorno. He has discovered something that he is passionate about and ensured absolute focus upon this for his photographs. On the other hand, this kind of depth or internal meaning is absence from my work, meaning minimal focus would be achieved on my shoots. This is why I would like to find something more unusual for my work, and fortunately Spottorno has another project that I would like to reference.
LA GRIETA / THE CRACK
In December 2013 reporter Guillermo Abril and Spottorno received from the assignment of preparing a series of stories about the European Union’s external borders. THE CRACK is Spottorno’s field journal as he followed the border from Africa to the Arctic with the aim of identifying the causes and consequences of Europe’s identity crisis. Halfway between a photobook book and a graphic novel, in as much as it uses narrative elements of the latter, the end result is not a story based on actual events: these are actual events. At the time the media’s coverage was focused on the migration flows in Melilla and the Southern Mediterranean. The great migrant exodus in the Balkans, and the attacks in Paris and Nice were still a long ways in the future. The war in Ukraine seemed to have stabilized, and the United Kingdom hadn’t yet voted to leave European Union. These and many other events would take place over the course of time it took them to cover their assignment, which took them all the way from Melilla to the Arctic. After three years working on the story, several covers, dozens of pages in magazines, and a World Press Photo, the authors set out to convey, with the 25,000 photographs and 15 notebooks they had compiled, the story of what is happening on the European Union’s borders, making use of an innovative narrative form.
This project is a perfect example of how to present Travel Photography in an innovative and original way in order to separate it from the crowded genre and boring photographs. Spottorno has borrowed the aesthetic of comic-book art presenting his images upon paneled pages with a typical comic-book filter employed onto the images. The pages feature speech bubbles and narration boxes, just like a comic book would, enabling a narrative to be told. The idea is very imaginative and a good representative of the originality I intend to capture for my travel photography. By presenting the images in this way, Spottorno is provided his travels around the globe with a story and sense of progression. The portfolio becomes more than just images, and Spottorno has created a professional and sophisticated final product. This is something that I would like to replicate for my Environmental project, essentially utilizing the travel photograph as a backdrop for something greater and more creative. Whilst the visuals of the PIGS project can still be echoed, I would like to incorporate an individual style through the editing stage, perhaps taking advantage of my artistic abilities as I have done in the past. The next stage is to try and think of an concept i manipulating my shoots that is original and individually relevant.
Francesca Woodman was an American photographer who created black and white images often using herself or other young, female models as the subjects. During her life time her art was not well-known and it was only after her death (she committed suicide at 22) that her work received attention. She is considered to be a progressive feminine voice in photography and her work explores themes of isolation and self-displacement. Woodman explained to her parents (who were also artists) that she used herself as a model as a matter of “convenience” because she was always available and knew exactly the effect she wanted to produce with an image. The main subject of her work was broadly an exploration of her own body in relation to space. Her photographs test the boundaries of the body but she rarely revealed her whole body with her face often blurred or masked and parts of her body are hidden behind elements of the environment. This creates an interesting relationship between observation, self-display and mystery. Some critics have interpreted this as an attempt to resist the male gaze with the tendency to camouflage herself. In some images Woodman also most becomes one with her surroundings by blending into the wallpaper or floor so that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the two. By fragmenting her body in this way, hiding behind furniture or using reflective surfaces such as mirrors to conceal herself she dissects the human figure and emphasises isolated body parts. This creates the idea that she is simultaneously there whilst also absent and relates to the idea of disappearance.
Woodman often used long exposure techniques to capture movement within her images and create surrealist compositions . The concealed figures have a mysterious, ghost-like quality . There are also no modern buildings in her work which the critic Elizabeth Gumport describes in this articleas crumbling ruins “whose disintegrating forms evoke the wrecks admired by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gothic revivalists often cited as [some of Woodman’s] major influences”. Woodman often photographed herself nude or wearing old-fashioned clothes such as white petticoats and is typically sited in empty dilapidated rooms containing old furniture. Her photographs look as though they belong in a much earlier time with her choice of costume meaning it is impossible to date the images and the use of old buildings and absence of modern objects create a Gothic appearance. Woodman was apparently an avid reader of Victorian Gothic fiction such as novels by the Brontes which could be said to be reflected in her work with the idea of spectral female figures, confined to attics. The soft focus and black and white nature of her images is also similar to the style of earlier generations of photography which further emphasises the timelessness of her work. The soft greys that shade her images add to the mysterious tone and show her eye for light, shadow and form.
Critics have disagreed about the meaning and purpose of her art with some comparing her to surrealist photographers (with her use of Surrealist motifs such as mirrors, gloves, birds, and bowls) and others hail her as a feminist hero. Her images are also very personal, lending them an autobiographical quality and therefore interpretation of her work is often based on psychoanalysis in light of her suicide. However her images are also often subtly amusing and contain playful visual jokes such as the example below with her arms covered in bark and mimicking the form of the trees. Family and friends have argued that while many think her work was about death and disappearance, Woodman’s light-heated sense of humour and energy is also apparent in her work. They say that “Her life wasn’t a series of miseries” and she was fun to be with.
I have researched the work of Francesca Woodman because her art has inspired many contemporary photographers within the area of performance and self-portraiture. In my own work I am also going to be considering the relationship between myself and different environments and I am going to experiment with a surrealist approach, using long-shutter speeds. I am also intrigued by Woodman’s use of props such as mirrors and this is something I am going to use, potentially within the context of old buildings.
Idris Khan is a London-based artist that was born in the UK in 1978. After completing his Master’s Degree at the Royal College of Art in London in 2004, he has received international recognition for his minimal, yet emotionally powerful photographs, videos and sculptures. His work has been featured in many exhibitions at international venues including the ‘Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art’ , Canada; the ‘Hayward Gallery’, London;and ‘Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton’, Paris. As well as this his work is in the permanent collections of many institutions worldwide such as ‘The Saatchi Collection’ in London and the ‘San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’.
Whilst Khan practices more as an artist than a photographer, he often employs the tools of photo-mechanical reproduction to create his work. In particular we have been asked to explore some of the digitally remastered and powerful photographs he has created, such as the ones presented below. To create these intense abstract pieces he builds up layers of his images digitally, allowing him to meticulously control minute variances in contrast, brightness and opacity. The outcomes of this technique is often a large-scale print with a surface that has a remarkable optical intensity. Below are a few of my favourites from his work on this subject. I chose these portrait photographs over some of his more busy landscape pieces because I love how he has transformed subject matters that are so plain into beautiful and emotive images.
Stephanie Jung is a freelance photographer based in Berlin, Germany. Her interest in this field began at a young age as her father was a very passionate hobby photographer. During her studies in Visual Communications she discovered her passion for experimental photography, finding inspiration in a photographer she met and worked closely with named Sabine Wenzel. Since graduating in 2010 she has been focussing on fine art and portrait photography, travelling to big cities to capture perfectly the vibrant and hectic scene. This fascination with urban life stems back to her small town upbringing, her work shows the beauty in both the calm and busy moments of everyday life in populated areas.
However, Jung’s work is not just about city life, it’s about time and transitioning, about capturing special moments and getting lost in time. Like Khan’s work above her pieces are very technical and emotive scenes that have been transformed and edited into beautiful works of art during their post production. In an interview about her work Jung quotes that the “layering is something which became important and almost self-evident to me, as it represents best what I want to show with my work”. Below are some of my favourite examples of her bright and intricate work that truly capture the busyness of the city life. I chose these photographs as examples as I feel they show a good variety of scenes, colours, and emotive qualities.
To help us experiment with new techniques and make our individual projects more diverse we were asked to do our own quick responses to this style of fine art photography. Our objectives are to show that we can copy, adjust, blur, and blend layers using Adobe Photoshop; creating a set of images inspired by the artists I have researched briefly above. My results of this ‘in class experiment’ shows newly created versions of a few of my AS final pieces that I thought would work well transformed using this technique. The first two images on the top row are inspired by Stephanie Jung and show movement and time through an everyday town landscape and an environmental portrait. The bottom two resemble the abstract work of Idris Khan depicting a sense of fragmentation and dark contrasted tones…
Before continuing with my documentary approach to this project, I first wanted to find out more about the applications of this type of photography. ‘Conservation photography’ is defined as the use of the photographic process, within the parameters of photojournalism, to advocate for conservation outcomes. By combining nature photography with a proactive, issue-oriented, approach to documentary photography it can be used for protecting nature and improving the natural environment. Conservation Photography furthers environmental conservation, wildlife conservation, habitat conservation or cultural conservation by expanding public awareness of issues and stimulating positive action.
Throughout its history photography has developed as a powerful medium to empower conservation. Although it was not as widely acknowledged, photography has served this role since the 1860’s. For example, the powerful images of Carleton Watkins were successfully used to stimulate the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1864. Since then renewed emphasis on photography for conservation arose at the beginning of the 21st century. This was primarily in response to the human-caused environmental crisis, recognising that the global pattern of abolished ecosystems was not sustainable. The modern field of conservation photography was formalised in October 2005 with the founding of the International League of Conservation Photographers by photographer Cristina Mittermeier. Many people agree, conservation photography falls into two broad categories, both of which are equally as valuable:
The snapshot: a quickly framed image of a naturally occurring scene, taken by chance with not too much time or effort. Images will not contain any manipulation or staging and are strongly connected to documentary photography and photojournalism.
The carefully crafted image: a series of skillfully crafted, high-quality images that tell the story in a more powerful way. Images will most likely be at least a little bit staged, as dramatic framing can often increase the photograph’s power and meaning.
Throughout my project, I hope to demonstrate both of these categories of conservation photography and use my images to spread awareness. Below are some stunning images depicting many different types of provocative conservation photography….
Artist Reference – Andrew Mcconnell:
Irish photographer, Andrew McConnell, started his amazing career in 2003 when he decided to concentrate on documentary work, driven by a desire to tell the stories of people and places that remain under-reported in the international media. Among numerous honours, McConnell has won two 1st place prizes at the World Press Photo Awards, 4 National Press Photographers Association awards. His work is widely recognised and has been featured in many publications such as ‘National Geographic‘ and ‘The New York Times‘.
I have chosen to explore him as an artist reference for looking and conservation photography, mainly because of his amazing project, entitled ‘Rubbish Dump 2.0’. Although this project explores many humanitarian issues it also says a lot about modern society and our ever-growing impact on the environment. In this series, Mcconnell uses the second category, mentioned above, to portray a dumping ground for computers and electronic waste from Europe and the US located in Ghana’s capital, Accra. Every month hundreds of tonnes of e-waste end up here as countries in the West attempt to unload their ever-increasing stockpiles of toxic junk. Of the 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronics discarded each year 70% will end up in poor nations, and in the EU alone 6.6 million tonnes of e-waste are unaccounted for every year. The disposal of electronic goods in the West is a costly affair and must be done in an environmentally responsible manner, however in places like Ghana there are no such regulations and as such toxic metals like lead, beryllium, cadmium and mercury are continuously being released causing untold damage to human health and the environment…
I wanted to investigate Travel Photography in depth, researching its foundations and history. Doing this will provide me with an insight into the original purpose of the genre and the reason and artists behind its creation. Travel photography is a genre of photography that may involve the documentation of an area’s landscape, people, cultures, customs and history. The Photographic Society of America defines a travel photo as an image that expresses the feeling of a time and place, portrays a land, its people, or a culture in its natural state, and has no geographical limitations. As travel has become more accessible, the genre is opening up more to amateurs and professionals alike. As a result, this category of Photography is much more crowded in Modern art society. Nevertheless The appeal of photography was as obvious to travellers in the 19th century as it is today. Photography made its earliest steps as a medium when in 1839 Louis Jacques Daguerre introduced a photographic process called the Daguerrotype. The first owners photographed their local area within Paris like the Notre Dame Cathedral, the river Seine and le Pont Neuf. However using a Daguerrotupe was a complicated process that required a lot of equipments and chemicals such as amalgam or alloy, of mercuryand silver. It would be very difficult to transport the camera and equipment around long distances and the travelling photographer had to carry with him a portable darkroom including enough chemical to have a mini laboratory. As a result, Travel Photography was very rare at the time.
A portable darkroom in 19th century Ireland.
In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process which became a standard photographic process until 1880. This new process reduced the exposure time to only 2 second , compared to the daguerrotype and colotype. However this did not help many travel photographers in their task as the equipment was still incredibly difficult to transport. In the 1850s the standard photographer outfit was the large sized camera, tripod, glass plates, plate holders, a tent like portable darkroom,chemicals, tanks, and water containers.Photographers carted their equipment around the world. In the mid 1800s, pictures taken for scientific purposes were of great interest to people in general and with the help of the collodion process reproduction of photographs became convenient. With the invention of the printing press, photography became commercialized as the demand due to tourism increased. However, this new era of photography was not accepted well by the purists who debated that commercialization had spoiled the craft. By the end of the 19th century tourists could take their own pictures. In 1888, George Eastman, the founder of Kodak invented a camera using a roll of film.he camera came loaded with a 100 exposure film and a memorandum book that had to be filled in to keep count of the photos. When the film was finished the camera was posted back to the factory. The camera was written with the films and loaded with a fresh film. In the first year Eastman sold 13000 cameras. Kodak had made photography accessible by millions of people across the world. Photography had become a mass medium and tourists were traveling with small and easy to use camera.
Du Camp and Flaubert
Flaubert in Egypt is a book composed of excerpts from the journals of two young Frenchmen, Gustave Flaubert and his rich Parisian friend Maxime Du Camp. Flaubert, in 1849, had dropped out of college and was at loose ends. Du Camp suggested that they go and photograph the monuments of the “Orient.” Flaubert jumped at the opportunity, and that autumn the two hopped aboard a ship bound for Alexandria, Egypt. Travel as we know it did not exist in the early 19th century. Only the very rich, mostly aristocrats, could afford the time or money for a visit round Europe. Most people had no idea of what the world looked like because, before photography, travel books featured only line drawings at best.Du Camp had studied photography, and for the trip took along his wooden Calotype camera, a tripod and jugs of chemicals. Invented by Henry Fox Talbot, Calotype photography was never very popular because Talbot strictly licensed his patented process. The fees he charged made it less attractive than the free public domain Daguerre process. But Du Camp smartly realized the advantage of the Calotype for travel. His camera was relatively small and easy to carry around. It used ordinary, readily available, high-quality writing paper as the media for its negatives. The writing paper itself could be partially sensitized in a hotel room or even a tent, and once dried, be conveniently stored and carried around until needed. The big drawback was that while the Daguerreotype is incredibly detailed, a Calotype print is much softer because the print is made from a paper negative. However, by shooting paper negatives, Du Camp could make any number of contact prints from them upon his return to Paris. By comparison, the Daguerreotype was a singular photograph from which no copies could be made. Du Camp was planning ahead to produce multiple copies of his travel albums.
Du Camp and Flaubert traveled through North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East, taking photos and keeping detailed diaries. It was a landscape as dangerous and chaotic as it is today. They had to fight off bandits and the occasional anti-government rebels who fought from camelback. Naturally enough, their exploits also involved dangerous liaisons with native women, belly dancers and prostitutes, and the consumption of quantities of alcohol and exotic drugs. Despite these distractions, the men stayed focused on their mission, producing hundreds of photographs that captured, for the first time, some of the great manmade wonders of the ancient world such as the pyramids, the statues at Aswan, the Sphinx and more.
Arriving at a site, the work of making photographs would begin. Flaubert apparently would do his best to avoid actual work, letting the porters put up the darkroom tent, while Du Camp would scout out locations. After placing the camera on a wooden tripod, Du Camp would duck under a black drape so he could frame and focus his image on the groundglass.Then he would go into his mostly light-tight darkroom tent and brush the sensitized side of the writing paper with a solution of gallo nitrate of silver — a mixture of silver nitrate, acetic acid and gallic acid. This was an accelerator that increased the paper’s sensitivity to light. After blotting the paper dry and placing it in a light tight holder, he would go back and load it into his camera. Now came the trickiest part of 19th century photography. Exposure was learned strictly by trial and error. Once he found the right exposure time, Du Camp would remove the holder’s light slide and take the lens cap off. Using his pocket watch, he would time the exposure and then replace the cap. Exposure complete, he would return to the darkroom tent to develop the negative. This required brushing the paper with gallo nitrate again while gently warming it over a hot pot. This produced a visible silver image that was fixed with hypo, the same hyposulphite of soda modern film development uses. This dissolved the unexposed silver iodide, which was then washed away, leaving a pure silver image on the paper.
The prints were mounted on heavy paper, and then bound in albums that Du Camp sold in 1852 under the title “Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie.”This was arguably the world’s first travel photography book and the images amazed the public. It made Du Camp famous almost overnight. Hearing and researching this story has been really insightful and enlightening in my investigation on travel photography. It makes you realise how much photography has developed and how lucky we are today. Today’s snapshooters have no idea how hard it once was to photograph the world, something they can do now so easily with just the press of a button.
The meaning behind these images is to portray our oceanic trash problem by creating sculptures that look like living organic creatures. This, therefore, creates the sense of a bleak future for oceans and represents how we are ‘replacing’ marine life with deadly pollution. These pieces are clearly influenced by humanities modern consumer culture, and although beautiful, illustrate a very ominous subject. The first image on the left depicts a metal sculpture portraying a ‘jellyfish-like’ creature captured from just below the ocean’s surface. I chose this piece as an example as the reflections of light bouncing from the strands of metal create an amazing sense of movement. I also love the deep ocean blue tone of this image and the ripples on the surface really bring the scene to life. The next photograph on the right is a much lighter and softer version of the same kind of creature, this time made from thin strands of blue plastic without the surface of the water in sight. I love the soft tones and colours of this photograph along with the calming rays of sunlight streaming through the composition.
Much like with the work of Goussin and Hortense these images represent a bleak future for our oceans by creating seemingly living organic creatures from common household pollution. Again these pieces were influenced by humanities modern consumer culture, as well as being particularly inspired by the catastrophe of the ‘trash vortex’ in the North Pacific Ocean. The first image on the left shows basic shower caps floating together like a perfectly framed swarm of jellyfish in the vast blue ocean. I love the simplicity of the subject matter in this as, although it is obvious what they are, the shower caps are brought to life by their perspective, depth, and shape. The next image is of a plastic bag tied at the bottom to create the shape of a fish. I love the perspective of ‘the fish’ swimming away and the gradient of dark to light blue in the background, much like you would see in the ocean. I believe these types of photographs will be great pieces of historical evidence in the future, either to state our acknowledgement of the changing world or how we managed to save it before it’s too late.
