Lewis Bush (born 1988 in London) is a British photographer, writer, curator and educator.  Bush studied history at the University of Warwick and gained a master’s degree in documentary photography from London College of Communication, where he lectures on photojournalism and documentary photography.  In his work bush seeks to draw attention to forms of invisible power that operate in the world – such as finance.  Bush has the standpoint that ‘power is always problematic because it’s natural resting state is arbitrary and untransparent’.  Bush’s projects tend to incorporate writing and he has written about photography for a range of national and international print and web titles.

In Bush’s ‘The Memory of History‘ from 2012, he travelling through a range of European countries to document the way in which the past was being politically manipulated in the context of the economic crisis and recession.  This project links to the theme ‘political landscapes’ as it shows how the invisible power of politics is used and abused in different places over time.

Bush is a photographer in residence at the Societe Jersiaise in Jersey where he is working on his project ‘Trading Zones‘ in  which he looks at the international finance industry.  It looks at the global economic crisis that began ten years ago and the resulting financial sector. Finance has been very unrepresented in documentaries due to its complexity and stature meaning that there is plenty of potential for investigation for documentary photographers such as Bush.  The project ‘Trading Zones’ is a result of six months spent as the 2018 Archisle photographer in residence at the Societe Jersiaise in Jersey, which is currently undergoing huge renovations in the financial sector.  Bush says he has used this time to “establish the foundations of what I anticipate will be a long term photographic inquiry into the financial services industry” as the project comes under documentary photography so this project will be ongoing over a long period of time.  Bush says in an interview with ASX “Finance here is the accidental product of events going back almost a thousand years, but is it also the result of very intentional choices made over the last half century” which links back to political landscape in the sense that trends and features change over time but often loop back around.  There are multiple methods of approach taken to this project by Bush – ‘Trading zones’ has inspiration stemming from different areas such as:

• Portraits using a technique called ‘composite portraiture‘ developed by cousin of Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, who was an anthropologist.
  • Bush merged hundreds of corporate portraits from a variety of countries specialising in different aspects of finance, resulting it what the average finance worker may look like.
• Cards asking what the public thought of finance which drew inspiration from a project by EJ Major, who sent out cards asking ‘what love is’, expecting people to respond in whichever way they felt appropriate.

Bush’s residency finishes with an exhibition of ‘Trading Zones’ in the St. Helier Old Police Station where financial investigations unit of Jersey Police was based. This project is currently a work in progress and is continuously looking for future financial collaborators in order to develop this project further.

Analysis

In this photograph it appears that lighting from within the inside of the building was used in what is possible night photograph. The use of this light is used to Bush’s advantage advantage as he uses double exposures to layer building over building creating a disorientating viewing along with contrast between the over-exposed lights and the dark shadows within the building. There is a wide tonal range within the photograph thanks to the range of shadows and lights within the photograph – this wide tonal range makes the photograph interesting in whichever segment the viewer looks as it creates intricate shapes and shadows throughout.  The lights and shapes are very intense as the viewer has to try piece the photograph together in order to understand it. It is unclear whether a short or deep depth of field will have been used in this photograph due to the disorientating nature of it – this adds to the mysterious elements of the photograph. A fairly slow shutter speed will have been used along with a low ISO in order for enough of the light to enter the lens from the dark environment whilst keeping the quality of the photograph as high as possible.

There is no colour in this photograph – only black and white along with the shades in between. This black and white approach to the photograph is very effective as it allows you to focus on the structure of the photograph and the buildings rather than being distracted by colours. The black and white effect also adds to the disorientating effect of the double exposure technique. Another addition that the black and white effect brings to the photograph is more contrast between the tones – especially between the bright white lights and the black shadows. The bright lights may be representative of a light at the end of the tunnel due to their glow in comparison to their environment. The photograph seems to have the texture of a graphite drawing which creates a really interesting viewing as what the viewer is seeing seems almost surreal. There is quite a 3D effect to the photograph due to the blending of photographs in order to create platforms coming out towards the viewer from the building. This 3D effect is complimented by the wide range of tones within the photograph. There are two points in the photograph to which the eye is initially drawn – these are the bright heaven-like lights and the platforms extending from the buildings – this is due to the lights contrasting in tone to the rest of the photograph and the platforms providing different shapes to the rest of the image. The platforms are also placed along the higher horizontal line of the rule of thirds meaning they add aesthetic to the photograph.

This photograph was taken from Bush’s project titled ‘Metropole‘.  This project looked at the collapse of the British Empire and how in its place globalised capitalism grew. London has been rebranded from “an investment opportunity” to “a city of demolition, cranes, and glittering new high rises”.  ‘Metropole’ aims to record the effect of this on London through the form of documentary photography. The project is titled ‘Metropole’ as London was once known as the Metropole meaning it was the mother city at the centre of a vast empire. These photographs were produced “during numerous winter night walks through the city”.

On Bush’s website he says that he used double exposure to create “increasingly disorientating and threatening as the series progresses” in order to create the “sense of loss that many Londoners feel” in the big city. This theme of a feeling of loss within the city links to the genre of ‘political landscape’ as it looks at the past of London and how it has changed – possibly for the worse. Bush continues this theme in his work on ‘Trading Zones’ in which he studies the Jersey financial sector. I think that through this exploration of disorientation and change Bush is trying to show that people often feel that the world is moving too fast for its own good as people get lost in temporary trends and patterns of life.