Overall I found my chosen stance regarding the topic of political landscapes went well. Though I was a bit unsure of what to do at the beginning, after some more research I came to a conclusion of what I wanted do and achieve in the project, looking at how consumerism impacts the environment around us through industrialization.  I found that the photographers I studied, Edward Burtynsky, Henry J Fair and Andreas Gursky proved to be great examples of what I wanted to do, with their unique photography style providing inspiration throughout the course for what I referred back to. My favorite project from them is called ‘Industrial Scars’, a book that consisted of aerial perspectives of industrial landscapes and the chemicals produced by them. This as a result led to me exploring a variety of landscapes present within Jersey such as quarries, shops and dumps, essentially the three main sectors of any consumerist industry. When I arrived at the designated area for photography I made sure to capture the subject in a straight documentary approach, a style that I really like regarding how political visions are put across, leading me to not use manipulation when editing the shoots as I wanted to keep it as close as possible to the reality I saw it as. I used Burtynsky’s style of photography to capture the landscape of the area in a more documentary style and Fair’s style to create abstract aesthetic results of rubbish and signs, and finally using Gursky’s work as a reference when photographing aisles of food and consumerist products. What I wanted from this was to present how we treat the environment in relation to the idea of our ever-increasing demands of societies needs, exploring how the present threat of wanting the newest thing leads to the destruction of landscapes not necessarily seen by the general public, but present enough to pose as a disruption to our we preserve land. As a result I wanted use straight photography as my leading cause for these topics where I would present a single sided perspective disregarding any other form of opinion as a means of causing debate and attraction the attention of the audiences.

Through the project I have explored various techniques to enhance my images such as gradients and black + white, which all the while have improved my overall skills and perspective regarding my stance and interpretation of intended matters. This project has taught me about how we perceive the issues in Jersey, whether they are seen or unseen by the eye, giving me opinions that I would have never taken into consideration if I’d never done the chosen topic, giving me opportunities to take images of things I never imagined I would do. The whole process I have gone through has given me a new understanding of how composition affects the viewers opinion and its warping of perspectives regarding my take on issues, allowing me to explore a variety of different styles that I would not have originally not used.

Once I had finished with the design of the book I then proceeded to go onto framing some of the photos I had previous taken in a few shoots. Before I got onto the actual framing I wanted to decide on a layout that I could present them in before I actually did it. Here is a mood-board of some of the various compositions that I might consider when framing up the images:

I then proceeded to choose the images I wanted to frame, I selected the photos that I thought best reflected the topic and looked the best visually, technically and conceptually. These are the six images I chose for my framing outcomes:

After I had completed selecting the photos I then went onto choosing the way I wanted them framed, the composition I chose presents the photos in descending size order (A3, A4, A5). By doing this it would allow me to create two separate frames where each size would represent a different area to consumerism and its process being creating, selling and ridding. However I thought that doing it would be too plain by itself so decided to create frames where the image sinks into the paper. To create this I would have to map out the composition on paper to then cut it out and stick the images on the other side of the sheet, giving the impression of a sunken photo. These were my results:

Overall I was really happy with the outcome of the composition as I thought by arranging the photos in an order where the biggest issue is presented as the biggest photo really highlights the issue of consumerism and the process it goes through all the while effect out environment. I also really like how the image size descended as I found that it really produced an aesthetic feel where the issue is represented by the size of the photos (waste being the most harmful).