The environment is something that has always inspired artists and creators throughout time. From the very first examples of art that we have found, art emulates the surrounding environment of the artist. Cave paintings are an obvious reference to this, the earliest cave paintings found are the outlines of hands or drawings of different animals around the artists, for example this link shows the earliest known artwork found in Indonesia. Moving closer to more contemporary artists we begin to look at prominent figures like Tiziano Vecellio (Titian). Even though he mostly did not paint real life things aside from portraits he did paint lots of religious scenes, taking parts of the bible and painting them into life was for him a way to express his environment. In 16th century europe religion was one of the most prominent forces in the continent, it affected all aspects of people’s lives, they went to church often and would spend time praying. Because of this their religion was their environment, everything that they did was caused by Christianity.
Adam and Eve
David and Goliath
His paintings often show a very positive, christian message. He romanticized the scenes to show his faith through his artwork, the opening of the heavens in David and Goliath show the positive message that is being shown, the defeat of evil and bad is praised by the Lord. He is showing his psychological environment as opposed to the people who produced the cave paintings mentioned at the top of this blog post, they are showing simply the physical environment, their immediate surroundings like their hands and arms and the external like the babirusa (pig-deer) drawing that is present next to the hand prints.
This difference between the physical and the mental environments is an area of art and photography that is also worth exploring. Although the physical environment of two people can be the same, they can be in the same environment, their mental environments can be incredibly different. It is easy to stimulate the same external environment in multiple people, what it is difficult to do is then to get them to think the exact same thoughts of this identical scene. Although mental conditioning of people is something that can be achieved it is impossible to get someone to think exactly the same. The human brain is something that can be easily controlled and manipulated to a degree but there is always the ability for the mind to wander off and do its own thing, despite being forced into this small space. Scott Berkun talks about this theory by saying that the “mind is unique in the world for its infinity of ideas, for it can be used to think about almost anything in a million different ways.”[1] Because of this the different interpretations of the same thing can always lead to different end results. In psychology there is a debate over free will Vs determinism, this is a debate over if people are completely free to make their own decisions or if everything that has happened to them in their past or genetic factors has caused them to make these choices. As with most of the debates in psychology it is neither all-or-nothing, in reality some decisions are made based on predetermined factors and some are aided by the free will of the individual. Personally I lean towards the determinism side of the debate more, I believe that although people all think differently it is due to individual experiences. Nevertheless it is still interesting to see the results of different experiences and how they can create unique people and how these unique people can create unique art.
To help me get a better understanding of the concept of “environment” I made a mind map of things that I would just come up with as we were familiarising ourselves with the task.
Although my handwriting can be difficult to read and understand sometimes hopefully this can be read. This was only the most basic mind map, based on this as a class we made several mind maps to allow different people in the class to give their input.
There were lots of different ideas that came out of the discussion sessions, one of the most prevalent was to look at landscapes in some way, to photograph the landscape of a person or group to show their environment that way. This could work very well for some projects, being able to map an environment and get an understanding for what it is really like would help the understanding of the subject greatly. The human (and animal) mind is shaped by our environment, among other things, and so there is always a link between an animal or plant and their environment. This often the physical adaptations that they have to survive, investigating these differences between different species and looking at how they fit to the environment could be a really interesting thing to explore.
One other point that kept coming up was “people”, this is an interesting thing to try and look at, again the photographer could be looking at their own environment based on the people around them. You could look at family or relationships, and how they create a social environment for people, by looking at different families and observing their differences you can get an idea for how families other than your own react to different situations in possibly unexpected ways. In the same vein, by looking at different homes an understanding of the intimate environment in which someone lives can be very interesting, seeing inside this place where they can be themselves. In a bedroom where they do not have any pressure to conform the social norms that they usually will. Inside these spaces they can truly be themselves and even though a photographer will not see this side entirely they will get a glimpse of who this person truly is.
Tanja Deman is a multimedia artist born in Croatia. She works with various mediums such as photography, collage as well as physical statues and art pieces which explore the concept of the environment as well as its sense of space and dynamic effect.
Collective Narratives
In some of her most recent work she has created compelling black and white photographs where she uses digital tools such as Photoshop to combine images reflecting the natural and urban landscape to evoke a compelling narrative. This contrast and tension of urban and natural forces is something I plan on exploring and incorporating into my own work.
Dust Storm (2010)
The above image depicts a very surrealist scene featuring a tall building surrounded by dust overlooking a large quarry in the foreground. The photograph features very few components, which adds to the dreamy, surrealist style. There is an intriguing contrast between the very formal, congruous vertical shapes of the building in contrast to the jagged, dusty shapes of the quarry.
After looking at the work of Tanja Deman I wanted to experiment and explore how Photoshop could be used to combine two or more images to create something innovative and intriguing.
I wanted my photographs to portray the contrast in landscapes such as the idea of a busy city landscape contrasted with the calmness of the countryside. I picked landscape photographs taken for my AS coursework, I has a selection of seascapes as well as urban landscapes which I could use. I wanted to create a series rather then a single image so I could use different landscapes. I picked a photograph of my brother looking blankly at the camera to emphasize the effects of human presence on the environment. I used the same image over layed onto the landscape backgrounds to create a sense of consistency as well as develop a series.
I started with these two landscape backgrounds. I liked the variation of light in the first from the sky and dark in the second which makes an interesting contrast. I also wanted to make these both black and white similar to Deman’s work. I also think it is easier to edit in black and white as the lighting varies in the two separate images, making them appear less fitting. I then increased the contrast and put down the brightness to make the two photographs blend together better. I also like the contrast of high energy in the second photograph which was a long exposure of the tunnel in St Helier and the calm and softness of the first landscape.
I wanted to show a contrast of texture in the top two images. I also picked images where the horizon was at the same level, giving more continuity to the images, making them work better as a series as well as enabling a narrative in the photograph. I also kept a colour version to show the contrast in the backgrounds, I feel they don’t work as well because of the colour difference between the background and the superimposed image.
In my last project I explored different female stereotypes of the 20th Century, selecting a cultural or political stereptype for each decade from the 1910’s to the 1990’s. I explored this characters with an outside perspective and now I would like to explore groups and stereotypes associated with these groups that I personally fit into. I think it would be interesting to play off these stereotypes and look at to what extent I conform to them. I hope to create a series of studio portraits that exaggerate these stereotypes in a way that will hopefully show that I am all of these and a the same time none of these stereotypes. I hope to make viewers consider the different stereotypes or boxes that they fit into.
Feminist
I personally identify as a feminist. “Feminism is the conviction that gender has been, and continues to be, a fundamental category for the organization of culture. Moreover, the pattern of that organization usually favors men over women.” P. Phelan (2014) It is my personal opinion that women and men should be equal and as of yet, women are considered not as important as men. I believe that people of any gender identity, race, cultural or financial background, nationality or sexual orientation should have the same rights. I do on occasion conform to the stereotype of an angry feminist, when in discussions surrounding women’s rights I can get frustrated with narrow minded people with misogynist ideals. I also think that when discussing issues surrounding gender inequality, sometimes women need to be loud and need to be passionate about what they believe in to be heard, and this can make them come across as angry. I hate the stereotype that feminists hate men. It is untrue, feminism is not about women being more important than men it is simple about women, the oppressed gender, to be equal to men, the socially dominant gender in our patriarchal society.
Art Student
There are a few stereotypical qualities associated with art students. They are many different preconceptions about artists and art students, these include: mental health problems, drug abuse, middle class backgrounds (presumably because the struggle of living hand to mouth is not something the middle class are used to and art is often not a very lucrative profession) and a need to feel like a “unique snowflake” while at the same time looking like every other art student. Another stereotype is that art students can be full of self importance and are often very pretentious when discussing art work. Some art students are not however, self confident and full of self doubt, always feeling like there work is not good enough and that other artists on their course are much better than them. Aesthetic stereotypes of of a female art student is the tumblr and instagram popularised hairstyle known as “space” buns, some kind of facial piercing, statement lipstick, a “indy” brand back pack and doc marten boots.
Opera/ Classical Singer
As a young person I feel that I don’t fit into most of the preconceptions of what a female opera singer is. The most common opera singer stereotype is a large middle aged woman with huge blonde braids and a horned helmet introduced by the soprano singer Frida Leider (1888-1975) who played Sieglinde in the Wagner Opera “Die Walkure” Above is a modern recording of the role performed by Karita Mattila. Other stereotypes associated with female soprano opera singers like myself is that they are overly dramatic and consider themselves superior to alto singer because of the extreme range of high notes that they can perform. Another stereotype is of course the beautiful dresses and gown that they perform in as well as the range of facial expressions and hand movements that they utilise to make their performance more dramatic.
Blonde
The stereotypes associated with women with blonde hair are that she must have a low IQ, be incredibly high maintenance, a diva, a bitch or be sexually promiscuous or “easy”. For the most part these preconceptions tied to women with blonde hair are rather negative and also often, untrue. Most positive stereotypes for women with blonde hair is that they are fun and bubbly or are simply of Scandinavian decent. As a child I had blonde hair but as I got older my hair darkened into a mousy, ashy light brown. I have coloured my hair many times from the age of 13 and have been blonde more than once during this 5 year period. I had been bleaching my hair to a platinum blonde coloured for over a year in order to die it pink, when I was sick of doing so I decided to leave it blonde and just maintain he brown roots. I had some bad experiences being a young blonde woman. I experienced cat calling much more frequently than when i had pink or brown hair, the most popular being “Hey, Blondie”. I also experienced multiple scenarios on the one time I went clubbing with blonde hair, two different men in different clubs thought that they had the right to touch me without asking or even talking to me. This bad experience along with a concern for my own safety and the health of my hair drove me to die my hair back to it’s natural colour. I hate that men associate blonde hair with someone who is “easy” because I believe this is why those men thought that they could do whatever they wanted. I have experienced much less catcalling since being a brunette again, only two instances in two months and I have had no bad experiences out clubbing either which reinforces my reasons to believe that it was my hair colour that was sending the wrong message. As a feminist I want to live in a world where women should be able to have whatever hair colour they want without being judged, but unfortunately that is not the world we live in and my safety comes first.
Beauty Pageant Winner
I think that there are many pre-conceptions about women who enter beauty pageants, they are often perceived as vain, high maintenance and full of self importance. I personally think that these seemingly negative qualities are inaccurate and what people are picking up on is high self confidence. To a certain extent these sort of competitions are superficial as generally speaking, it is attractive, conventionally beautiful women who enter. However, these women also need to be well spoken and articulate as they are ambassadors for their country, state, county, province, town or village. On Saturday 11th March I was crowned Miss Saint Helier 2017. My experience was very positive as I felt that the focus was definitely on the public speaking skills than the beauty aspect of the competition. I want to explore and research the ideas and history behind beauty pageants further before producing a response to my experience in the beauty pageant world as i was also a runner up for Miss Jersey Battle of Flowers 2016.
My personal environment is western society. This encompasses a wide array of different cultures and values but can be seen as very different form eastern society. As someone who has traveled to China, in the eastern world, and stayed in a Chinese family home I can confirm that subtle and more obvious differences exist. Western society seems to value individuals more than groups and communities than they do in the western world. The preservation of culture is also very important in China, and I can only assume that this sentiment is present in other countries in the East.
Visual Displays of Cultural differences in the East and Western world
Western culture is present in many European countries as well as others that have experience immigrants from european countries such as Australia and the Americas. Western values have many different influences including Celtic, Greek, Latin and Slavic as well at the different variations of the Christian faith. Despite Western Society’s many faults, there has been great ideas and customs that have orginated in the west. Western concepts include democracy, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech and the pursuit of equality. Western societies are often concerned about self discovery, self criticism and self inprovement and this has helped western countries because more interlectually developed. Western countries are generally economically and superior and more powerful than eastern countries with the exception of China. Although countires such as Japan and South Korea that have adopted a more western values have economically benefitted from the changes. There are many different opinions about the top five most powerful countires so I have included lists from three different websites linked below.
Most powerful countries according www.usnews.com
United States of America (West)
Russia (West)
China (East)
United Kingdom (West)
Germany (West)
Most powerful countries according to www.themeshnews.com
United States of America (West)
United Kingdom (West)
Germany (West)
China (East)
France (West)
Most powerful countires according to www.the-american-interest.com
Western culture is also built on capitalism which is why western countries or countries that have adopted certain form of western culture are on average more economically developed then countries with easter culture. Many people believe that western culture is superior to eastern culture and this is partially to do with western countries being, on the whole, rich and more powerful than eastern countries. Western culture is also more progressive and inclusive than eastern culture. In the west people of all races, sexualities, gender identities and backgrounds are more likely to be accepted in western countries. Here is a link to an essay describing how western values are superior to eastern values in the opinion of Ibn Warraq, an anonymous author critical of Islam, who we can only assume from the pen name is of middle eastern origin. I cannot say that I agree with everything said in the essay as I feel that Warraq is often overly critical of the islamic faith as many muslins live in western countries very peacefully.
Something that is present in both eastern and western cultures is patriarchy, men and women are not considered equal in either cultures. However, the west are known for their objectification of women and do this much more consciously and obviously than in the west. Above is some examples of how women are sexualised and objectified in western advertising. The Dolce & Gabbana advertisement depicts a women being pinned down be man while three men look on. The woman is not even making eye contact with the man she is being restrained by which emphasises the passivity she is displaying. The image actually makes me, as a woman, rather uncomfortable. The American Apparel advertisement again shows a woman being held by a man, this time upside down by the ankles in a suggestive position. Although both figures have no sense of identity with the lack of faces, there is more of the male figure on show, suggesting that he is the dominant of the two. I want to explore the idea of how women are presented in the western world in this project and perhaps look at the time of women that are celebrated for their looks.
Something that I want to explore in my personal study is my personal environment of western society and the western female stereotypes that I fit into. I explored female stereotypes of the 20th century with an outsiders perspective as I was born in 1998 and was not present to see the stereotypes I explored first hand. In this project I hope to explore my own archetypes and how I do not fit into one box, but many.
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…
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
Gregg Segal is a well-known photographer famous for bringing light to ugly and controversial subjects. Since a very young age, Segal has taken interest in photography, capturing mundane moments as works of art and documentation. At the age of 16, he attended the ‘Interlochen Arts Academy’ and soon after went on to do a BFA at the ‘California Institute of the Arts’. His passions and skill for storytelling through visual arts was helped by his interest in film and his ‘dramatic writing’ masters degree from ‘New York University’. Since then Segal has used the photographic medium to explore culture: our beliefs, our values, and our histories. As well as identity and the roles we play: super-heroes, CEO’s, inventors, gamblers, factory workers, and those just making up their identity as they go. His work has been recognised by huge organisations such as ‘American Photography’, ‘PDN’, ‘Investigative Reporters and Editors’ and ‘The New York Press Club’. Whilst his portraiture and photo essays have been featured in major magazines like ‘Time’, ‘Newsweek’, ‘The Independent’, and ‘National Geographic Adventure’. The reason I have chosen him for inspiration on how to portray environmental issues is down to his beautifully executed series he has named ‘7 Days of Garbage’.
The amount of rubbish that gets thrown away on a daily basis usually goes unnoticed. However, in this project aptly named ‘7 Days of Garbage’, Gregg Segal shows bizarrely artistic photos of families and individuals laying in a 7 days-worth pool of their own rubbish, escalating the inconvenient truth about one of the deepest environmental issues of today. As his work is very diverse Segal tries to avoid categorization, creating his own blend of editorial, fine art and documentary photography. All of these subjects, brave enough to show to the world their trash in the most vulnerable of ways, were Segal’s neighbours, friends, and other acquaintances. “Subjects are photographed surrounded by their trash in a setting that is part nest, part archaeological record,”he explains. “We’ve made our bed and in it we lie”. Below is a quote from Segal explaining the results that this project has had on himself and his subjects…
“By asking us to look at ourselves, I’ve found that many are considering the issue more deeply. Many have said the process of saving their garbage and laying in it reconciled them to a need for change. Others feel powerless. It isn’t their fault that the products they buy are disposable and come with excessive packaging. Our economic model and its necessity for growth fuels the waste epidemic – and makes conservation seem untenable.”
Here I have presented two of my favourite images from the ‘7 Days of Garbage’ series to compare and evaluate. By looking at these two pieces together you can really start to understand the growing problem of consumerism in younger generations. Both of these images depict a straight forward full body portrait image of a person lying on top of a week’s worth of their own rubbish. The meaning behind these creations is quite well explained by the photographer in a powerful statement; “We’ve made our bed and in it we lie”. This explains his intentions that, using his own blend of editorial, fine art and documentary photography, Segal has portrayed one of most problematic pollution issues to the environment in today’s society. I like the age diversity that he has included in this project as it is a really powerful statement that no-one is safe from this problem and everyone unintentionally contributes. I also love the compositions and structure of these images as the strong and obvious symbolism (created by strategically placed rubbish) emphasises the dramatic impact we are having on the world around us. These staged photographs are, in my opinion, essential for documenting our society’s problems today.
* Specified Task – Key Image Evaluation: Lastly is my favourite image from this collection depicting a typical 1st world family of four, surrounded by a weeks worth of their house-hold rubbish. I love the overhead perspective of this image as it adds to the staged photography style and overall dramatic tone. This way we are able to view the whole scene from a ‘new perspective’ and really clearly see the layout of the family and their waste. Because of the cloths and ethnicity of these people we can assume it is based currently in the western world. This emphasises this growing problem as a critical issue in first world countries that’s happening right now and will only get worse. The photographer names this family in order from left to right as Alfie, Kirsten, Miles, and Elly. By informing us of each of their names he has really made the project personal and allowed us to relate and connect to the subjects on deeper level. The meaning behind these images is very obviously a statement towards pollution and what we leave behind. Gregg Segal describes his goals and aspiration for the project; “bypersonalising the problem of waste – by starting with myself and working outwards from there, I’ve found that some are taking small steps to mitigate the crisis. Reflecting on the pictures I’ve made, I see 7 Days of Garbage as instant archaeology, a record not only of our waste but of our values – values that may be evolving a little”. This quote tells us that the meaning of these images is to inform the public of this common travesty as well as to inspire change. The many discarded food wrappers and massive amounts of waste paper symbolise how we can unintentionally, and without regard, waste these every day objects because of consumerism. Overall I love the fine art nature of this image as it still portrays a very clear meaning whilst balancing on the line between staged and documentary photography. The real scale of the rubbish against the size of the family really puts this problem into perspective. Without this use of staged photography, these issues would never come to light and be encouraged to change.
Steven Hirsch is a brilliant photographer and teacher that was born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Now based in New York’s East Village, his photographs have been seen in many major news publications such as ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Huffington Post’ and ‘Time’. Apart from this, he has also been awarded two of the ‘New York Foundation for the Arts’ grants and his work has been widely exhibited and collected by many prestigious museums. Hirsch’s photography has covered a diverse subject matter, including his project ‘Courthouse Confessions’, a visual chronicling of the defendants who passed through the Manhattan Criminal Court Building. Yet despite all of his achievements the reason I have chosen him to be my first inspiration for my project is because of one of his more controversial collections names ‘Gowanus’.
“Gowanus: Off The Water’s Surface” is a series of photographs portraying the horribly polluted waters in the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, New York. The toxic liquid that fills the Gowanus Canal today is not commonly referred to as alluring, celestial, beautiful. Yet through Hirsch’s eye’s, we see sludge, chemicals, and waste products become vibrant and moving images of colour. When Hirsch began shooting for this project in 2014, he took photographs in the Spring. “Because of the time of year, there was a runoff,” he says. “There was a lot of surface pollution because of that, which made it very interesting”. These depictions reveal a deep rich world of abstract shapes and explosive colour, the photographs are painterly in style, with Impressionistic hints of hue and texture. Within the pollution, surreal worlds are depicted and visions of figures, faces and bodies, and natural forms like waterfalls, landscapes, glaciers, or galaxies arise. These images were first featured in 2010 on ABC News online and more recently in The New York Times and the Daily Mail, despite being met with bitter controversy. I think this series makes an amazing start to my ‘environment’ project because they show a very abstracted and beautiful version of the truth. These images will be admired whether the viewer cares about the canals pollution levels or not. I love the way he has taken something so horrible and turned it into something beautiful, thus subtly informing the public of their society’s environmental problems. Below I have chosen five pieces from this series and evaluated each one.
– beautiful abstract photographs of polluted water by Steven Hirsch. – ‘Gowanus’ 2014.The first photographs that caught my eye from this series are the two abstract ‘painting like’ pieces above. The photograph on the left shows a dark and beautiful mixture of blue canal water, black shadows, multicoloured oil and gold reflections. This piece is entitled ‘Epiales’, which in Greek mythology is the name of the spirit and personification of nightmares. Because of this mythical context, we can assume it is more about the colours, shapes and beautiful symbolism; then the recording societies effect on the canal. However, I believe that because of the nature of this represented character being the ‘personification of nightmares’, this image takes on a much deeper meaning. Human culture naturally and ‘accidentally’ creates these beautifully sickening masterpieces on the water’s surface, so traumatic to the environment it can be compared with nightmares. The photograph on the right comes at this theme from a different viewpoint. Entitled ‘Chloris’, the goddess of flowers, it seems as if it would have a much happier theme. This, however, is not possible with the vibrant, unnatural and toxic colours swirling together mimicking and possibly one day replacing the natural colours found in beautiful untouched flowers.These next two astral looking images really express the representation of this project well for me. On the left is a piece entitled ‘Phorcys’, in greek mythology, meaning the ancient sea-god of the hidden dangers. Although this piece looks like a galaxy to me, with its bright colours and deep black background, the title has completely changed its context. Now knowing that this image relates to the dangers of the sea it is a clear representation of constant man-made disasters, like oil spills, that pollute our oceans. I love the beauty he has captured of the oil shimmering on the water’s surface and the ripples that really emphasises its dark and daunting meaning. The next photograph on the left is a bit more straight-forward as it is indeed meant to appear as a constellation of stars. The title of this image, ‘Pleiades’, is named after the seven mountain-nymph sisters who were banished to live amongst the stars. In astronomy ‘Pleiades’ is an open star cluster dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. This astral depiction of all of these dead inhabitable stars (showed with canal pollution) for me, represents the bigger picture of the universe and our underappreciation of Earth as a source of life.
* Specified Task – Key Image Evaluation: Lastly is my favourite image from this collection depicting the water’s surface lined with reflective oil that is distorted by ripples. I love the perspective the ripples give water and the composition of the many recurring rings inside the frame. Its populated location, current time period and abstract view can tell us a lot about the context and tone of this image. This piece is named after ‘Hephaestus’ the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, metals and fire. This is a very obvious connection between the metallic shine of the oil and the ‘Greek god of metal’. Because of the titles of each of these pieces being related to Greek mythology, we can assume there is a greater meaning behind the beauty of each image. However, since researching further into this series I have found that for Hirsch, it’s the composition that fascinates him. In an interview about his work, he explains that “a lot of people see an environmental disaster. I just want the pictures to look beautiful”. This quote tells us that the meaning of these images is up to the viewer, some may choose to see the tragedy and others simply the beauty. For me, I believe the meaning of this image is very strongly orientated towards this environmental issue. This oily subject matter and its array of man-made colours is directly linked to the pollution we face in current times paired with the result of sustaining populated cities. I believe that the recurring ringlets in this photograph can symbolise humanity’s devastating and repetitive actions against nature and the beautiful colours shows our distraction and ignorance towards the subject. Overall I love the abstract nature of this image as it contains lots of intense reflective light creating brilliantly contrasted tones. These shadows in the water create a great perspective for this photograph and give us a strong clue for understanding the subject matter. My favourite factor in this image is, of course, the brilliant and vibrant colours that flow from, and contrast,each other.
“My sky photographs in 1988 were a play on color field painting: Reinhardt, Rothko, et al. But my photos were not trying to emulate painting – they were exploring the nature of the (profound) differences between photography and painting”
Richard Misrach is an American Contemporary photographer and also one of my favourite photographers from the New Topography and social landscape movement. He is from California and he specialized in landscape photography where colour was often a prominent and relevant feature in his photography, he is also well known for his photography of the American West with his photography series ‘Desert Cantos’. In his early year before he gained a passion for photography, he studied psychology in the Los Angeles University in California where he studied Psychology and also pursued a degree in mathematics. He then went onto looking at homelessness in Los Angeles where he published ‘Telegraph 3 AM’ which were black and white photogrpahs. This was done to help raise awareness and improve the lives of the people who lived there, after this we went to southern California to take a very different approach, moving away from photographing people and focusing on the land around us.
People on Raft with Oil Derricks, Santa Barbara , 1984 Kodak, Donna, Debra, Jake, Oregon Coast, 1984 Oil Derricks, Santa Barbara, 1984 Battleground Point #41, 1999 Battleground Point #2, 1999 Pyramid Lake (Orange), 1997 Battleground Point #2, 1999
Don and Barbara, Salton Sea, 1985
Mono Lake #2, 1999 Don and Barbara, Salton Sea, 1985 Tourists, Utah, 1994 Aerial Target ( Road Blockade and Pyramids , 1989 San Gorgonio Pass, 1981 Cloud #005, 1987 Aerial Target (“Dart”), Wendover Air Base, Utah, 1990
“I’ve come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas. It engages people when they might otherwise look away”
Desert Cantos
This series of photographs were taken over a number of years and is an ongoing series of photographs which focus on the american deserts which started in 1979, four years after the New Topographic’s exhibition, which Richard Misrach wasn’t part of, although there are allot of similarities between the his work and the movement. The use of the word cantos comes from the word ‘canto’ which refers to a section of a long poem, which refers to ‘The Cantos’ which is an incomplete poem by Ezra Pound. This series was a big step from his earlier work, in both aesthetic style and the fast it was such an ambitious series. To me the series shows a certain softness but also sublimity from something desolate, I think the simplicity and the colour schemes such as the morning/evening sky and how it softens and creates an unsaturated appearance to the photographs reflects a deeper, abstract and more poetic meaning and concept in the same way that a poem would. It also shows a clear and obvious sense of how we live in such a desolate environment.
The conclusions offered are multi-faceted: human use and habitation of the desert have resulted in a great deal of destruction of a fragile environment, but at the same time the human intrusion seems small and ultimately of little consequence – Essay by Reyner Banham.
Border Cantos is a sub project to accompany his ongoing Desert Cantos series where he worked with composer Guillermo Galindo. This project focuses on the border between mexico and the United states which was started in 2004. It is also a statement on the environment and our effects on it such as with the use of transport and waste. I like how this project captures the variety of the American/Mexican border.
from Petrochemical America, photographs by Richard Misrach, Ecological Atlas by Kate Orff (Aperture 2012).
Petrochemical America
These photographs were taken as part of a commission in 1998 on wards to document the surroundings and the areas where people live around the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the area had become a heavily industrial area, where petrochemicals and factories were everywhere, this has lead to chemicals, waste and other toxins to ruin the wildlife and quality of the water. This series ties in very well with that of Ansel Adams in the way that it wants to evoke a sense of environmentalism and how we need to protect and be aware of nature but instead of focusing on the beauty of the untouched natural landscape, it looks at how we have changed and destroyed the land into something many would consider unsightly but instead appreciating the beauty and aesthetic qualities of the desolate and degraded landscape. Overall I find these photographs sort of ominous, they share the same softness of the Desert Cantos, but with a very different eerie tone and ambiance with grey, blue and green tones as well as the fact that they often feature gloomy and overcast skies, they are a clear example of how people go and leave an area, leaving marks and belongings behind, they show a clear sense of how unwanted the area is and how something that once carried potential can be ruined and then left.
“I’d never heard of this area, and when I finally saw the landscape, I was shocked. It was really extreme, the amount of industry along the river and the poor communities living there, I couldn’t believe it actually existed”
The two series both reflect the variety of changes we have created to our environment as well as the unique change and regrowth of the climate, this is seen to struggle and adapt to our effects. The changes of Border Cantos were often a lot more subtle compared to the decaying appearance of Cancer Alley for example the landscape of Border Cantos shows lush grass that grows around borders and clear skies whilst on the other hand the deteriorating and over littered land displayed in the Cancer alley series depicts decay and the lands inability to cope with mans careless disposal of waste.
Abandoned Trailer, Mississippi River, Near Dow Chemical Plant, Plaquemine, Louisiana, 1998, from Petrochemical America
I was really intrigued by the representation the destruction and deterioration of the natural land due to of waste in this photograph. The fogginess adds to the eeriness of the photograph. This is quite an uncomfortable photograph to view, the stillness of the water accompanied by the vast amounts of rubbish emphasize a sense of abandonment, even with the array of waste, there is still a sense of barrenness thru ought the photograph. The photograph depicts a sense of lifelessness from the effects of human consumption and the effects of how society carelessly uses the environment until it is no longer useful. I think this is one of his most jarring photographs which is a honest reflection of the effects of people on the environment.
Night Fishing, Near Bonnet Carré Spillway, Norco, Louisiana, 1998
In this photograph, we can see a fisherman fishing along a seemingly quiet lake in the foreground, onlooking a bustling and almost chaotic appearing industrial city, which the lights reflecting off of the still surface of the lake. I like the contrast of energy and colour on the different sides of the lake, one being calm, natural, uneven and dark in contrast to the bright and industrialized city view in the background. As in many of Misrach’s photographs, this photograph has a very simple colour scheme of light grey, pale pastel colours as well as dark greens and browns as well as a soft clear sky. The blurry boat and an interesting and abstract effect. Overall I think the message that Misrach wanted to illustrate was both political and social, the fact that the person is so small in comparison to that else is in the photograph such as the immense size of the boat and the city in the background as well as the vastness of the lake is an example of our insignificance but also our power and ability to create and change the landscape in such a compelling way.
Outdoor Dining, Bonneville Salt Flats – Utah, 1992
This photograph was taken on the salt flats in Utah, which is a vast flat area of salt which goes for miles and miles. Similar to the first I like the simple yet memorable colour scheme and the minimalist components, such as how the ground is so similar to the sky in colour and texture, which makes the photograph appear more abstract. As a while the photograph appears unusual and almost surreal, as if someone had photo shopped furniture from a restaurant into and already unusual landscape, the mountains also look very out of place, the perfect line and contrast between the salt lake and the mountain makes it appear as if the the mountain hovers over the horizon.
His work is a reflection of the Americans peoples relationship with the landscape. He has done this by focusing on land where there is a clear depiction of the effects of humans such as waste products, building materials, but instead of most environmental photographers who focus on the more political message, he emphasizes the beauty of these landscapes, his work reflects a very intriguing aesthetic with his use of colour and hues. This focus on beauty and aesthetics emphasizes the romantic element in his work. There is also something very poetic about his work, the photographs are never overly cluttered and leave focus on the colours and composition. Also the most astonding feature about his work is even though it is a focus on the effects of people, there are very rarely people present in his photogrpahs, refelcting a certain uncanniness in his work.
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.
Here I have presented two of my favourite images from the ‘7 Days of Garbage’ series to compare and evaluate. By looking at these two pieces together you can really start to understand the growing problem of consumerism in younger generations. Both of these images depict a straight forward full body portrait image of a person lying on top of a week’s worth of their own rubbish. The meaning behind these creations is quite well explained by the photographer in a powerful statement; “We’ve made our bed and in it we lie”. This explains his intentions that, using his own blend of editorial, fine art and documentary photography, Segal has portrayed one of most problematic pollution issues to the environment in today’s society. I like the age diversity that he has included in this project as it is a really powerful statement that no-one is safe from this problem and everyone unintentionally contributes. I also love the compositions and structure of these images as the strong and obvious symbolism (created by strategically placed rubbish) emphasises the dramatic impact we are having on the world around us. These staged photographs are, in my opinion, essential for documenting our society’s problems today.
Lastly is my favourite image from this collection depicting a typical 1st world family of four, surrounded by a weeks worth of their house-hold rubbish. I love the overhead perspective of this image as it adds to the staged photography style and overall dramatic tone. This way we are able to view the whole scene from a ‘new perspective’ and really clearly see the layout of the family and their waste. Because of the cloths and ethnicity of these people we can assume it is based currently in the western world. This emphasises this growing problem as a critical issue in first world countries that’s happening right now and will only get worse. The photographer names this family in order from left to right as Alfie, Kirsten, Miles, and Elly. By informing us of each of their names he has really made the project personal and allowed us to relate and connect to the subjects on deeper level. The meaning behind these images is very obviously a statement towards pollution and what we leave behind. Gregg Segal describes his goals and aspiration for the project; “by personalising the problem of waste – by starting with myself and working outwards from there, I’ve found that some are taking small steps to mitigate the crisis. Reflecting on the pictures I’ve made, I see 7 Days of Garbage as instant archaeology, a record not only of our waste but of our values – values that may be evolving a little”. This quote tells us that the meaning of these images is to inform the public of this common travesty as well as to inspire change. The many discarded food wrappers and massive amounts of waste paper symbolise how we can unintentionally, and without regard, waste these every day objects because of consumerism. Overall I love the fine art nature of this image as it still portrays a very clear meaning whilst balancing on the line between staged and documentary photography. The real scale of the rubbish against the size of the family really puts this problem into perspective. Without this use of staged photography, these issues would never come to light and be encouraged to change.
The first photographs that caught my eye from this series are the two abstract ‘painting like’ pieces above. The photograph on the left shows a dark and beautiful mixture of blue canal water, black shadows, multicoloured oil and gold reflections. This piece is entitled ‘Epiales’, which in Greek mythology is the name of the spirit and personification of nightmares. Because of this mythical context, we can assume it is more about the colours, shapes and beautiful symbolism; then the recording societies effect on the canal. However, I believe that because of the nature of this represented character being the ‘personification of nightmares’, this image takes on a much deeper meaning. Human culture naturally and ‘accidentally’ creates these beautifully sickening masterpieces on the water’s surface, so traumatic to the environment it can be compared with nightmares. The photograph on the right comes at this theme from a different viewpoint. Entitled ‘Chloris’, the goddess of flowers, it seems as if it would have a much happier theme. This, however, is not possible with the vibrant, unnatural and toxic colours swirling together mimicking and possibly one day replacing the natural colours found in beautiful untouched flowers.
These next two astral looking images really express the representation of this project well for me. On the left is a piece entitled ‘Phorcys’, in greek mythology, meaning the ancient sea-god of the hidden dangers. Although this piece looks like a galaxy to me, with its bright colours and deep black background, the title has completely changed its context. Now knowing that this image relates to the dangers of the sea it is a clear representation of constant man-made disasters, like oil spills, that pollute our oceans. I love the beauty he has captured of the oil shimmering on the water’s surface and the ripples that really emphasises its dark and daunting meaning. The next photograph on the left is a bit more straight-forward as it is indeed meant to appear as a constellation of stars. The title of this image, ‘Pleiades’, is named after the seven mountain-nymph sisters who were banished to live amongst the stars. In astronomy ‘Pleiades’ is an open star cluster dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. This astral depiction of all of these dead inhabitable stars (showed with canal pollution) for me, represents the bigger picture of the universe and our underappreciation of Earth as a source of life.
Lastly is my favourite image from this collection depicting the water’s surface lined with reflective oil that is distorted by ripples. I love the perspective the ripples give water and the composition of the many recurring rings inside the frame. Its populated location, current time period and abstract view can tell us a lot about the context and tone of this image. This piece is named after ‘Hephaestus’ the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, metals and fire. This is a very obvious connection between the metallic shine of the oil and the ‘Greek god of metal’. Because of the titles of each of these pieces being related to Greek mythology, we can assume there is a greater meaning behind the beauty of each image. However, since researching further into this series I have found that for Hirsch, it’s the composition that fascinates him. In an interview about his work, he explains that “a lot of people see an environmental disaster. I just want the pictures to look beautiful”. This quote tells us that the meaning of these images is up to the viewer, some may choose to see the tragedy and others simply the beauty. For me, I believe the meaning of this image is very strongly orientated towards this environmental issue. This oily subject matter and its array of man-made colours is directly linked to the pollution we face in current times paired with the result of sustaining populated cities. I believe that the recurring ringlets in this photograph can symbolise humanity’s devastating and repetitive actions against nature and the beautiful colours shows our distraction and ignorance towards the subject. Overall I love the abstract nature of this image as it contains lots of intense reflective light creating brilliantly contrasted tones. These shadows in the water create a great perspective for this photograph and give us a strong clue for understanding the subject matter. My favourite factor in this image is, of course, the brilliant and vibrant colours that flow from, and contrast,each other.
