In my final photographs, I have taken some inspiration from each of the artists that I have looked at. The biggest influence on my work was Gregory Berg, I used his theme of long pathways within photographs and used the secrets of subways within my photographs just as he does. I also used the unusual lighting of the subway like Berg did in order to create an uneasy and unnatural vibe to the photographs. Whilst my photographs have similarities to Berg’s work, they also contrast with his work, Berg decided to look at the abandoned parts of the subway and tried to show the secrets within them. I took this and decided to photograph the ones fully in use in order to show how similar they are even though they are constantly cleaned and maintained. The modernness of and cleanliness of my photographs contrast with the dark and forgotten-about subjects of his photographs which shows how quickly things can change.

I also took some inspiration from Emmanuel Tecles’ work. Most of the inspiration taking from his work was shown in my earlier photographs of the secrets and exploration of nature but parts of his work are still reflected within my photographs, such as the subject positioned directly in the centre of the photograph in order to lead the eye to that subject and create some aesthetically pleasing symmetry. Whilst parts of my work do reflect with what Tecles does, it also contrasts with it. Tecles’ work looks at nature taking over urban development whereas my photographs look at only urban development and the structure within it. This also creates contrast within the lighting and shadows of the photograph.

The inspiration for the tunnel themed photographs came from Robbie Shone who looks at caves and exploration. I took inspiration from his exploration of places that would be considered alien to him. Both my photographs and Shone’s photographs have the theme of an end destination through a pathway, this helps to lead the eye of the viewer throughout the photograph. My photographs contrast with Shone’s photographs because mine consists of mad-made straightforward pathways whilst Shone’s photographs consists of natural waves and curves in the pathways which shows the difference between man-made structures and natural structures.

Overall, I have had mixed inspirations for my photographs and I have successfully incorporated these inspirations into my photographs through the use of composition and pathways. This has resulted in interestingly lit but dim photographs with contrast and colours in.

I started off my creative process by looking at the idea of secrets within exploration. The artists I looked at were Robbie Shone, Emmanuel Tecles and Gregory Berg. These are all completely different photographers that photograph different subjects but they all had the common goal of documenting their exploration.

I began my first shoot by visiting the Jersey war tunnels and my primary idea was to capture the pathways that both Shone and Berg show in their photographs. I successfully managed this but could’ve done this in a more aesthetically pleasing manner by creating a brighter, more interesting photograph with some more symmetry in it.

In my second shoot I started to look at more exploration within nature and within abandoned/neglected settings. The primary idea with this was still exploration and this allowed my ideas to flow through to the exploration of the subways. I felt my work on natural exploration was successful but I needed to take photographs that had more composition and interesting themes/subjects within them.

This led me to start taking photographs within the subways in which I could use the urban, man-made structures to my advantage as they provided me with natural frames and pathways within the photographs for me to create aesthetically pleasing compositions. I used the different lightings and long pathways in order to create contrast within the photographs and to create a sense of unknown secrets at the end of the pathway. The below are my final photographs, if I was to try this shoot again I would attempt it in a busy area of the subway in order to provide contrast between images and more contrast between my photographs and Gregory Berg’s work.