In this post I have experimented with presenting my compositions in which I layered photographs of building faces over photographs of granite rock faces. I believe that since I am looking at subjects that are easily comparable to eachother a typology grid is suitable – I have explored typology in the past through the works of Bernd and Hila Bechers and think it is a very effective was of drawing attention to the similarities and differences between the buildings. The use of rock faces in these compositions is great for creating similarities and differences between the photographs because not one rock face is the same as another; there is always individual angles and shapes that are unique to the rock. In typical use of typologies, all of the photographs are cropped to the same size – I had looked at doing this when putting the typologies together but found that it would take away from the composition of some of the photographs so it was best to leave them in their full shape. These typologies are made of my shortlist of best edits so I may change the photographs to all be cropped in the same way when I narrow the photographs down to about four.
Your work and experiments is developing nicely.
Here are some suggestions for improvements to extend studies and marks.
Steel images – feel you could use some better images of steel surfaces which has more structure and textures. Go to buildsites or the harbour where large steel structures are. The images you use don’t have enough textures as it is brushed steel.
Artists references: You could do with more analysis and contextual studies of contemporary photographers that are exploring house/ facades/ social landscapes
Here are some suggestions
Thomas Struth or Andreas Gursky – students of Bechers
Do a blog post on the seminal exhibition in 1975 named, New Topographics which featured many important urban photographers such as the Becher’s.
Look also up the work by others from that exhibition, such as:
Joe Deal, Lewis Baltz
Michael Schmidt (see photobook Berlin Nach 45)
Gabriele Basilico
Thom & Beth Atkinson (see photobook Missing Buildings)