My approach to this unit of work ‘Landscape photography’ will consist of finding and presenting a balance between Natural, Urban and Altered landscapes, whilst limiting the alteration of the raw photography as I aim to present my raw camera skills along with minimal editing.
This approach to the unit will take influence and inspiration from Ansel Adams (Natural landscape side) and the New Topographics (Urban/Altered landscape side).
This approach I am taking is my way of creatively focussing on the issue of man made developments covering up beautiful natural landscapes. But whilst exploring this issue, also showing that there is however still beauty in our man made surroundings, and which can be enhanced when in harmony with nature.
It was a term brought around by William Jenkins in 1975, this term ‘The New Topographics’ described a group of American Photographers whose photographs had a similar aesthetic, as they were formal, mainly black and white and of the urban landscape. The main photographers that are associated with the new topographics are: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon, John Scott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel.
These photographers focused on urban and altered lanscapes that were fixed with man made structures and buildings such as suburban housing, warehouses and parking lots set or barren bare areas of land. These structures gave the areas a open and industrial feel whilst making the alteration the main focus of the pieces. This work was a response to the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being impacted by the industrial development happening in America at the time.
Here are some examples of the new topographics’ work…
From the work that makes up The New Topographics I hope to display the idea of the contrast between natural and urban landscapes in my own work.
As a response to the work of the landscape photographer Ansel Adams here are some of my landscape photographs in response to his. These photographs are part of a rather large amount of photographs which will be put into a ‘Romanticism Landscape’ post.
Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist who was born in 1902. His black and white photographs of the United States’ Incredible landscapes are some of the most iconic romanticised photographs all over the world, especially those of National Parks and incredible Mountains-scapes, which are widely seen all over the globe on calendars, poster prints, t-shirts, desktop backgrounds and of course all over the internet.
He was notorious for using the aperture setting f/64 in most of his work as it gave him the aesthetic exposure that he desired. This is evident in fact that he, alongside fellow photographers Edward Weston and Williard Van Dyke were the founders of the photography group named ‘ Group f/64 ‘ . The name of course represented their love for the f/64 aperture.
Here are some of my favourite photographs produced by Adams…
And here is a video which goes into depth about Ansel Adam’s life as a landscape photographer…
Romanticism as an art form, is originated from when a new generation of painters came together in order to create landscape artistic paintings for the sake of visual beauty, causing the form of art in the 1800s to become more and more realistic. This first movement was known as Romanticism, it emphasized emotions such as grief or love, leading to a deeper discovery of human emotion caused and effected by our natural surroundings. Romanticism usually creates the perfect visual landscape which the viewer could associate their emotions with or the artist/photographer can create through their emotions.
Here are some examples of Romanticism in photography…
Here is a video that helps to further understanding of Romanticism in Photography and Art…
My favourite chosen outcomes from the project are also those that I have used for my final print compositions, here is a link to the post that went over my final prints…
The first of my final pieces is a composition of 2 studio portraits that I believe simply work together rather well and effectively, to create 1 piece.
Outcome 1
The images needed slightly enhancing in order to balance the light, contrast, saturation and shadows of the 2 photographs, and cropping in order to make sure that the background of the images look clean and fully white so that the subjects stand out nicely.
This composition of 2 images is one that I believe shows my raw camera skills. I believe that the 2 images compliment each other perfectly due to the colours, composition and patterns within the images.
The thing other than the balanced colours/shades pink, black and white that stands out to me between the two images is the balance between pattern through the 3 Adidas stripes in both images. These 3 stripes are something that you will see just about everywhere in which people are wearing casual attire. The stripes are the trademark the adidas sport and casual wear brand, causing Adidas to be known as the “The three stripe company” after being called this by its founder Adolf Dassler. In my 2 photographs the dark on light stripes create a good contrast with the light on dark stripes.
Outcome 2
The second of my final pieces is a composition of 9 images (Street photography and Environmental portraiture) in a story board style which explore how the surroundings of a subject visually effects the subject, and how the subject effects its surroundings.
Outcome 2
I have composed the images in this fashion as each image that is opposite to another length-wise or height-wise is related to and balanced with each other.
Here are the 9 original photographs that I have used in this piece…
The environmental portraits were inspired by August Sander who had a mission of photographing every worker in the whole of Germany, here are some examples of his work…
The street photographs were inspired by Genaro Bardy who photographs the streets of metropolitan cities and small towns. Here are some examples of his work…
Genaro Bardy
Outcome 3
The third of my final pieces is a composition of 4 creative portraits exploring a theme of socially perceived identity.
Outcome 3
I believe that these creative portraits present my creative skills through the use of Photoshop and Typography. The theme of socially perceived is about how people portray themselves within society and how other people portray them, not specifically to the subjects of the images but in general as a society how people seem to see themselves as individuals. The words used in these images explore different social boundaries that some people may come face to face with in society.
This style of work which I have used in this piece of work is inspired by various photographers and graphic artists including: David Carson, Lester Beall, Neville Brody, Paula Scher, and Shepard Fairey (the creator of the OBEY brand.) Here is some of their work…
These are how I wanted to present my final printed images. I have chosen to present them in a simple way because the images are very detailed and contain a lot of aspects, which I didn’t want to over do by presenting them in quite a complicated way.
Mounting Board
This composition of 9 photographs (in a story board format) took a lot of time choosing what images work best together and where to locate them in the piece. I eventually chose these 9 in this order as I believe that they are well balanced and without going into too much detail the images found opposite of each other in the piece tell a story of how the subject is effected by it’s surroundings or how the subject’s surroundings are effected by it.
Mounting Board
The second print composition that I have created explores a more creative portraiture aspect of the project through the use of typography and Photoshop. Although slightly worried about how the quality of the printed outcome would be the prints came out in good quality despite the intentional grain within the images. Again without going into much detail I believe that these 4 images balance each other well and are effective in implying the message of socially perceived identity.
Foam board
Finally this composition of 2 images is one that I believe shows my raw camera skills. I believe that the 2 images compliment each other perfectly due to the colours, composition and patterns within the images. And despite the 2 separate subjects I was able to choose the two with really well balanced fits (colours, stripes, angles) on meaning that when put together as one piece they would look even better.
I chose this set of 4 images (as 1 image) to be printed off at A3. This is because I believe they display my creative ability in a rather artistic way. The 4 images explore the topic of social identity. I was hesitant to print these as I was unsure as to how they would turn out printed but have discovered that it will work fine.
IMAGE 2
I have chosen this compilation of 2 images as my second print as I believe they are two very well balanced photographs that compliment each other to create one aesthetically pleasing image. The colors of the two different outfits work together really well to balance the image color-wise, also the black on pink stripes against the white on black stripes create a good balance. I have chosen for this to be printed in A4.
IMAGE 3
This is the third image I have chosen to print (A3). This is because I believe it displays my camera skills, framing and visual composition quite well. I believe that the rustic and industrial surroundings of the focus (dog) of the image compliment the focus successfully as well. although I like this image a lot I believe it could work better as a set of similar street photography photographs, therefore I may decide to get some of the following images printed also…
These creative experiments were made surrounding the topic of social identity and how people portray themselves within society and how other people portray them, not specifically to the subjects of the image but in general as a society how people seem to see themselves as individuals.
I will probably use other styles of photos in my prints selection due to the purposeful use of grain in these images which could effect the printing process. However I would like to compile 4 of these images as on of my A3 prints.
Influences / Inspiration
This style of work which I have used in this collection of work is inspired by various photographers and graphic artists including: David Carson, Lester Beall, Neville Brody, Paula Scher, and Shepard Fairey (the creator of the OBEY brand.) Here is some of their work…
David CarsonLester BeallNeville BrodyPaula ScherShepard FaireyShepard Fairey
The work also was influenced by Russian graphic propaganda. This was a way of representing the topic of social identity as a battle within my work.
I chose these images as my favorite outcomes as i believe they successfully display a range of lighting and perspective techniques and overall look rather aesthetically pleasing.
From the work that makes up The New Topographics I hope to display the idea of the contrast between natural and urban landscapes in my own work.
And here is a video which goes into depth about Ansel Adam’s life as a landscape photographer…
The images needed slightly enhancing in order to balance the light, contrast, saturation and shadows of the 2 photographs, and cropping in order to make sure that the background of the images look clean and fully white so that the subjects stand out nicely.
Favorite Outcomes 
