Lesson 1 – Reviewing and reflecting:
Objective: Criteria from the Syllabus

• Write an overview from my personal investigation about what I’ve learned and how I intend to develop it.
• I will be describing the themes, artists, approaches, skills and photographic process/techniques that have inspired me the most and why.

Regarding my personal investigations I intend to approach it by using and exploring various techniques but a continuous style, examples consist of documentary and abstract to allow me to produce the results I desired. The themes I found to be the most interesting were the ones concerning consumerism and its effect on Jersey's landscape, I found that this allowed for a new insight into what happens with out waste and how much it affects the environment around it. From this it would allow me to give viewers a different perspective into what the outcome of our consumerism is, using software such as Photoshop and Lightroom to highlight specific details that I want to be focused on. Because of this I am able to portray each image differently from the next, as yes they all have a theme in common, but rather each explore a different aspect of consumerism and its impact. Two photographers who to me are particularly inspiring are Henry J Fair, someone who uses abstract imagery to capture the pollution of the world in aesthetic and stunning ways, and Edward Burtynsky, a photographer who captures the hidden beauty in consumerism, but also highlights the impact and devastation it causes on the environment. Both photographers use of vivid and harsh lighting accompanied by high saturation create landscapes that seem to surreal to be an actual place, drawing in my interest from how I loved the idea of using lighting as a conventional way in which photos are presented. I found that it would be most effective in end result areas of consumerism, as by portraying these dumping grounds in specific ways I believe that it would bring otherwise ugly imagery to life.