Above are the initial brainstroms surrounding the exam question: Environment. The main starting points that I then developed upon are the predictable concept of nature, the modern world and social media, capitalism and industrialism and created and constucted environment in tableaux photography.
NATURE
- Eco systems: how do they work in nature, contrast this with the harmful “ecosystems” of human society
- Symbiotic relationships: Mutually benefitial situations, contrast this with harmful relationships, humans do not look after the planet and yet still benefit from its resources.
- Decomposition: Look at rotting food, maybe animal bodies. This idea could potenially be tied to the concept of ageing.
- Enviromental conditions: Look at different temperatures and climates. This could tie in with the melting and boiling point of water, how humans adapt to their environment.
- Country side vs City: Contrast the natural landscape with the man made landscape.
MODERN WORLD
- Social Media: How social media influences how we present ourselves and see other people.
- Loss of intamacy or privacy: We share our lives with the internet, has this resulted in a loss of privacy? We stay in contact through technology and are glued to our phones, has this caused a loss of intamacy?
- Loss of privacy: Just by typing a name into the google search bar anyone can find photos and personal information on anyone who has a digitial footprint.
- Loss of intamacy: Has social media and technology caused a lack of intimacy? Instead of meetibng friends for a coffee is the custom now to simply tag them in a relatable meme?
CAPITALISM, INDUSTRIALISM AND THE POWER OF MONEY
- World Wide Brands: Thanks to capitalism and globalisation in the modern world, brand names such as Coca Cola and McDonalds can be recognised all over the world. There are 250 McDonalds establishments in New York City Alone
- Exploitation of the working class: looking at how the working class seemingly work the hardest and are exploited for their labour that it not rewarded with a fair amount of pay.
- White, Rich Man’s World: Looking at how some people are so privalleged that they are completely unaware of their privalege. The environment of the white, rich man, how he is the most privaledged in any situation.
- Power of Money: Money makes the world go round and in today’s world where 1 million dollars mean nothing people are pressured to work hard and earn as much money as possible. This has resukted in the custom of working riduculous hours and as a result of this having to pay people to do the jobs they no longer have the time for. However, if they didn’t work as many hours and cleaned their own houses, did their own washing and walked their own dogs in their spare time they wouldn’t have to pay cleaner, lauderettes and dog walkers. The Power of money has also made young people very selfish, this has resulted in many people entering lond term relationships, marrying and having childern later in life. This custom is arguably possitive as it allows people to focus on caring for themselves before having to worry about other people.
- Exposure to marketing and advertising: Consumers are bombarded with advertisements wherever they go, when they turn on their tv or radio, in every newspaper and magazine, at the bus stop, on the walk or daily commute to work. Advertisments can also play off people insecurities to encourage them to purchase products or services.
CONSTRUCTED/CREATED ENVIRONMENTS
- Voids/empty spaces: Studio’s can be used to remove a person, object or scene from an enviroment. This can display the subject out of context which could be a very interesting idea to explore.
- Controlled Enviroments: Subjects can be placed in environments that are completely controlled by the photographer, a house, a room or a studio. There are no distractions from the outside world and cannot be affected by weather or other people.
- Fantasy, Dillusion, Imagination : constructed enviroments can be created to depict fantasy, dillusions or imagination. Props, costume and lighting can be utilised and controlled by the photographer to create scenes that are not based on relatity.
- Installations: installations are another form of art that can be documented through photography or video. These enviroments are constructed within a pre-exsisting environment or within a blank gallery- like space.
Depicted above is a quick diagram made in Photoshop, using many different layers, showing how I might set up my final pieces as two separate but equally as important designs. I created this simple example to show how (depending on how my images work together) it might be best to split them up into symbolism and documentary/studio and location photographs and present them as two different projects, done on the same environmental awareness subject. To create this kind of presentation I will print of my finals as a mixture of A3, A4 and A5 pieces and spray mount them onto two separate large white boards.
– Mixture of stock images and other artists interpretations of this theme. 
