For my political landscape project I am planning to focus on the juxtaposition of walls and how they have been misunderstood and used in a way that creates a sense of isolation and entrapment.

Throughout my project I looked at the theory “When Walls Talk”. By using this theory, it has given me the opportunity to look at different artists with different ideas however, with the same concept behind their images. Their were multiple artists that were used throughout this theory although, there were two that stood out the most.

I felt these two photographers reflected this theory the best and I also thought that they inspired me the most due to their different styles that I felt allowed them to standout over the other photographers. The different themes of photo journalism and documentary photography I thought were the main themes within the two photographers styles due to the subjects within the photographs.

Bruce Davidson and his ‘Subway’ photographs corporate human life within the dull underground graffiti which allowed these images to produce a powerful story and concept and a strong meaning with a concept relating to when walls talk. Bruce’s work is in colour which allows for the different layers of graffiti to stand out which also creates a sense of depth throughout his images.

Alex Webb and his photographs from Haiti are documentary photograph and conveys the idea of isolation and intimidation however some of his images also contrasted against each other as they were also breaking the rule of isolation as it shows subjects challenging the theory. His images are in colour which allows for the use of vibrant colours in these run down areas which reduces the sense of isolation. 

There was an artist that also stood out however he conveyed the theory in a different way. Josef Koudelka’s use of a panoramic camera allows himself to create photographs that mimic the monumental quality of a barrier that links to the theme of isolation and the theory that I am studying. His images are all in black and white which creates strong and empowering shadows which creates a strong contrast throughout his images.

After multiple different ideas and discussions, I came to conclusion I would focus my project on the idea behind walls and the messages behind them. I used the theory “When walls talk” by Thomas McMullan as inspiration.  I was able to use this theory to inspire this specific project by focusing on the meaning behind walls and how they can create a sense of inclosure and isolation. I intend to capture different areas where these aspects stand out and I want to make aware of how these subjects can also create a sense of intimidation due to these man made structures. In relation to my photo book, I want to create a book that broadens the viewers awareness of the ever-everchanging and isolating environment within Jersey.

Throughout the theory there were multiple artists used however, there were a few that stood out massively and caught my eye over any of the others. Bruce Davidson and his ‘Subway’ photographs really stood out due to the fact he corporates human life within the dull underground graffiti which allowed these images to produce a powerful story and concept. Davidson was a strong source of inspiration as he included two aspects that I wanted to use throughout my project in the sense of the meaning behind the walls and also how society reacts to it and I feel that he has completed this strongly throughout his project. Furthermore, I thought that the artist Alex Webb and his photographs from Haiti was another strong source of inspiration as his documentary photographs conveyed the idea of isolation and intimidation however some of his images also contrasted against each other as they were also breaking the rule as some of the images showed holes within the walls which allowed the subjects to pass through them. I felt that this aspect created a strong however important contrast within the idea of isolation as his images show the subjects challenging the theory.

Photographs can most certainly lie as people interpret  them differently due to the fact that a photograph can tell multiple stories within the single image. Whether the photographer has been manipulated when the photograph was original taken or on photoshop it can have a massive impact on how people look at the image, it can sometimes produce a bias approach. Furthermore, The photographers use of different angles can further change how the photograph is seen as it can change and sometimes remove important parts of the image which changes the story behind the image and how the viewer sees the image. Photographs can be used as a reliable source however can also be used as an unreliable source due to the point about viewers interpreting it differently due to the different angles and alterations made to the image. Furthermore, the photographer will have his own opinion on how he views the image had how he wants the viewer to see it. A photograph can be used as a certain delivery of facts due to how the photographer wants the viewers to interpret an image and whether he claims the photograph is truthful or not. The truth would be shown through different ways depending on the photographers agenda. This photograph above is a good example of how a photograph can lie due the fact this image was either a real life image or a tableau photograph. This could fully determine the images truth behind the image. For example Jeff Wall is able to capture an asian man being racial abused by a man walking alongside him whilst his girlfriend is unaware. Jeff Wall could say he witnessed this however, if the photograph had been set up it could create a different story. In addition, we are unaware for the reason that the white man is abusing the man walking alongside him as we are only able to view this scene from the one photograph which makes the view think more into the truth behind the image.

Images from photo archive:

Archaeological excavations carried out between 1911 and 1914 showed that the islet had been occupied over a long period of time. Despite being quite small the site is unusual because it had several both ritual and domestic elements, as well as providing important environmental evidence relating to changes in sea level. The remains of a series of prehistoric rubbish heaps, dating between 1,500-300 BC, containing fragments of pottery, animal bones, stone tools and shells were found.

Group of 18 cists which were excavated  were dated from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Two cists can be found at La Houge Bie.

Cist: An ancient coffin or burial chamber made from stone or a hollowed tree

La Motte is a tidal island, and listed archaeological site, also known as Green Island, located in the Vingtaine de Samarès in the parish of St Clement on the south-east coast of Jersey, Channel Islands.

The island has a grassy surface and is predominantly clay surrounded by rocks. In recent times efforts have been made to reduce erosion of the island by the construction of walls.

Some archaeological evidence has been found here. Remains of a cemetery on La Motte are believed to be from later settlers. There are Neolithic elements including a cairn and a number of middens, dating from 1500 BC to 300 BC, on La Motte.

http://photographic-archive.societe-jersiaise.org/Details/archive/110003728

To the east of Grève d’Azette beach lies Le Croc du Hurté. In the medieval period this small promentory actually extended out to what we now know as Green Island or to give it its old name, La Motte – the mound. Richard Popinjay from Portsmouth drew a map of Jersey for Queen Elizabeth I in 1563 which shows La Motte still part of the main island. At some stage in the 17th century a severe storm must have caused the waves to smash and wash away the thin strip of land connecting it to Le Croc du Hurté.

In September 1858 some children found a skeleton buried on the islet. The mystery was cleared up at the coroner’s inquest by 82-year old James Le Templier who said that he had discovered the body sewn in a hammock washed up on the islet about 50 years earlier. As there had been a naval engagement between a Royal Navy vessel and a French Navy brig a few days before, the Constable of St Clement declared the body to be that of a French sailor and ordered the soldiers from the Roqueberg battery to bury it on La Motte.

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2009/10/23/witch-trials-in-jersey-fact-or-fiction/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/features/2015/05/03/coast-gallery-spotlight-on-green-island/

The slipway, La Montée de la Sordonnière, was built about 1870 and takes its name from the beach – sordonnière means a sea slug.

At the far end of the beach is Rocqueberg. A guardhouse with an associated magazine was built here in 1691 from which the men of the St Clement’s militia kept a look-out in times of emergency. In the late 18th century two 24-pounder cannon were positioned here on a wooden platform behind an earth wall or boulevard.

In 1797 an accidental explosion destroyed the original guardhouse and because of financial constraints it was not replaced until 1802. By then a small detachment of the regular army was based here and it was these men who were tasked with burying the French sailor on Green Island.

Essay Question: 

Previous examples: 

How does people control, interact and construct the environment in which they live?

How can photography bear witness to the ways of life and events of the world?

Voyeurism and the nature of observation and intervention in documentary photography.

Is it possible for photography to capture moments in time objectively and truthfully?

In what way do photographers Edwards Burtynsky and Henry J Fair present their perspectives regarding consumerism.

CHOSEN QUESTION: 

In what way do photographers Edwards Burtynsky and Henry J Fair present their perspectives regarding consumerism.

Planning my essay:

Introduction.

• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analyzing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?

Regarding the essay question I have written and chosen, I will be looking specifically at the photographic areas of composition and using it to manipulate a perspective and opinion from viewers. The thought process behind these ideas are down to my interest in documentary photography, and how it's able to become a major factor in the influencing of people worldwide. By switching between what can be seen as conventional and unconventional photography, I found that by changing the way you portrayed specific scenes (such as abstract or realism) it would create a certain impression of the photo, placing the viewers in the same mind-set as you. What particularly attracted me to this style of photography was that by using a documentary stance I could incorporate political viewpoints underlying what is seen, thus creating a political landscape with the piece which only with an understanding of the area can be understood. Photographers that I found to be predominantly inspiring are J Henry Fair, a photographer who explores the scarring of landscapes caused by our societies every increasing consumerism, and Edward Burtynsky, a landscape photographer who captures the scarring results of industrialization through aesthetic and almost abstract imagery. What appealed to me through the works of J Henry Fair was his way approach towards scarred landscapes, using symmetry and vivid colours to portray his vision in aesthetic but devastating ways, with his main focuses consisting of industrial areas and how the area is effected. By presenting landscapes this way, it can not only influence the viewer, but also create particular feelings towards the events photographed, especially with the knowledge behind the image of why it occurred and how the use of higher saturation creates a more drastic and effective response. Edward Burtynsky however influences me with his stance on abstract documentary style photography, here Burtynsky uses symmetry and patterns to break conventions to create results that look to beautiful to be real. However his work has an underlying meaning from how all aesthetic patterns are created through the destruction of the natural environments, and thus is the result of destroying our landscape, implicitly contrasted to Fair who tends to photograph the industrial sites rather than the area around them like Burtynsky does. Overall for me this presents evidence to how the processes and outcomes to consumerism can be heavily defined by the angle of the photographer, who can choose the perspective that we take regarding the meaning and message of the photographed landscapes.

• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to power points about isms and movements M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Personal Study
• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Bibliography:

What is a bibliography?: A complete of selective list of workings that has been complied into some common principles such as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer. Because of this it can be seen as source materials that are used or consulted in the preparation of a work that are referring to a text, with many branches of library science dealing with the history, physical description, comparison, and classification of books and other work. Here are some examples of bibliographies I have made:

• Rexer, L. (2013). The edge of vision. New York: Aperture Foundation, p.9.
• Disphotic. (2018). The GIF of Life: Vestigial File Formats as Documentary. [online] Available at: http://www.disphotic.com/the-gif-of-life-vestigial-file-formats-as-documentary/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2018].

Below is a annotated diagram of a bibliography I will be using in my essay: 

Pictorialism

Time Period: 1885 to 1915 
Key Characteristics/Conventions: Pictorialism wished to approach photography like a painting, where the images taken resemble brush strokes etc rather than a photo. The style places beauty, tonality and composition above anything else when creating an accurate visual record. They wanted to move photography away from scientific uses and instead to artistic ideologies, to do this they took inspiration from certain artworks from which they adapted the style it was painted and composed in. Pictorialists were the first photographers to have their work recognized as a form of art, committing their lives to photographic manipulation exploration, leading many to find new techniques not previously used or seen before.     
Artists Associated: Henry Peach Robinson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson, The Vienna Camera Clud (Group), The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring (Group), Photo-Secession (Group).
Key Works: Morning (1908 - Clarence H.White), Pond in Winter (1888, Peter Henry Emerson), I wait (1972, Rachel Gurney), The Steerage (1907, Alfred Stieglitz).
Methods/Techniques/Processes: The style of work was created by manipulating images in the darkroom, scratching and marking their prints so that they imitate the texture of a canvas, using soft focus, blurred and fuzzy imagery based on allegorical and spiritual subject matter, including religious scenes.

Realism/Straight Photography 

Time Period: 1910 to present day
Key Characteristics/Conventions: Straight photography emphasizes and engages the camera's own technical capability to produce images sharp and in focus with lots of detail. The photographers wished to makes images that were more 'photographic' rather than 'painterly', not wanting to treat photography as some monochrome painting. It is a process of time and represents immediacy, the passing time in history or the freezing of time in a snapshot, quoted by Henri Cartier-Bresson as "we work in unison with movement as though it were a presentiment on the way in which life itself unfolds. But inside movement there is one moment in which the elements in motion are in balance". 
Artists Associated: Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Lewis W Hine, Jacob Riis, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams.
Key Works: Porch Shadows (1916, Paul Strand), Blind Woman New York (1916, Paul Strand), The Tetons and the Snake River (1942, Ansel Adams).
Methods/Techniques/Processes: The process is generally not manipulated but instead sharply depicts the image as someone sees it. Straight photographers visualize the image before taking it, stated by Ansel Adams "Get your lighting and exposure correct at the start and both the developing and printing can be practically automatic".

Using some of the images I have produced so far I have experimented with them using blending exposures. I believe that the outcomes of this experimentation have so far been aesthetically successful and give the images an abstract and unusual look, which would lead a viewer to question the strange composure and subjects within each of the images. For these experimentation I have used images from all three subject matters which i have focused on photographing. Using these three subjects together in single images will help to explore the links between these themes within surveillance. I believe that intertwining these subjects using double exposures and blending is a way of visually representing the similarities between different aspects of surveillance and how they work hand in hand, to create forces of mass surveillance.

Here are some examples of the blending experimentations which I have been working on so far…

So far from what I have produced using this technique I am satisfied and therefore intend to continue producing work for this project in the same or similar ways.