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A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

Photoshoot 2 and Experimentation

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Plan

For my second photoshoot i want to visit green island and document the landscape as well as the area surrounding the island. I plan to gather objects i find there such as different types and colours of rocks or anything i find that would be interesting to photograph. I will then photograph these formally in a studio with artificial light to contrast with the landscape imagery.

I selected my favourite images from the photos I took and displayed them below. I flagged my top 5 images and display them below.

Landscape Imagery:

The images displayed above are my top 3 landscape photos of the area surrounding green island. To improve on my next shoot I will focus on the island itself, documenting what i find there. I chose the first image as i like the composition and the use of rule of thirds within it. The bright blue sky contrasts dramatically from the rock and sand, which emphasises them and the rocks shape. I chose the second image as I like how the dark rocks stand out against the pale sea, making there shape emphasised. I also like how you can see the waves on the sea creating texture in the image. I chose the third image as I like the repetition of the horizontal lines that the waves make. This creates sections and layers within the image, separating the different colours and tones.

To experiment with some of the images I took in my second photo shoot I tried to interpret the photographer Chrystel Lebas in her photo book ‘Field Studies’ where she collected objects and photographed then formally and displayed edited version next to it in the same page. To interpret this I inverted the images and adjusted the colour of the objects to create different images that juxtapose each other.

Example of photographs from her book:

“Drawing from Salisbury’s approach to documenting species by uprooting them and placing them directly onto paper or a sheet of fabric to photograph them, I placed each plant directly onto colour photographic paper in the darkroom under the enlarger light. Progressively changing the cyan, magenta or yellow filtration on the enlarger, each colour changes the way the plant emanates from the paper’s surface.” – Chrystel Lebas

Own interpretations:

I think  I successfully  interpreted some of the work in Chrystel Lebas’ photobook by editing my original images to match her style. I inverted my images which I found made the patterns on the stones i collected more noticeable and detailed. This turned the white background that I photographed the objects on turn black which i think makes an overall image more powerful and emphasises the objects much more than it did originally. When I inverted the image it turned the objects blue which I then adjusted the hue of to make different variations of the same image in the way that  Chrystel Lebas does. I then displayed the images above together as I think they work better shown like this than they do shown apart as they juxtapose from one another and reflect the work in ‘Field Studies’ more.

I like these images as the details on the objects are emphasised through the image being inverted, making the objects stand out more against the black background.  The edits make the images look more scientific reflecting the style of some of the earlier botanical photobooks that used photographic printing. This is through the image being inverted making it look as if its been printed using light and through how the objects are almost block colours. I edited different variations of this image by adjusting the hue and colour balance and displayed them above

Conclusion:

I want to develop the way I photograph objects formally as I continue through my project. I will experiment by using different types of objects I find when at La Motte e.g plants and edit them similarly to show a variety of images in my project. I will also incorporate writing into the images underneath objects which is what Chrystel Lebas does in some of her images to make the images look more scientific. Also, i will try to use different textures e.g sand within the images to see how the inverted edit affects how the objects is shown and to emphasise the patterns in more detail.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

Chrystel Lebas ‘Field Studies: Walking Through Landscapes and Archives’

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Chrystel Lebas (b.1966, France) uses photography and moving image to explore and illuminate the often complex relationships between human beings and nature. Preferring to photograph during twilight hours, she exploits the magical effects of the particular dipped light to accentuate the “sublime” and draw attention to our place within the natural world. 

In 2011 the Natural History Museum London commissioned Chrystel Lebas to make new work inspired by a collection of anonymous glass negatives depicting the British landscape, from the beginning of the 20th century which was later revealed to be the photographer Edward James Salisbury. For Field Studies, Lebas literally followed in Salisbury’s footsteps, revisiting the landscapes he had photographed in the 1920s and 1930s and searching out the plants he had isolated and documented on light sensitive paper. The project engages with environmental change, particularly in the Scottish landscape and Norfolk, creating new understandings of the artistic and scientific gaze onto the natural environment and its representation. The film documenting the research was made by Sally Weale, and was produced by the Natural History Museum.

Link to ‘Re-visiting’ part of book: http://www.chrystellebas.com/Re-visiting/re-visiting.htm

“Walking, searching, GPS in hand, I attempted to find the exact locations where Salisbury stood when he took his photographs at the beginning of the 20th century. I was not so much concerned
with a literal comparison between the landscape as it was then and as it is now, but more with defining my own role and vision as an artist alongside that of the scientist Salisbury.
‘Re-visiting’ combines photographs, texts and moving image work that highlight complex issues in relationships between humans, plants, and environment in Salisbury’s time and now. ”

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Lebas’s beautifully printed, richly hued photographs are presented alongside Salisbury’s small black and white glass plate images. On her walks, Lebas was often accompanied by a contemporary botanical expert, which, she writes, enabled her to realise that “my remit was very different from Salisbury’s. He was a scientist disguised as a photographer. Was I becoming a photographer disguised as a scientist?” She uses a panoramic camera and often shoots at dusk when the light quality in these still, quiet places can be almost otherworldly.

She  looked at how the landscape has changed over nearly ninety years. A complex quest as nothing is as simple as it first appears. She gathered evidence from Salisbury’s photographic records and his notes, local information, botanical sources and topographic evidence. Changes in the landscape can be caused by climate, humans and/or animals

Plant Portraits or Weeds & Aliens Studies:

The book also culminates with a series of photograms – a picture produced on light-sensitive paper without using a camera – that pay homage to Salisbury’s earlier photographs of isolated species. Lebas manipulated the colour filtration on her enlarger to “change the way the plant emanates from the paper’s surface”. These photographs are part of her ‘Plant Portraits or Weeds & Aliens Studies’ taking inspiration from Edward Salisbury book ‘Weeds and Aliens’.

“Drawing from Salisbury’s approach to documenting species by uprooting them and placing them directly onto paper or a sheet of fabric to photograph them, I placed each plant directly onto colour photographic paper in the darkroom under the enlarger light. Progressively changing the cyan, magenta or yellow filtration on the enlarger, each colour changes the way the plant emanates from the paper’s surface.

The scientific aim of the project was to study the impact of environmental change over the ninety-year period, as seen between the original works by Salisbury and Lebas’s contemporary study. Lebas as an artist was drawn to work on this for her own reasons including an opportunity to develop themes and interests explored in earlier work.

“So much of our perspective on nature and the landscape is mediated through art and increasingly photography, that it is easy to forget how constructed and controlled photographs are, with just as much authorship as a painted scene.” –https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/sites/default/files/CHRYSTEL%20LEBAS%20DOWNLOAD.compressed.pdf

‘We can in fact only define a weed, mutatis mutandis, in terms of the well-known definition of dirt as matter out of place.  What we call a weed is in fact merely a plant growing where we do not want it.’ Edward James Salisbury (1935), The Living Garden 

Link to ‘Plant Portraits or Weeds & Aliens Studies’:

http://www.chrystellebas.com/weeds%20and%20aliens/weeds%20and%20aliens.htm

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas

The Meadow- Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelley

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In their most recent collection of work, The Meadow, photographers Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelley explore the connections and relationships formed between humans and the natural world. Over the course of a decade, the two have taken numerous photographs of an area of land in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Combined with Kelley’s writing, the collaborative project resulted in this uniquely-crafted work. The land they have chosen serves as an ideal subject, composed of paths and abandoned farmland reclaimed by the vibrant foliage.

In addition to their own investigations, they have invited botanists, entomologists, naturalists and historians to consider the meadow with them. Also included are historic maps of the property dating to the 1800s, and a transcription of notes from a former owner whose family has continuously documented plant and bird life in the meadow from 1931 until the 1960s.

Part photo-essay, part journal and part scientific study, this book is a meditation on the shifting perspective that occurs when one repeatedly sees the same place through new eyes

Embodying a diaristic style, the final product has the feeling of a handcrafted scrapbook recollected from someone’s bookshelf. Tucked as if by accident between the pages are small booklets bearing the photographers’ experiences, and the occasional fold-out triptych which embellishes the arts-and-crafts vibe. A detailed appendix documents the numerous foliage, fungi, and pebbles found during the exploration of the meadow.

I particularly like this book as they photographs objects they found in the meadow they were documenting (i.e. rocks) and displayed them on a white background. This gives the book a different way of looking at the area and creates breaks up the images of the meadow itself.

The book concludes with a passage by a friend of Barbara, D’Anne Bodman. She is inspired to write about finality by reflecting on the pets that both she and Barbara have recently lost. In her last paragraph, she writes, “Our remaining dog, Téa, and I walk Santo’s path daily so that it doesn’t disappear.” Through this passage, we are reminded of the importance in retreading paths to mark the changes, which is just what Barbara and Margot have aspired to do with this work.

Video Link

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas

Mandy Barker

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Mandy Barker is an international award-winning photographer whose work involving marine plastic debris has received global recognition. Working with scientists she aims to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the world’s oceans whilst highlighting the harmful affect on marine life and ultimately ourselves. Her work has received global recognition and has been published in over 25 countries.

Beyond Drifting: Imperfectly Known Animals

Enough plastic has been manufactured since the end of the Second World War to coat the entire earth in plastic wrap. No part of the planet is free of plastic waste; the total amount of plastic produced since 1950 is around 5 billion tons (close to the weight of the entire human population at this moment). This amount is very likely to reach 30 billion tons by the end of the century.

Presented as microscopic samples, objects of marine plastic debris mimic Thompson’s early scientific discoveries of plankton. Barker’s series is conveyed through an antique-like science book—mimicking the past while reflecting on the current situation regarding organisms’ intake of plastic. The book subtly includes the original writing, descriptions, and figures recorded by Thompson in his research memoirs from 1830, entitled Imperfectly Known Animals.

The work examines the degradation and contamination of plastic particles in the natural environment through the lens of scientific discovery, while also looking at the organisms when they were free from plastic (and when we, as humans, were free of plastic as well). The images, shot in an enveloping black space, evoke the deep oceans beneath.

Installation drawer -An original antique specimen drawer highlights the connection with plastic, showing images of plankton ingesting plastic particles with research book spreads. Microscope slides and test tubes show samples of plastic particles recovered from oceans around the world, with micro beads collected from toothpaste and facial scrubs.

https://mandy-barker.com/project.php?gallNo=9

https://www.lensculture.com/mandy-barker?modal=project-314878

Indefinite by Mandy Barker Blurb:

https://www.lensculture.com/mandy-barker?modal_type=project&modal_project_id=47517&modal=project-47517

‘Discarded debris found along the shore and having existed for varying amounts of time in the sea collectively convey a message about the marine environment. The images combine visual beauty with the message of pollution and the time it takes them to biodegrade in the sea. The book shows the series of 10 images representing an intuitive collection of objects as they were presented, on the shore, unwashed and unaltered and aiming to reveal a beauty not otherwise noticed. The form and shape of the objects take on the imaginative appearance of sea creatures, created from the very materials that prove fatal for the creatures themselves. Enveloping black space evokes a deep sea, presenting the emerging objects as creatures from beneath, whilst at the same time serving as a metaphor to the unknown depths of this vast global problem of pollution. The captions state only the number of years it takes each material to decompose, thus revealing a narrative in time, and ending with the indeterminate and Indefinite material polystyrene.’

The aim of my work is to create a visually attractive image that initially draws the viewer in, and then shocks them with the caption and facts of what the work represents. It is intended that this contradiction between beauty and information will combine to make people question, for example, how their food packaging, computer, or shoe ended up in the middle of the ocean. If photography has the power to encourage people to act, to move them emotionally, or at the very least make them take notice, then this must surely be a vital element to stimulate debate, and ultimately, change. If I didn’t believe my work did any of these things then I wouldn’t be motivated to continue.

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/mandy-barker-penalty

The series “Penalty” aims to create awareness about the problem of marine plastic pollution accumulating in world oceans. By using a single plastic object (a football), these photos aim to represent the issue on a global scale.

Each football was collected from beaches or oceans around the world and is captioned with the country or area where it was recovered.

The diverse range of 769 collected footballs is represented both by individual countries and overall collections made in particular areas of the world. A collection of 228 by one person shows an individual undertaking, the collaboration of nearly 90 members of the public around the world have helped to represent the project on a global scale.

Soup by Mandy Barker

SOUP is a description given to plastic debris suspended in the sea, and with particular reference to the mass accumulation that exists in an area of The North Pacific Ocean known as the Garbage Patch. This book shows the11 series of images which aim to engage with, and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction and social awareness. The sequence reveals a narrative concerning oceanic plastics from initial attraction and attempted ingestion, to the ultimate death of sea creatures, representing the disturbing statistics that dispersed plastics have no boundaries. Captions record the plastic ‘ingredients’ in each image providing the viewer with the realisation and facts of what exists in the sea. The book also shows a selection of sketchbook spreads representing the thought process behind selected images. All the plastics photographed have been salvaged from beaches around the world and represent a global collection of debris that has existed for varying amounts of time in the world’s oceans.

“The aim of my work is to engage with and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction along with the subsequent message of awareness. The research process is a vital part of my development as the images I make are based on scientific fact, essential to the integrity of my work. The impact of marine plastic is an area I have documented for more than 9 years and am committed to pursuing
through visual interpretation, and in collaboration with science I hope it will ultimately lead to positive action in tackling this increasing environmental problem, which is currently of global
concern”.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

Photoshoot- Breaking the Rules

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To interpret Stephen Gills style of work I visited Le Hocq beach and found an area that was surrounded by rocks and sea and focused on close up on certain sections with interesting patterns. I used pieces of red string in front of the lens to break the rule of manipulation by physically manipulating the lens so what the image is portraying is not what’s there in real life. I purposefully made  some photos out of focus to create a blurry effect that some of Stephen Gills work has where he dipped his lens into the pond water he was documenting. I think this was effective in some images like the images where I experimented with string, but not others where I used plastic in front of the lens which is why I haven’t displayed them down below or edited any.

I displayed these two images together as the string is a similar shape in both,  but the different backgrounds make them contrast one another. The photo on the left has a darker background making the red in the foreground stand out more than the right image. Both of the backgrounds of the images are slightly out of focus which i did to try and interpret the blurriness in some of Stephen Gills work. In my next photoshoot i will experiment by focusing the camera to see if the images are more effective. I chose these two backgrounds to photograph the string against as i like the different detailed patterns. The right image has yellow/brown tone grains of sand and rocks out of focus which is contrasted to the left image with the darker brown tones of seaweed that represent the flow of movement. The movement of the seaweed is similar to the string creating similar shapes and lines making a more interesting image. In the right image the shape of the string is contrasted to the background creating a more juxtaposed image.

 

Experiment

 When  first experimenting I edited some images in black and white to see if they were more effective. This emphasises the darker and lighter tones in the image and eliminates the mismatch of colours in the background.

Stephen Gills images:

I think this is a good interpretation of Stephen Gills work, especially to the images displayed above, as it has a similar flow of movement with similar lines and curves. Although Stephen Gills photography may have more details in the layering of the different materials and the way the materials fit in with the background, I think I captured his style of work and made it my own.

I also experimented by changing the main colours of the string to see if another colour was more effective. I chose to change red to yellow as in Stephen Gills images above there are many yellow and green tones. On the right image i edited the background even more out of focus as in some of Stephen Gills images he uses a blurred effect. I still kept some of the rocks on the edge of the image in focus so only the water blurred so there is contrasting patterns.

I think this image is more effective edited in black and white as the red colour of the string isn’t as overpowering and it fits in more with the background making a more aesthetically pleasing image.

I edited these images in black and white to create a more formal appearance. This makes it harder to tell what the photos are portraying and emphases the combination of detailed patterns.I displayed these two images together as the shape the string is making in both are very similar, but the different patterns in he background makes them juxtapose one another. In this edit, the darker point in the seaweed in the left image are darken and creates a bigger contrast to the string in the foreground, making the lighter points stand out more.

Evaluation:

I will revisit this area again for my second photoshoot and try different way of experimenting like adding different colours of string in front of the lens and maybe placing materials into the landscape making the image in focus to try a different approach. I will work on making the images where plastic is placed in front of the image better as well. I also want to look at my personal archive and interpret some of Stephen gills portrait work from the series ‘Coexistence’ where he dipped the lens in the pond water before taking the portrait creating a blurred effect.

I also want to further manipulate the images in my next shoot by printing them out and adding objects on top to create a collage like image that has aspects that weren’t there when the image was taken.

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas

Breaking the Rules

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William Eugene Smith  broke nearly every rule in the book: posing his subjects, manipulating his prints, and often becoming dangerously over-involved in his stories.

When asked by one interviewer why he so persistently ignored many of the fundamental tenets of documentary photography, he tersely shot back: “I didn’t write the rules – why should I follow them?”

Abstract forces like corporate malfeasance, cyber-warfare and climate change make demands of visual storytelling – demands which can only be met if photographers refuse to play by the rules inherited from their forebears, rules which some of them did not deign to follow in any case.

The Rule of Manipulation

Almost every stage of the photographic process is a manipulation, and is open to no less egregious misrepresentations.

To paraphrase the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, you don’t need to manipulate an image to mislead an audience; you simply need to change the caption. And yet used openly, in the right context, manipulation can reveal truths that a single image alone never could.

Dutch photographer Alice Wieling “I felt that, with mere documenting, I wasn’t able to tell the story as I was experiencing it,” she says of the stage-managed excursions to which journalist-visitors are subjected. Her response was to digitally merge her photographs of official North Korea propaganda with her own images of workers and decaying factories.

https://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio/nggallery/album-1-2/coexistence/thumbnails/page/1

Stephen Gill created a new body of work and a book responding to an industrial wasteland that is the remains of the steel-making industry in the city of Dudelange.

“For eight months leading up to my first visit to the territory, my mind increasingly started tuning into the microscopic worlds within worlds, and I became ever more aware of the many parallels between patterns and process in the pond and those in our own lives as individual humans within societies…Slowly I became committed to the idea of attempting to bring these two apparently disparate worlds — so physically close yet so different in scale – visually closer together.”

In order to draw these two worlds together Gill employed the use of a medical microscope from the University of Luxembourg and a pail of water scooped from the pond. With the microscope, he studied and photographed the miniscule creatures and plant life.

 

He could not bring the people to the pond, so he dipped his underwater camera into its water prior to making portraits of the Dudelange residents. Later on, he also dipped the prints into the pond itself, so microscopic life was also transferred onto the surface of the paper.

Using Stephen Gill’s work as inspiration can directly link to my concept of environment as he focused in this book on the affects of the industrial wasteland on a pond nearby looking parts of life that coexist but don’t belong together.

About Stephen Gill

Gill is a British photographer, who mainly draws inspiration from his immediate surroundings of inner city life in East London and more recently Sweden with an attempt to make work that reflects, responds and describes the times we live in. Stephen Gill was introduced to photography at an early age by his father, and his first photographs reflected his interests in birds, animals and music.

“Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British photography. His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual work. It is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed with the precision that makes these series so fascinating and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated irony into portrait and landscape photography.”
Martin Parr

Outside In by Stephen Gill:

“I hoped through this approach to encourage the spirit of the place to clamber aboard the images and be encapsulated in the film emulsion, like objects embedded in amber. My aim was to evoke the feeling of the area at the same time as describing its appearance.”

“The results included some highly detailed macro recordings amongst and within the landscapes and portraits. I like to think of these photographs as in-camera photograms in which conflict or harmony has been randomly formed in the final image depending on where the objects landed.”

Other Stephen Gill Zines

https://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio/nggallery/album-1-2/hackney-flowers/thumbnails

Photoshoot Plan

For my first photoshoot i wanted to incorporate Stephen Gills style of photography looking at smaller details around an area like he did  in the area containing a pond situated within an industrial wasteland. I want to manipulate the way the camera takes the photo and how it image appears. For example to create a blurred effect i will place something over the lens so I am physically manipulating the camera to produce something unique. I also want to manipulate the images by taking objects i find in an area and superimpose them onto the image of place them in front of the lens. I can relate this style of work to my concept of environment and pollution by making the subject of my images objects and rubbish I find surrounding the area I go and base my whole image around it. I like the way Stephen gill used a medical microscope to see what was in the pond water, the images making interesting patterns. To interpret this i can look for similar patterns and marks. I could also manipulate these photos after they have been taken by doing what Stephen Gill did and dipping his printed out images into the pond water (the environment) he was photographing. To experiment with the images further I take I will print out my photographs and physically add objects I find around the area I am exploring and retake the image.

http://www.gupmagazine.com/books/stephen-gill/coexistence

A2 Personal Investigation, AO2 Explore Ideas

Guernsey Photography Festival

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MARK WINDSOR

HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

The History of the future is nostalgia.

Mark Windsor was born in Guernsey, he studied at the London College of Printing and at Derby Lonsdale College before undertaking post-graduate study of community photography and Documentary Photography in the Visual Arts Department of Lancaster University.

He worked as a freelance writer in the UK before returning to Guernsey to work as a photographer/journalist. Mark continues to practice and study photography and has recently returned to freelance work and is now undertaking new commissions.

The layering of human history is implicit in any landscape in which people, over the centuries, have interacted. What remains, and what will be left later of humanity’s hard and soft materials? How will our descendants attach significance to them? Will digital photography leave visual archaeology that will have any meaning to future generations? Will contemporary art photography aid or hinder the communication of knowledge to our descendants?

This exhibition is part of a larger body of work, which is part record of Guernsey, and part speculation on the scope and limitations of photography in its capacity to impart information to future generations.

The visual clues to our past which are the subject of this project, often prompt memory and nostalgia. But what we leave in the picture and how we choose to remember it is a matter of choice – one which we could perhaps engage more consciously.

JAAKKO KAHILANIEMI

Jaakko Kahilaniemi received his BA in Photography from Turku Arts Academy Finland and his MA also in photography from Aalto University of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki Finland. He won the prestigious Majaoja/Backlight Prize and was selected as one of the Lens Culture Emerging Talents in 2017. He was one of the ten finalists in Hyéres Festival in 2018 and in Fotofestiwal Łódź. His work has been featured in many publications and his work has been exhibited at galleries worldwide.

100 HECTARES OF UNDERSTANDING

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of forests for Finland, both historically and economically. Over 71% of the total area of the country is covered by forests – that’s over 26 million hectares. 100 Hectares of Understanding is my attempt to understand the 100 hectare area of the forest I inherited in 1997 when I was only 8 years old. Recent explorations in the forest, and in the world of forestry have managed to provoke my interest towards the unfamiliar property of mine.

The 100 Hectares of Understanding project includes both tangible and intangible approaches and visualizations of what forest and forestry mean to me and how the unknown becomes familiar. I study what nature has to offer to urbanized people and I will try to create new ways of thinking and ways to experience and feel the forest. For the unknown to become familiar requires both physical and delicate acts: to nurture and to tame, to master and to yield. My photographs are testimonial, traces of my aspirations towards understanding and awareness.

Taking inspiration from Fluxus and the traditions of Arte Povera, I seek to encounter the forest with a playful and open approach. 100 Hectares of Understanding consists of the objects that I’ve found, the acts that I’ve photographed, the sculptures I’ve made and visual secrets that I have created.

 

A2 Personal Investigation, AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas

Project Idea

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https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-recycling-oceans-rivers-pollution-investigation-environment-agency-a8591736.html

A composite image of items found on the shore of the Thames Estuary in Rainham, Kent. Tons of plastic and other waste lines areas along the Thames Estuary shoreline, an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine wildlife.

A man climbs down to a garbage filled river in Manila. Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to recycle the material, a report warned in 2016.

Project Idea

Focusing on plastic pollution for my project is a very current issue in the world today, making the final images relevent and applicable to political landscapes. Many people have realised the detrimental effects on the world with the overusage of plastic and many people are trying to change that.  For example, The Independent’s campaign against single use plastics called Cut the Cup Waste was met with such rapid success Robert Jenrick, a Treasury minister, signalled that Philip Hammond, the chancellor, will be acting to reduce waste in this autumn’s budget. This is just one example of people trying to change people’s views on the way they use plastic, similar to what I want to do. I want to further emphasis the effects of plastic and pollution on the world and environment. I also want to explore how these consequences will effect future generations, also looking into personal archives or public archives at past generations and how they have contributed, making my project more personal. I intend to look at specific areas in Jersey and document what is there and what I find. There may have been many photography projects on the effects of plastic on the world, but i plan to look at it in an unconventional way.

Anthropocene:

relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

Cut the Cup Waste   https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/latte-levy-plastics-disposable-cups-coffee-mps-25p-bags-a8142141.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-disposablecoffee-cups-latte-levy-tea-hot-drinks-plastic-tax-campaign-a8497431.html

Possible photographers to explore:

http://www.andyhughes.net/site/portfolio-2/uncategorized/plastiglomerate/

Andy Hughes: http://www.andyhughes.net/site/portfolio-2/uncategorized/plastika-alaska-2/

Mandy Barker: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/these-haunting-photographs-call-attention-plastic-trash-swirling-ocean-180963219/

 

 

A2 Personal Investigation, AO2 Explore Ideas

Photographers Research

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Kurt Schwitters collages

Directly affected by the depressed state of Germany following World War I, and the modernist ethos of the Dada movement, Kurt Schwitters began to collect garbage from the streets and incorporate it directly into his art work. The resulting collages were characterized by their especially harmonious, sentimental arrangements and their incorporation of printed media. He actively produced artistic journals, illustrated works, and advertisements, as well as founding his own Merz journal.

Schwitters used actual trash, such as broken items and scraps of paper, in his collages. Although the use of found objects aligns him with other branches of Dada, his bold dependence on society’s throw-aways provoked additional associations on the part of the viewer and differentiated his expression. Ultimately, he investigated links between seemingly unconnected objects and ideas.

Andreas Gursky

In the late 1980s, Andreas Gursky was pivotal in creating a new standard in contemporary photography, a pioneer who furthered the possibilities of scale and ambition. His massive, clinical, and distanced surveys of public spaces, landscapes, and structures contributed to a new art of picture taking in contrast to the Minimalism and Conceptualism of the 1970s

Gursky is known for his mural-sized, precisely detailed photographs that capture all aspects of globalization. His subjects range from landscapes, to architecture, to individuals at work, and everything in between. Gursky has taken photos on almost every continent, never repeating the same image twice. Martin Henschel of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld has stated, “Gursky manages to capture itinerant  35 parts of the world that at first sight seem to have no cohesion, but which from his perspective are ‘pieces of the puzzle’ that interact when faced with the totality of the world.” While at first glance his photos may appear to have no relation to one another, when examined as a  whole, his body of work sheds light on all facets of globalization, from the New York Stock Exchange, to the buildings of Shanghai, to the desert of Bahrain. Writing in Artjournal, Alix Ohlin summarizes the relationship between Gursky’s photographs : “In their determined, oblivious way, the photographs make clear that there is no longer any nature unchartered by man. In place of nature we find the invasive landmarks of a global economy. Taken as a whole, Gursky’s work constitutes a map of the postmodern civilized world.”86 For our purposes, a comparison between Untitled XIIIand Gursky’s 1999 image 99 Cent , allows for a richer understanding of the globalization.

Yao Lu

Yao Lu’s concern about the impact of China’s rampant path towards urbanization is portrayed in photomontaged manipulations that borrow from the classical Chinese aesthetic style of painting. Mostly circular, fan-shaped, or scroll-like, Lu’s harmonious landscapes are populated by tiny figures walking through the mist. However, a closer look reveals the chimerical mountain scenes are in fact construction sites scaled out of proportion. Lu’s commentary on the dramatic consequences of China’s rapid industrialization is further reinforced by the artist’s stylistic choices. His recycling of a traditional aesthetic to approach contemporary issues reveals the tension between society’s past and present values. Lu’s environmental message crosses borders and raises pressing questions about the hidden costs of modernization and global sustainability.

According to Lu, “Today China is developing dramatically and many things are under constant construction. Meanwhile many things have disappeared and continue to disappear. The rubbish dumps covered with the ‘shield’, a green netting, are a ubiquitous phenomenon in China.”

Yao Lu has created a thoughtful and timely series inspired by traditional Chinese paintings entitled New Landscapes in which mounds of garbage covered in green protective nets are assembled and reworked by computer to create images of rural mountain landscapes shrouded in the mist.