PHOTO SHOOT PLANNING:

WHO: As I am mainly focusing on landscape romanticism in this photo shoot, there are no models or people playing a role in any of the images. It is all about the beauty of untouched nature.

WHERE: During this photo shoot I was aiming to capture images based on romantic romanticism, therefore choosing the sand dunes as the place to do so due to the extensive scale of it. It also hosts a variety of landscapes from the dunes, grasslands and beach.

WHAT: My final images are all fairly simplistic in nature as one of my main inspirations was Franco Fontana and his minimalist landscape photography. During the editing process , saturating colors will be the aim.

HOW: I used my regular DSLR camera in order to capture the images, mostly taking them at the top of the sand dunes in order to get a wide field of view which is able to capture a variety of landscape images.

WHEN: I took the images during mid day when the sun was fairly strong and direct. The skies were clear for the majority of my photo shoot yet towards the end the weather conditions changed quite drastically and it started raining so some of the images are more dull and darker.

WHY: Landscape romanticism is a widely used theme for photography which I myself particularly enjoy due to the results of the photography, often times capturing images which are highly surreal and breathtaking.

FRANCO FONTANA INSPIRATION:

FRANCO FONTANA’S LIFE AND WORK:

Franco Fontana was born in 1933 in Modena. He took up photography in 1961 and joined an amateur club. He held his earliest solo shows in 1968 in Modena, his native city, which marked a turning point in his career. He has published over seventy books with Italian, French, German, Swiss, Spanish, American and Japanese publishers. His photographs have appeared worldwide in over 400 exhibitions, solo and collective. His images are in collections in over fifty public and private, Italian and international galleries, including: the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, Rochester, the Musée de la Photographie, Arles, New York, the National Museum, Beijing, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Many companies have asked him to collaborate on advertising campaigns, he has published photographs in Time-Life, The New York Times, Vogue Usa, Vogue France, Il Venerdì di Repubblica, Sette del Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Class, Epoca and others. Fontana has been invited to hold photography workshops in various schools, universities and institutes such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Académie Royale des Beaux Arts, Brussels, the Toronto University, and so on in Rome, Paris, Arles, Rockpot, Barcelona, Taipei,  Politecnico di Torino, and the LUISS University, Rome.  He has collaborated with the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Japanese Ministry of Culture, the French Ministry of Culture.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

This piece by Franco is very simple in composition, only consisting of simple line work, going along the rolling hills of the grasslands. There are large blocks of color which separate the photo into 3 sections, blocking each color into a section. Even through the photo contains a very simplistic color pallets, the colors merge and harmonize together to create an overalll “tied together”look. There is no real foreground, mid ground or background, therefore the landscape appears 2D and flat. The length and width of each block of color is fairly relative to one another therefore there is a slight sense of pattern and repetition. I believe that during editing, the colors have been over saturated in order to create impact and boldness. The natural lighting coming directly above from the sun, gives the image brightness yet lacks any sort of shadows or tone differentiation. Even though this is a photograph of fields, the image does not feel organic or natural in any sense due to the symmetry and geometry seen within it.

His reasoning for creating these images are “my goal is to interpret reality. Anyone can see the landscapes I photograph, but with my camera I try to capture the details and features that the eye cannot see. Some tell me, “I went to Provence and I saw ‘your’ landscapes”; sometimes they will have seen those places before coming to an exhibition, but only after looking at my work they see that part of reality pinpointing something they had not noticed before.”

MOST SUCCESSFUL IMAGE:

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

VISUAL:

The initial thing which hits the viewer when looking at the image is the strong and saturated colors of the grass and sea which stand out and bring the sand dunes to the forefront of the image. There is an immediate sense of scale in the image with the sea being in the background and the dunes in the forefront. The hazy and blurred horizon of the sea further accentuates this sense of endlessness. The picture is quite clearly cut into two distinct parts, the sand dunes and the sea and the sky creating almost two images of landscape. The untouched beauty of the dunes is interrupted by the presence of the man made castle which introduces themes of industrialization and human impact into the theme of landscape romanticism. Relating to the original theme of journeys and pathways, there is a very clear path leading through the middle of the image, again showing the impact that humans have on nature and how over time we have altered it. The light is very strong in this image being very bright overall in the image due to the direct overhead light coming from the sun. The time of day when this image was taken also means that the sun was bright and very powerful. The exposure of this image is also quite strong being more on the overexposed rather than the underexposed side of the spectrum.

TECHNICAL:

In terms of ISO, it was set initially at 400 making the image slightly overexposed, later on in the photo shoot turning it down to 200 in order to make the images more balanced. Due to the bright white sand in some areas of the dunes, I found it crucial to have the correct white balance set on my camera. I experimented around with this technical side of the images, trying different white balance settings, even the fluorescent lighting setting. I eventually settled on the direct sunlight setting in order to get the desired white balance in my images. The focal length whilst taking this image was 19mm, I zoomed in slightly as I wanted to offset the focus setting on my camera to focus mostly on the sand dunes and capture the sea in a slightly blurry and hazy way. In terms of logistics, the sand dunes were fairly easy yet difficult place to get to due to the terrain that I had to get across to in order to get a good perspective over the dunes and of the sea. The weather was also crucial as I wanted fairly clear skies in order to replicate similar as Franco Fontana, who’s photography is clearly distinguished by the clear blue skies which he includes.

CONCEPTUAL:

During this photo shoot, I was aiming to further explore the theme of landscape romanticism. more than there is a basis to secure either a national or international style of Romantic Landscape painting. When we speak of Romanticism we are speaking at best of a particular tendency of creative sensibility. As regards Romantic landscape and/or mountainous settings, a common and sentient focus of both Romantic poets and painters, their relationship exists most often in a tendency to an intensified personal subjectivity. The sand dunes in my opinion were a perfect example of untouched nature in Jersey, being an important historic and environmental heritage site.

CONTEXTUAL:

The sand dunes of St Ouen’s Bay, and at the heart of the Jersey National Park, are recognised as among Europe’s most important sand dunes. Les Blanches Banques, as they are called, are designated as a site of special interest (SSI) because of their special zoological, botanical, archaeological and historical features. As the most extensive area of sandy soils in Jersey, the dunes support good populations of many animals and plants not found elsewhere in Jersey. The site is mostly publicly owned and covers 1.15 km2, from the marram grass-covered seaside dune, back towards the scrubby wooded valleys at Les Quennevais.

The stabilisation of the dune system caused by the construction of the seawall now allows for the growth of less specialised fast growing vegetation which out-competes the plants adapted to sand dune conditions. The acidity of the grasslands is increasing over time – consequently changing their ecology. It’s essential for rangers to mow selected areas and cutting back scrub i to maintain the grasslands.

source:
https://blog.gov.je/2018/02/28/jerseys-ecological-sites-of-special-interest-les-blanches-banques/

MOST SUCCESSFUL IMAGES:

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