My Response To Political Landscapes

Original/Archive Photographs

The below contact sheets contain photographs taken during the development of my house. The development within the photographs looks at how the land has changed over time through human intervention. The photographs show the houses at different stages including before development and the style that they were decorated in in the late 1800’s. This has strong links to political landscapes and Guillame Bression and Carlos Ayesta’s work due to exploring what man can do to a landscape and how drastically it can be changed over a period of time.

I plan on merging these photographs with my response photographs in different ways through experimentation in order to find the best way to show the contrast between the different stages in the development of the property and how it changes over time. A couple ways of which I am thinking of trying to do this is:

  • Layering the photographs on top of eachother
  • Cutting and pasting different parts of different stages into one montage
  • Splitting the images half and half

My Response Photographs

In these photographs I have tried to recreate some of the original archival photographs in order to be able to create contrasting photographs to show the development and changes over time. I have also looked at how the use of the land has changed by including photographs of furniture and decorations around the house. I have chosen a sunny day to take this shoot as I believe the blue skies and lighting creates a positive atmosphere due to the project being used for a good cause being a family home rather than a project such as the finance buildings.

Comparison of Photographs

Below are some comparison images of the different stages of development that the land has gone through over time. These images are only examples of how the land has developed and changed. I will be editing photographs by layering new photographs over archival photographs and vice versa in order to show the contrast and changes.

These changes date back to 1873 and show a variety of trends in the sense of property, for example in the below photographs the top right image is the oldest even those the style of house is almost exactly the same as the new modern development. This is because in the 1870 period only the people who could afford to would plaster their houses, but then later on it came into fashion for houses to have granite showing (top left) so the house was stripped of its plaster to reveal the granite structure. In the current state the house has been re-plastered in order to meet fashion trends and in order to show some inspiration from the original style of the property.

Initial Ideas and Examples of Political Landscapes

Documentary Approach

Through a documentary approach to this theme I would be interested to tell realist stories significant and relevant to history and historical events that affect us now as well as everyday life. I would mainly focus in on the contemporary issues surrounding a particular area and portray this to the audience. Documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects with a more complex story line which intend to explore with possible such projects as the human destruction to our earth while photojournalism concerns more breaking news stories. I will also use this approach which can often overlap with documentary photography with its close relationship to the news media and therefore political landscapes too.

Despite the fact that documentary and photo journalist approaches often will focus mainly on the narrative as a pose to an aesthetically pleasing image, I will ensure to incorporate the most interesting images as well as conveying these stories. My style of photography is more focused on producing aesthetically pleasing images and therefore i intend on  carrying this on through the different approaches to photography that I explore. This will mean that my personal photography style is portrayed through my work although i may be exploring other styles and photographers.

Creative Approach

Through a creative approach I would explore photo manipulation to exaggerate political issues and make the viewer clearly aware of them. I think this approach could work with any theme but in particular I have the idea of exploring environmental issues. As well as creating images powerful within its composition, lighting and coloring  I want to explore using Photoshop to create more abstract and interesting images which cannot be seen in real life.  Using photo manipulation will help to present my conceptual ideas a lot stronger.

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