WHAT IS LANDSCAPE URBANIZATION:

Over the years, numerous landscape studies have described the impacts of urbanization, such as fragmentation of habitats, loss of farmland and loss of historical connections and previously coherent cultural landscapes. Thus, the story of how landscapes fall victim to urbanization (and, more generally, to the march of societal progress) has been told and retold. While the object being lost varies, the overall story remains the same. The course of events seems to have been decided in advance: landscape sacrificed for the progress of cities. The process of urbanization is thereby depicted as a fight between city and countryside, a fight in which the countryside loses every time. Rural landscapes of the past are set in contrast to advancing suburbs, shattered habitats, shrinking farmland and placelessness. Documenting, analyzing and raising public awareness of losses of past landscape qualities is no doubt an important task for landscape research, but is it the only one?

Urbanisation: Reductionist approaches to urbanisation have come to focus on quantitative measurements of a limited number of parameters for such a long time that these limited and very specific insights into urbanisation seem to have affected (or even replaced) the very idea of a complex and multidimensional process. This issue provides richer illustrations of the process by widening the scope of the features studied.

Landscape: Rather than viewing landscape as a passive arena for urbanisation, this special issue discusses the complex role of landscape and engages in landscape theory to gain a greater understanding of the processes of urbanisation.

Histories: With histories, in the plural, this special issue opens the way for a more diverse understanding of urbanization, beyond the standard modern perception of urban progress/expansion and rural decline. While these three concepts form a common base, use of relational thinking in the papers included in this special issue offers ways of altering and revisiting existing ideas of landscape, histories and urbanization.

LANDSCAPE URBANIZATION IN PHOTOGRAPHY:

Stephen gill born in 1971 Bristol, UK began his love for photography at an extremely young age due to the influence from his father and his interest in insect which created Gill’s initial interest with collecting bits of pond life to inspect under his own microscope.

Gill now focuses on his inspirations from the surroundings of the inner city life in East London and heading towards looking at Sweden as well and looking into the idea of reflecting and portraying images that help describe and emphasis the times we are currently live in. His work is often made up of long-term photo studies exploring and responding to the subjects in great depth. Throughout his career Gill has experimented with a large array of trials for examples, he mainly worked with black and white imagery from 1984 then followed by a lot more colour interpreted in his work in mid 1990s.

It’s said that until around 2003 his work has been said to have an extremely descriptive and typographical approach towards the subjects.

After working mainly in black and white from 1984, his practice since the mid 1990s was mostly in colour.Eight of his photo studies made between 1997 and 2003 were assembled and published as chapters in a book called Field Studies in 2004, which also toured as an exhibition. As previously mentioned Gill enjoyed to experiment and in January 2003 he bought a Bakelite 1960s box camera produced by Coronet for only 50 pence from Hackney Wick Sunday market, which was near where he lived at the time. The camera had a plastic lens, and lacked focus and exposure control.
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.

It was then announced that the area Gill had been focusing his photography on would be redo eloped for the 2012 summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics.

Gill claims that this finished body of work was steered, informed and shaped by the place itself. And his approach to making the work was more reacting, responding and being carried by the subject rather than seeking out ideas that were already formed in the mind. This stage of photography he named as an idea as starting over or walking away from the old. It was important that his content was first as he believed it played an important role in rather than the technique.

An obsession with this part of London lasted over ten years and led to many different series including – Hackney Wick, Archaeology in Reverse, Warming Down, Buried, Off Ground, A Series of Disappointments, Talking to Ants and Best Before End.Best Before End looks at the phenomenon of energy drink consumption. This time rather than describing the subject, Gill used the drinks as an aid to make the finished images as the negatives partly processed in energy drinks of different kinds. It allowed the drinks to shift and alter the images with a small amount of manual intervention.

For my second shoot I wanted to create an action plan in order to stay organized;

1. Select an appropriate area to set out on a work to find good different patterns on the ground to photograph. I ended up choosing St Brelardes beach which has a wide opportunity for different textures, shadows and lines.
2. Next select camera lens that will work well and is appropriate for creating clear images from the distance of the lens to the floor. I ended up using a 18mm-135mm lens which made sure I could focus on all texture. For example when photographing the sand, this particular lens ensured clear texture emphasis the lines and foot prints with in the sand.
3. Finally go to the location at an appropriate time of day that will work efficiently with the types of images I want to select. In this case I went to St Brelardes just before sunset and walked around for about an hour in order to have different shadows and almost a warm textured feeling due to the suns warm rays reflecting on to the beach creating lots of shadowed in which I tried to use to my advantage

For this photoshoot I will be concentrated on capturing the similar ideas and remain influenced by the Boyle Family. In this particular instance I will be focusing on the concept of looking down at the ground and creating individual shapes to portray a different meaning and focus point.

For example

-This photoshoot will be done over a period of time, half term.

-I plan to take vernacular photos of the members of my family who’s photos I collected from their youth and picture of people my age like my sister and my friends. I plan to document the journey of youth. I want to show that the generation are completely different but are the same. They are different in what they wore and sometimes what they do but are the same.

-The lighting will be natural and artificial lights depending on whether I’m inside or outside.

-I think I will use my phone because it’s easier to take personal images of someone where they don’t have a big camera in their face.

-Where? When? Who? The days I’ve planned to take photos are when I go to my friend birthday meal and the cinema and when I see some of my old friends for a meet up and chat.

Vernacular photography is the creation of photographs that take everyday life and events as their subjects.
Examples of vernacular photographs include travel and vacation photos, family snapshots, photos of friends, class portraits, identification photographs, and photo-booth images. Almost like a celebration of the mundane.

After looking at Carinthia West and Kristen Lewis I see that the idea of Vernacular photography applies to them in the way that they take pictures of people just living their lives, famous or just a normal family.

I would like to look at the idea of the journey of people and society through generations.

I’ve collected images of my parents and even some of my grandparents of their youth.