Concept: To capture the rubbish I have collected in the style of Mandy Barker’s “Soup” series.
Location: Photo Studio, Black background
Props: Items I have collected
Lighting: I will attach a trigger to the camera that works with the studio lighting flash system
Camera Settings: Shutter Speed – 1/160, Aperture – F16, ISO – 100
The items will appear to float on a black background.
Concept: Inspired by Keith Arnatt’s ‘The Tears of Things’ project, I will capture the rubbish objects that I have collected over the past few weeks.
Location: I will capture these images in a studio-like location.
Lighting: I will use artificial lighting spotlighted onto the objects so that everything else around them is dark.
Props: A piece of black card to form a simple background for the objects
Camera Settings: A large aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field
Concept: I will capture objects of pollution in a style similar to Chrystel Lebas’ ‘Weeds and Aliens’ and ‘Animated Nature’ projects.
Lighting: Natural lighting or artificial lighting so the details of the objects are visible.
Props: Plain Background.
Camera Settings: Standard settings to capture the object. Instead of using photographic paper in a darkroom, I will instead edit the images in post-production making them negative and then adjusting the hue to a similar colour to Chrystel Lebas’ work.
Concept: To capture the process of collecting items in the environment they destroy, in the style of Mark Dion
Location: The beach along the avenue
Lighting: Natural Daylight
Props: The items I have found
Camera Settings: Automatic settings to photograph in a documentary style approach
Photograph
Hackney (made)
1997 (made)
Hunter, Tom (photographer)
Dye destruction print (Ilfochrome)
“Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood.”
This photograph was taken in Tom Hunter’s home street in Hackney. Residents that made up the community, including himself, were fighting eviction as squatters. The title of the series comes from the wording used in eviction orders. The postures and gestures reference Vermeer’s paintings and set out to give status and dignity to his community. Hunter captures with acute sensitivity, the zeitgeist of the 1990s and life in London at that time.
-In Johannes Vermeer Painting titled ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’ the open window is on one level intended to represent “the woman’s longing to extend her domestic sphere” beyond the constraints of her home and society, while the fruit “is a symbol of extramarital relations.” The letter that she holds is a love letter either planning or continuing her illicit relationship. Tom Hunter re-imagines this image in current times showing a woman reading a possession order that tells her she has to leave her home.
Hunter uses natural lighting to hit the side of the woman’s face allowing for emphasis of her emotional state. Using a large-format camera, “which really captures that light”, he set the exposure for about a second. The ISO that Tom uses appears to be low as the image is mainly darker in tone. This is used as an advantage to give focus to where the light hits, the woman and the baby.
Creating paintings and creating photographs are two different processes. Often a painting presents what was truly seen at that moment in time but a photograph can be manipulated to show people what they want to see. Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original.
With the picture getting noticed by the council, Tom Hunter’s community managed to save the houses.
“the audience is often partly an abstract and unknowable future, that documentary photography is in part a practice of archive and record making for posterity or history” (Bush 2016: 1)
In this essay, I will be exploring the concepts behind the personal works of Lewis Bush and Clare Rae in an effort to showcase how their exhibitions can be considered political. Both artists have experienced Jersey closely as part of the Archisle ‘Photographer in Residence’ programme in which they produced their different interpretations of the political landscape, Bush choosing to focus on the local finance industry whilst Rae investigated roles of gender. Clare Rae’s exhibition titled “Entre Nous” features works alongside Claude Cahun who served as an inspiration to the concept of her work on gender and the landscape. On the other hand Lewis Bush’s “Trading Zones” serves as the beginning of a long-term concept on the financial meaning of onshore and offshore locations.
“Trading Zones” is the result of a six month residency in Jersey, in which Lewis Bush investigates the local finance industry. Bush’s work is a visual documentation of the “profoundly ancient and highly modern” (Bush, 2018) industry that reflects the style of the documentary movement where a situation is shown simply without interference. Bush explores the secrecy surrounding the industry in various mediums, presenting conventional photographs as well as cameraless photographs and data sources. The finance industry may sometimes be perceived negatively as it becomes a main focus over other industries such as agriculture. I personally view it as immoral for off-shore businesses to safely place their money within Jersey to avoid taxes, however this is not actually illegal to do. Lewis gives the viewers of the exhibition the opportunity to reflect their own opinions on the industry through cards titled “Finance is……” He acknowledges how “the population of the island support (or do not support) the industry’s presence here” (Bush, 2018). Bush identifies that at its core, finance is just “the accidental product of events going back almost a thousand years, but it is also the result of very intentional choices made over the last half century” (Bush, 2018). This statement reflects how the abandonment of other important industries such as the fishing industry has been in order to adapt with the modern times and other important cities such as the city of London, what is considered to be the “onshore” for many of the businesses that use Jersey as a deposit for their money.
Lewis Bush, Trading Zones, 2018
Clare Rae’s “Entre Nous” is heavily inspired by the works of Claude Cahun, a notable female, queer artist who escaped to Jersey in the second World War to avoid the Nazis as she was Jewish. Cahun’s work explored gender through self-portraiture, reflecting the ideals of surrealism through the use of different personas that define static gender roles. Clare Rae has taken inspiration from Cahun’s work in order to present her own interpretation of gender through her relationship with the landscape. She was drawn to the island of Jersey as it holds the biggest collection of Claude Cahun’s work, selections of her work are featured in the exhibition in which they must be destroyed afterwards as they are not original prints. This is because the gallery does not withhold museum standards such as the maintenance of a stable temperature. Shot with a limited number of black and white film, Clare Rae positions herself in her environment in a way that suggests the significance of a female in a man-made landscape. Using aspects of tableaux, the act of staging a photograph in order to depict an important scene of history, Clare contradicts the expected norms of the representation of the female body; that in which is as a result of male artists. Clare demonstrates that she takes the importance of her work into consideration, even becoming influenced by the narrative of her own images when deciding the layout of her photos in the exhibition. Michelle Mountain, Program Manager CCP notes “Clare had quite a good vision in her mind for how she wanted the exhibition to look” (CCP, 2018). Rae had chosen to paint the walls of the gallery separate colours, white for Clare Rae and a soft grey for Claude Cahun, in order to distinguish between the conversation of gender between the two artists.
Clare Rae, Entre Nous, 2018
In conclusion, both Lewis Bush and Clare Rae’s works demonstrate Jersey as a political landscape in different ways. Bush’s perspective aims to focus on the effects of the finance industry on the local population whereas in contrast Clare Rae’s work almost feels more personal to her on the basis of it being her own body in the landscape. Choosing to take a documentary approach, Bush is able to capture exactly what he sees as an outsider, yet his works are supported by such a great amount of research that his perspective becomes more relatable to the actual population of Jersey. On the other hand, Clare Rae carefully stages her images showing the importance of the issue both to her, as well as to other people such as the very person she took inspiration from, Claude Cahun.
Bate, D (2015), The Art of the Document In: Bate, D (2015), Art Photography. London: Tate Publishing
Bush (2016), What is Documentary Photography II, Location of site: http://www.disphotic.com/what-is-documentary-photography-ii/
CCP (2018), Behind the scenes of Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae, Location of site: https://vimeo.com/271385464
Feuerhelm (2018), Lewis Bush: General Interrogation and Jersey Metropole Primer, Location of site: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2018/09/lewis-bush-general-interrogation-jersey-metropole-primer.html
I wanted to demonstrate what happens to items when you throw them away, such as the rusting of metals,
Items that are abandoned and put to the side develop a layer of dust on them, I collected a sample of this dust in order to examine it under the microscope.
I also looked at disposable items that are often thrown away such as toothbrushes. I cut the bristles of a toothbrush that I had used once before not using again.
Ironically, I think that the folds in this plastic wrapper closely resemble the shape of a seahorse, a marine animal which is often impacted by the disposal of plastics into the ocean.
I found this rusty metal piece outside my house, attached to it was a small piece of what looked liked a cigarette filter.
Concept: To create images similar to the ‘Beyond Drifting’ series by Mandy Barker using items that I have found. I will place the lens of my camera over the eyepiece of the microscope giving the same circle effect that Mandy Barker uses to present her images.
Lighting: The microscope has a built in light underneath the stage which will serve to illuminate the objects only.
Props: I will use a normal light microscope borrowed from the science department of my school. The microscope will not have a graticule so as to not distract the viewer from the details in the pollutes. The magnifications that come with the microscope are 4x, 10x and 40x.
Camera Settings: I will lower the exposure in-camera so the details of the objects are more visible
Method: Barker shot on a black background using natural light, arranging the objects in groups and photographing them at varying distances so they appear to be different sizes. Each item was photographed twice to show both sides, and to help populate the final, densely packed collage. It took nearly three days to get everything just right, then another six hours to create the composite, carefully layering hundreds of images in Photoshop.
“Pleurobrachia stileucae” is an image featured in Mandy Barker’s ‘Beyond Drifting’ project in which she looks at micro-plastic pollutes and their effects on plankton. The title of the image uses nomenclature, a method of devising new scientific names, to imitate early Latin origins where plastic items take the place of new organisms. The word ‘Plastic’ is hidden within the name –Pleurobrachia stileucae.
This image depicts the remnants of a partially burnt plastic flower, collected from Carrigaloe estuary, Cove of Cork, Ireland, the same location as naturalist John Vaughan Thompson’s plankton samples from 200 years ago. Thompson’s work on marine invertebrates lead him to a number of revolutionary new concepts in fundamental systematics, he developed a technique of collecting plankton with a fine mesh net held open by a hard frame, to which ropes for towing are attached. This equipment is still used today. His work was carried out at a time when plankton didn’t even have a name. While in Cork he published several works including “Zoological researches and illustrations” (1828) which is listed as having been taken by Charles Darwin on his famous Second voyage of HMS Beagle.
The item is captured using a slow shutter speed representing the movement of individual plankton in a water column. Captured in a circle on a black background, it resembles a planet like construct demonstrating the impacts we have on the earth. The use of ‘circles’ in the series is also a reference to the perspective you would have when looking through a microscope.
Using the lasso tool, quick selection tool and eraser tool, I cut round the selection of the water tanks and placed it over the image of the beach.
I changed the whole image to black and white and decreased the contrast to give more grey tones in order to resemble Goudal’s style.
In another edit, I attempted to use the same techniques but showcased in a different natural environment. I discovered this archival image that demonstrates the superficial deposits of the sand dunes of St Ouen, Jersey that have been left for millions of years.
I placed the building as if it was emerging from the sand showing the significance of nature over man-made architecture. I altered the photo to black and white and decreased contrast like I did with my first image.
Before
For this image, I took the tower and cloned it in order to remove the negative space caused by the sky. This gives the image a more industrial feel due to the repetition of large buildings.
Next, I selected the area of rocky floor and increased contrast as well as decrease brightness in order to give a more intense feel. This emphasises the rubble and mossy sections.
I selected the areas of rust that appear on the tank on the right side of the image. Increasing the saturation emphasises the orange colour.
I finally altered the brightness and contrast for the whole image in order to make the previous changes more natural.
After
Before
After
I increased the saturation of the rusty pipe that appears in the forefront to shows its significance in relation to the seascape in the background.
Using the patch tool, I removed a black dot that was featured in the sky that i found distracting.
Concept: Using digital manipulation, I will create a landscape that demonstrates visual pollution through Industrialisation
Lighting: Natural daylight
Location: The area of La Collette featuring the Aggregate Recycling Centre, I will also need to capture a vast and empty beach.
Camera settings: I aim to improve my image through digital manipulation therefore camera settings do not matter as much.
Noémie Goudal is a French artist who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2010 with an MA in Photography and lives and works in Paris. Noémie Goudal investigates truth and fiction through the use of layered photos of quiet, mysterious landscapes which she combines with elements of modernist architecture.
Goudal’s style is reminiscent of digital manipulation however they are in fact analogue photos which have been precisely shot and stuck to cardboard pieces to form an abstract sculpture. Goudal places these sculptures in natural landscapes often challenging the weather conditions. The final works generate tension due to the out of place proportions in the image which are only revealed in very subtle ways.
Despite Goudal’s fictional style, the bunkers in this image are real WW2 bunkers found on Normandy beach. Noemie’s style has lead viewers to believe this building is fake since many of her photos contain paper backdrops. This allows the viewer to question the reality of her images. The origin of this image, named “Combat” provided an interest to Goudal inspiring her to research geomorphic architecture, architecture that has a direct link to nature in order to imitate or draw our attention to it, leading her to create her own inspired series titled “Observatoires”.
The image “Observatoire IV” was made in relation to a series of photographs depicting architectural constructs. Through the collection of images, both captured with her own camera and taken from the internet, Goudal puts fragments together on her computer and prints them on paper to place onto cardboard cutouts.
“What I like is that it’s not clear anymore what the function of these new buildings is. I see them as a sculpture, they become a different thing”
Goudal implies the relationship between the land and the manmade despite the absence of people in the photos.
Her images are taken in natural lighting on overcast days where her sculptures overpower their vast and empty landscapes. The tonal range shows the image as mainly grey hues although the photo is also presented in a black and white form. Increasing the contrast causes the presence of the building in the centre to become stronger where fold lines in the paper can also be seen when looking closely.
The sharpness of the image results from a fast shutter speed paired with a small aperture yet prevents the production of noise in the image so that it is still clear.
The illusion of reality is furthered by the addition of the reflection in the foreground which amplifies the size and significance of the manmade structure over nature.
McCurry’s career started in photojournalism, a field based around the truth and integrity of an image. Evidence of manipulation in this field, beyond standard colour correction and processing, can end a photographer’s career if they are discovered. Steve McCurry has worked on many assignments with the National Geographic, an organisation that does not “condone photo manipulation for editorial photography”. They prevent this from occurring by receiving all the raw files for every assignment in order to check images and complete colour correction themselves.
McCurry’s work has covered extreme armed conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq War, Lebanon Civil War, and the Afghan Civil War. He has risked his life on many occasions in order to capture his images, he was almost drowned in India and he survived an airplane crash in Yugoslavia.
McCurry’s work has adapted with the times where he now refers to himself as a “Visual Storyteller”. Many of his recent works have been shot for his own enjoyment, where he is able to show more freedom in the editing of personal projects.
Part of the NPPA Code of Ethics states:
“While photographing subjects, do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events. Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images’ content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound [referring also to video] in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.”
~ McCurry enhances his images by manipulating the saturation of colours which makes the photo more stronger to the eye.
McCurry concentrates on the toll war takes on humans. He intends to show what war does to not only the landscape, but to the people who inhabit that land. His works try to convey what it is like to be a person in an economically deprived area. McCurry shows his viewers that there is a “human connection between all of us.” He believes there is always some common thing between all humans despite the differences in religion, language, ethnicity, etc.
The Steve McCurry manipulation controversy began when Italian photographer, Paolo Viglione, noted a rather obvious digital manipulation in one of McCurry’s prints at a show in Italy.
The image, taken of a street in Cuba, shows a section of a sign was intentionally moved to avoid blocking the man seen next to it. Other issues include the bricks that make up the columns of the building not aligning properly, while the column on the right actually overlaps with the frame of the car in the foreground.
A wide angle lens appears to have been used in order to capture the entire of the busy street. This makes the viewer feel like they are actually there, becoming drawn to the building that McCurry has composed into the centre based from the viewpoint of his camera.
The change at first appears to not be noticeable as it is in the background surrounded by other busy features in the foreground like the two people walking and the two cars, both of which are saturated in colour to give the image a feeling of liveliness. The manipulation is an attempt to balance the composition.
The project based around Cuba is not one related to photojournalism as it is in his own personal interest. He is therefore not breaking the NPPA Code of Ethics however is still using manipulation in a way to enhance his visual storytelling.
