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Guernsey Photography Festival 2018 | Political Landscape

 

HERE IS A LINK TO: PLANNING-TRACKING-PERSONAL INVESTIGATION-AUTUMN-TERM-2018

What is “Political Landscape”?

It is important that we all have an understanding and interpretation of the term “political landscape” before we venture into un-ravelling how a range of influential photographers have tackled elements of this theme…

  • issues being discussed by some / most people
  • current affairs that are influenced by the parties in power
  • the current state of things, as well as how they are looking in the future.
  • how decisions in past have shaped our lives…

Class Activity

  • work in small teams of 2 /3 people
  • respond to the following sub-headings and create a dynamic brainstorm on coloured sugar paper
  • think carefully about how these points have affected your past, resent and future lives
  • pass the paper around the class to add to the discussion points
  • present your findings and debate the relevance / importance of each…
  1. health
  2. education
  3. infrastructure
  4. public services
  5. community
  6. human rights
  7. civil rights

Now look at…

Guernsey Photography Festival “Political Landscape”

  • Click on the link above to view and choose a range of
  • photographers to research and explore…

The theme for the 2018 Festival is Political Landscape. This has always been present throughout the history of photography. From the Crimean war battlefield photographs of Roger Fenton; Ansel Adams’ sublime American landscapes; the objective and conceptual typologies of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s industrial buildings; to the iconic pale blue dot, taken by Voyager 1. These historic landmarks and many more have helped develop the way photographers work with landscape.

You can clearly see in each of the contributing artist’s work how they have approached, embraced or integrated the theme…but we want you to now engage with the nature of the work itself and develop your knowledge and understanding.

The various approaches…

Documentary photography tends to take place over an extended time. Some photographers will set a specific time-frame to what they are documenting and how they are documenting the event(s), happenings, locations and characters attached to the story or narrative.

Social documentary photography or concerned photography is the recording of how the world looks like, with a social and/or environmental focus. It is a form of documentary photography, with the aim to draw the public’s attention to ongoing social issues.

Usually, there is a point to this process. We may, as photographers, document how land is being used / abused, how land is passed down through generations of families, how land is protected, why land often has a spiritual connection to communities and society as a whole, how and why land physically changes to fit with political agendas and so on…

Lisa Barnard, “The canary and the hammer”

But you may be more interested in exploring creative and conceptual approaches to taking / making your images. Tableaux photography relies on setting up, staging and capturing scenes, events or incidents usually involving people.

Jaako Kahilaniemi 100 Hectares of Understanding

Archive driven / reliant work often stems from extensive research and even appropriation of pre-existing material including photographs, film, legal documents, transcripts, maps, plans, articles and more.

Example

Valeria Cherchi has combined archival material with tableaux arrangements to explore a controversial and secretive program of vigilante action in Sardinia towards the end of last century in “Some of you killed Luisa”.

 

Research and analysis Task

  1. Choose 2 x photographers from GPF 2018 to explore, discuss, describe and explain key examples from their current projects
  2. Compare and contrast their approaches and outcomes and ask yourself…
  • what?
  • how?
  • why?
  • when?
  • where?
  1. Show critical awareness of the purpose and outcome of the work, and how it has developed over time.
  2. Illustrate clearly how the subject matter has been represented
  3. Critique the presentation of the work
  4. Ensure your blog posts are visually informative and include…
  • hyperlinks to appropriate sites and articles
  • embedded videos that support / illustrate you research
  • definition(s) of “Political Landscape”
  • a range of pre-exisiting, alternative approaches to the concept of political landscape

This should help YOU to formulate a plan for the practical element…

Practical Task

To successfully complete this task you must choose 2 of the options below to inspire your ideas…

  1. Documentary / narrative
  2. Creative / conceptual (includes tableaux approaches)
  3. Archive-driven

…and create a set of blog posts that clearly demonstrate your ability to respond to the theme of Political Landscape. You may want to extend your ideas from the Future of St Helier…or embark on a new and different approach.

You may want to choose from the following prompts…

  • how land is being used / abused (locally or elsewhere)
  • how land is passed down through generations of families,
  • how land is protected,
  • why land often has a spiritual connection to specific communities and society as a whole,
  • how and why land physically changes to fit with political agendas
  • the importance of borders / restrictions
  • how we are defined by where we live, work, spend time
  • human rights and the effects on our surroundings
  • civil rights and the effects on our surroundings
  • media outlets, agendas and information accessibility

You must clearly outline your intentions and reasoning for your approach to the theme…define and de-construct what political landscape could be

You must devise and complete at least 1 x photo-shoot (min. 250 images)and produce a range of outcomes that are the result of careful and intelligent camera techniques, selection, editing and presentation methods.

Remember to analyse and evaluate your process carefully, using specialist vocabulary…

Picture

MORE SUPPORT HERE

Useful articles to help you explore some recent  / current examples of local starting points re : political landscape

evaluation and reflection

This is my favourite image of my project. The content of the image is relevant to me quite literally because of the fact that me and my family produced this plastic waste in two weeks and continue to produce this amount because, it is almost impossible to avoid buying into plastic packaging. It is a conceptual photograph that carries a lot of meaning and relevance to the modern world because it brings forth an issue no one likes to see or do anything about. I think this is down to a common trait that everyone shares - laziness. 

Using a camera only had a small significance in the process of making this image. If I left the image alone I would feel no satisfaction in its completion. I have learnt during this first year in photography that generating a final image with just a camera isn't enough. Even though a lot of technical work goes into producing a decent image. 

It was difficult to achieve the right lighting because I could only light one side of the pile at a time unless I used the floodlights, yet I couldn't achieve my desired effect with them because of the high level of light intensity. I had to manipulate the lighting with colour and use different angles so I could accomplish an image with enough light to capture the detail but not too much to white wash my image or over expose it. It would of been more successful if I had two spotlights either side of the plastic. 

For me, I want to reflect my artistic side in my images with colours and playing with the forms and shapes of the objects in a photograph by cutting out imagery from many of the photographic materials I produce from a photo shoot and piecing it together. Editing my images is the most important stage for me because it allows me to produce something that wouldn't possibly be seen in our daily lives.

In this photograph a lot of the imagery is repeated and seen in many areas of the plastic pile. I didn't want to hide this to make it seem like I produced more plastic than I did just so I could prove my point. I kept the repeated imagery visible because it has the implication that we repeat mistakes and the process of this ongoing problem is down to that fact. The dangers of producing so much plastic is known by everyone yet it is an ongoing cycle of production, because we live in a throw away society.

On the other hand, I also had to repeat the imagery because the majority of the plastic could not be seen in a singular flat image. This is one draw back that makes this image have a lesser impact on an audience. With the context of why I created this image some might ignore my points and reasons behind it because it doesn't impinge on that person. If this perhaps was an image of plastic collected over a year, it might of had a bigger impact. However, putting this image into perspective, this was one family out of billions. In two weeks how much plastic did everyone as a collective produce and where did it go?


ethics of photography within documentary,journalism and surrealism

There are many codes and conventions within the boundaries of documentary photography and photojournalism,they are in place in order to accurately represent the areas and the people and not culturally mimic and mis-inform an audience due to editing or framing causing mediation and unreliability to the images themselves.

1)representation; is showing the truth and reality and not portraying a misrepresentation of a scenario, this has such great importance in order to  promote the reality of a situation and not a tabloid setting, This in turn looses the impact and relevance of the image,and the trust and  believable aspect within the audience receiving the image from the photographer. Throughout my new stage of work I am going to be focusing upon photo journalism and surrealism.I have chosen this due to the interesting effects in which surrealism carries, how it possess underwired methods to portray my themes of secrets codes and conventions and how I am able to be much more expressive and carry many more unique character traits throughout my work.I am able to symbolize dynamic shapes and an interesting concept of human behavior in order to symbolize the combination of surrealistic and highly conceptual images to symbolize a feeling of secrecy and search for identity between people.However within photojournalism I could also capture a development of everyday people and a feeling their own story and within their family,I can  focus on how a group of people work together and how their behavior effects each other and the way in which they act as a whole community,so sharing the themes I am using in my surrealism shoots also carried throughout photojournalism.

analysis of short film

This slow movie was Made by Deren with her husband, cinematographer Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon established the independent avant-garde movement in film in the United States, which is known as the New American Cinema. It directly inspired early works by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, and other major experimental filmmakers. Beautifully shot by Hammid, a leading documentary filmmaker and cameraman in Europe (where he used the surname Hackenschmied) before he moved to New York, the film makes new and startling use of such standard cinematic devices as montage editing and matte shots.

Technical visual conceptual:

This short film was a non narrative piece and an exmaple of ‘trance film’ towards the end of the film there were continuous jump cuts with a birds eye view presenting a power over the protagonist women herself,furthermore theses cuts created a repetition in order to from the narrative moving from the end and back to the beginning of the narrative.in which a protagonist appears in a dreamlike state, and where the camera conveys his or her subjective focus.This was done in order to connote a sense of death and fear within the women symbolized through the black figure.The figure itself has an  interesting concept to it as it had a strong resemblance to that of a symbolic figure of death or the grim reaper which is attuned to her unconscious mind and caught in a web of dream events that spill over into reality.Additionally the mirror portrays a loss of identity and also a reflection of the women’s biggest fear being seen within herself,this also successful combines secrets codes and conventions as it reflects an act of behavior and a conventional secret she is hiding from herself and perhaps.Furthermore you can see the womens struggle and an atmophere of danger when she was coming up the stairs due ot the cameras wuick turning and editing in order to express an abrupt movement .Historically this film was made in the early 1940’s so at the time was innovative and a ispired many film makers with the advancement of editing and special effects,

There are also continuous  themes of surrealism which is an avant grade movement in art and literature and was created from the potential of unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. surrealistic cinema is a modernist approach and criticism,

Jersey War Tunnels

Jersey War Tunnels

Hohlgangsanlage 8 (also known as the German Underground Hospital or the Jersey War Tunnels) was a partially completed underground hospital complex in St. Lawrence, Jersey, built by German occupying forces during the occupation of Jersey during World War II. After Hitler’s October 1941 order to fortify the Channel Islands, work began on a string of fortifications all around Jersey.  Ho8 was intended to be a vast network of underground tunnels that would allow the German occupying infantry to withstand Allied air raids and bombardment. Over 1 km  of tunnels were completed. After the liberation of the Channel Islands, the complex was converted into a museum detailing the occupation and remains a visitor attraction.

One tunnel made 6,000 years ago as part of a Neolithic ritual site, the other made 65 years ago to protect the German war machine from allied bombardment. It took nearly three and a half years to build, with the work being carried out by forced and slave labourers who were brought to the Island from all over Europe. It was originally intended to be a barracks and ammunition store for the occupying forces. Many of the workers were Polish, French, Russian or Republican Spaniards. Conditions were terrible, although Russian and Ukrainians were treated the worst, with cases of malnutrition, death by exhaustion and disease among them becoming common.

In late 1943, with the threat of an Allied invasion of Europe becoming clear, Ho8 was to be converted into a casualty clearing station and emergency hospital. The tunnels were blasted out with gunpowder and handtools, and then covered with concrete. The hospital was dug into a slope, so that it would drain naturally and had 500 beds for patients.

Despite the huge preparations and fortifications made to the Channel Islands, none were ever utilised. The occupying forces in the Channel Islands surrendered on 9 May 1945 (one day after the rest of the German forces surrendered). Ho8 fell into disuse, with British soldiers and souvenir hunters stripping the tunnels of equipment.

The War Tunnels tell the compelling story of life in Jersey under occupation and feature a series of  galleries looking at the diverse experiences of all those who live through it, whether Jersey, British or German

Source of pictures: www.jerseywartunnels.com

In 1940, news of the fall of France to German forces created a sudden crisis for Islanders, should they stay or go. Many men of military age had already left, and most of those whose families were not in Jersey felt the need to return to England. Others also decided it would be advisable to leave. Whole families had to rapidly prepare to walk away from house and home, leaving behind their happy life – and not imagining it would be for five long years.

“Queues for tickets stretched for long distances, and hurried arrangements for leaving were made. Choosing what to take was not easy, as only one suitcase each was allowed. We could only pack essential clothing, so my sister and I were dressed in extra layers of clothing, despite the warm weather. We were each allowed to choose just one book and one toy to take with us.”- Ann Bright (7 years old at the time)

In 1942, the German turned up at this time-crossing site and damaged it by digging an underground bunker, now transformed into a memorial dedicated to the thousands of men, women and children transported to the Channel Islands as forced workers during the second world war.

Memories inscribed on plaques are chilling: “I have never forgotten the sound that came out of the huts. When people are starving, the pitch of their voices rises. The sound was like lots of birds in an aviary.”

Landscape Final Outcomes

Stephen Gill

Stephen Gill, born 1971 in Bristol, is a British experimental, conceptual and documentary photographer. He became interested in photography in his early childhood, thanks to his father and interest in insects and initial obsession with collecting bits of pond life to inspect under his microscope. He has had various collections exhibited in international museums including Tate and The Museum of London.

In January 2003 Gill bought a Bakelite 1960s box camera made by Coronet for 50 pence at Hackney Wick Sunday market, near where he lived. The camera had a plastic lens, and it lacked focus and exposure controls.

Over the next four years he had used the camera to photograph within the extremely varied environment of Hackney Wick, including waterways and allotments; and to make portraits of people at the Sunday market and who lived and worked in the area.

My Work

I was inspired by Gill’s combination of natural substances over urban imagery, I wanted to recreate this however could not use the same technique that he had used. Instead, I used an overlay technique where I cut out objects like leaves from one photo and placed it over another.

Like Gill, I took photos of the environment where I live. As I walked through town, I saw this mattress by a bin and decided to take a photo.

I erased the background using the rubber tool in Photoshop and placed the flower overlay where I thought fit.

Processed with VSCO with g3 preset

I added an overall filter in VSCO to make the whole image feel more like one layer.

This second image I took as I liked the formalistic structure of the scaffolding and believed it would stand out as the background of the overlay.


Using this image I found online (https://www.google.je/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZitqFUZNGbImpARapSKR0peeimG–B4QyEaWnhho-QGOOtu1L6rxbGV-HrKRfNmAYmaj2NT6YhuvSR0d3D6tOT-mdB1slFMy1w1KsKDILTtpxyp9_1-p1XPXZwFSRhy1IGLDbBY3ZK_12yZMt7Jgrb0V8ocpdu9_1J0XephjQXHi13Jo9JlF9rYioXIYSGTbswLfR_1aRRixpklcsBeJtom8zhTqoVATRfc75-DeT8M_1m_1iMyRqapqsOdcAZghwdZoVx0v8t4pq0rX2cKCzW_11Rgz2iyz2DT4m5yVu-8OSJrUYUqtxRvcxAMYp9Yo7b7iYgoKzjCl-qI&btnG=Search%20by%20image&hl=en-JE), It added a dirtier feel to the image demonstrating the importance of nature over a man made structure.

 

Image Analysis

Processed with VSCO with g3 preset

This image shows different angles, where the scaffolding is being looked up at but the berries are hanging down. This is metaphorical for what may be to come in the future for humankind in that there will be no nature left if we destroy it all to create man made structures.

The berries stand out in a more vibrant colour in contrast to the darker background demonstrating the true importance of nature.

The image as a whole shows elements of formalism, with the lines and structure of the scaffolding and colour of the berries. Combined together, it results in an abstraction with underlying meaning.

 

I boarded up each of my images separately.

What is Psycho-Geography?

Psycho-geography is a hybrid of photography and  geography that emphasizes playfulness and “drifting” around urban environments. It has links to the Situationist International.

Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”

Another definition is “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities… just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape

Final Outcomes/Presentation

For my final outcomes I gathered my favorite images from each shoot together to analyse and compare them. At the same time I had sent some of these images to be printed so that I could present them in a few different ways rather than just the image online. From this it would allow me to explore the use of composition and presentation of each image, creating a more aesthetically pleasing result as a result. These were my top 5 images I had selected throughout the course topic of ‘Landscapes’:

The New Topographic Inspired Shoot

within this shoot on the topic of New Topographics, I will be focusing on the contrast between the urban landscape surrounded by forms of nature allowing imagery to give way to unromanticized views of stark industrial and urban areas to which these everyday scenes would not be given a second glance about.  Photographers that have inspired this shoot for me consist of Robert Adams, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel.

Some of their works can be seen below to provide a general idea to the overview of New Topographics:

I decided however to plan the shoot before I went ahead and did it. This would allow me to have a general idea before hand of what I wanted, and needed to achieve to produce an effective overall image regarding the topic of New Topographics. These are my ideas:

Once this was complete I decided it was time to move on to the shoot itself, and so decided to use the areas regarding the idea sheet of town, Grouville and St Brelades. These were my outcomes:

Once the shoot was complete I narrowed the images down to only ten of my favourite pictures. By doing so it would make it easier for me to select the final image that I believe to be the most relevent and successful overall. These were my choices on the ten best images:

From this selection I whittled the ten images down into five, this would allow to select the best photo from the batch which I deemed most appropriate for the catagory ‘New Topographic’. These were my choices:

I chose this image because of how I loved the clear contrast between nature and the taking over of it by man, seen by the run down sign surrounded by overgrown grass. I found this to be aesthetically pleasing created by the use of a depth of field, by doing so it blurs our the foreground and the background allowing only really the sign to be noticed properly which is where the eye is drawn. I found the slanted composition to be especially interesting by how it gives the impression of an overgrown and ruined world.

I selected this image due to once again the use of the depth of field that blurs the backdrop, this along with the use of the composition allowed for maximum effect, giving the impression of a world that eventually succumbs to nature. I found that the way that the fence was composition allowed for a sense of distance to the photo, with the use of neutral space on the right being filled with industrial buildings bringing the viewer into perspective of the area it was taken in.What I loved about this image was the clear contrast and clear colors used to create an aesthetically pleasing outcome. This is done through contrasting colours blue and white which highlight features of the building, allow for such things as the door and bolts top pop out and draw the viewer’s attention. The composition I found also was aesthetically pleasing due to how the entire image is symmetrical which in consequence created a much cleaner and pleasing look.Within this image I found that there was obvious difference between nature and man-made structures. This is once again done through the use of a depth of field to which allows for the appearance of us peering through nature to find the man-made structures that surround everything, whilst showing how where ever nature is human activity is not far behind. I found that the gloomy colours within the image emphasised the destruction caused to the landscape by these structures and how nature and civilisation lives side by side. Finally I chose this image as I loved the reflection of cranes created by the aftermath of rain fall. This was partially down to how I thought it highlighted a clear contrast between nature and society, with the looming structures left behind, whilst at the same time creating a deserted and desolate feel to the overall piece. I found that the composition of the piece complimented the photo as it filled most of the negative space made by bricks, with various beams fading out of the image.

Once completed I thought it was time to decide on a final image from the shoot that I thought emphasised the topic ‘New Topographic’ and was most effective in response to it. This was favourite image as an outcome to the shoot:

What made me choose this photo as my final image was because how to me it summed up the clear contrast between human activity and nature. This was done by the composition of the grass creating the impression of it growing around the sign as if taking back the land seized by man, to which there is a clear difference in surrounding of the backdrop consisting of machinery and metallic structures that create contrast in not only surroundings but color. The use of depth of field creates a clear definition around the sign allowing for the eye to be drawn to it immediately with both the foreground and background complimenting it due to the drastic difference in colors and blur. To me this was the image that related the most to the topic of ‘New topographic’, which not only created a feel of the contrast between man and nature, but also of the deserted spaces that surround us in our everyday lives.

 

 

Altered Landscapes

For this post I wanted to explore the use of altered landscapes. To do this I would need to research specific photographers that use this technique to produce the artificial designs and attempt to copy the idea using my own imagery and Photoshop. A photographer I found particularly interesting is Krista Svalbonas, Svalbonas uses images she has taken of buildings to then create part of a structure by stitching together parts of the buildings wanted. Here are some examples of her work:I found that Svalbonas used a calm colored backdrop to her creations to balance the entire piece and really make the design pop out. In response to this I looked through previous photo-shoots picking out images of buildings that I had taken recently. Once found I proceeded onto Photoshop to cut out and stick the parts of these buildings together creating a structure similar to that of Svalbonas, to which I would continue to add a colored matt backdrop that in my opinion balanced the image out. This was my process:

Firstly I created a mood board of the images I wanted to stick together that I thought worked well composition and color wise.From here I cut out the buildings individually and proceeded to join them together experimenting with what fitted well.To do this I used the lasso tool to accurately outline the object wanted so that I could then paste onto the design and move it around until satisfied with its placement.Once the design had been finished I experimented with a series of colors that I thought were neutral and would not overpower the overall piece. To do this I used the shape tool to cover the backdrop with a large square where I could then change the colors of it.

Once I had put together the images I thought best suited each other I added a backdrop using a singular shape put beneath the layers, this allowed for the effect wanted whilst neatly finishing the piece. These were my results:

To create these images I mainly incorporated photos that I had based around the International Finance Center for my psycho-geography shoot and a few images from various other shoots. Whilst doing so I found that by duplicating the image and coloring it black while at the same time reducing the opacity, created a shadow like effect to the piece, this allowed for a 3d like effect that I wanted to put across on the piece and at the same time giving it a more graphic feel. Once done I added a green and a pink backdrop to each piece as I found that these colors drew the gaze to the piece rather than be sore from all the negative space surrounding it.