Stephen Shore is an American photographer who was born October 8, 1947. He is known for his images of bland and somewhat boring scenes and objects in the United States, and also for his pioneering use of colour in art photography. His books include Uncommon Places (1982) and American Surfaces (1999). These photos were taken on road-trips during the 1970’s. They show juxtaposition and capture the beauty in the boring landscapes. Stephen Shore was instrumental in the ‘New topographic movement’. This movement was about showing the contrast between man and nature and the blandness of some of the American towns.

Visual: Looking at this image I can see that the photo is quite flat and dull in colour. However there is accidents of colour especially in red, white and blue. This photo in a lot of ways is quite boring and uninteresting but it is the subtle things that make it interesting.

Contextual: This photo is part of the new topographic’s movement which was a group of photographers including the likes of Stephen Shore, Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz. This image helps to represent the impact of man on the landscape and shows the contrast. At the time of this photo being taken, the idea of the ‘America Dream’ was a big thing that a lot of people

Conceptual: This image is dull other than the accents of red white and blue, which I think Stephen Shore has used to represent the nation of there United States as the USA flag is red, white and blue. This could be linking to the theme of ‘Man altered landscapes’ as the red, white and blue may be representing the people of the United States that have in a sense created this image.

Technical: Because this photo was taken in the 70’s it was likely to be taken on film because it has quite a flat look however digital photography had been invented and was growing in popularity. But the principles are still the same. The shutter speed would have been quite high because the photo is very sharp, but there is not much detail in the shadows and highlights.

Selection Process-

I decided to pick my personal favourite images out of several shoots to compile a large-ish group of images, from which I can then select my final 2-4 to print and mount.

I took images from my romantic landscape, natural landscape, New Topographics, and urban landscape photoshoots, then I decided to make a series of contact sheets to properly visualise all these images and refine them down to my final selection.

I already knew that I wanted to have two sets of two A4 images, within which the two images had a similar aesthetic and complemented each other. From there, I studied the contact sheet and tried to narrow down any outliers or images that I just didn’t particularly feel stuck with my vision.

Here I paired the remaining images together with the other images I felt complemented them the best, and then I had to decide which two pairs to select for the final printing. At this point I decided that I would use two window mounts to display these images, because this method would showcase them best next to each other.

Finally I felt that the top and bottom pairs of images best went with each other, as they both represented different aspects of urban landscape, which was my preferred part of this landscape project, as well as contrasting the other pair due to the fact that one pair is in black and white and the other in colour.

Final Images-

Evaluation-

The top two images are more of my own style rather than following another photographer’s work, and my overall intention was to keep the colours vibrant and show how everyday scenes can be seen differently, with a photographer’s eye. I used Photoshop to edit these images subtly and they turned out successful.

I chose the bottom pair of images because I felt that they were the best representations of the ‘New Topographics’ era of photography, particularly the style of Robert Adams, who I studied before going out on a photoshoot. I kept with his style when shooting, as I only shot scenes I felt were bleak and “banal” enough to show how beauty can be found within urbanisation, which was a clear theme of Adams’ work and the ‘New Topographics’ exhibition in general. I also used his work as a guide when editing, by keeping the sky partly grey and not completely over-exposed, by making the image black and white, and also by adjusting the contrast to increase it but also keep the essence of the image clear.

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Altered Landscape Research –

First being popularized via The Nevada Museum of Art in the early 1990’s which had a section directly focused on ‘new’, contemporary landscape photography. Nearly two decades later, the Altered Landscape collection which the museum holds is over 600; it’s largest landscape photography ‘sub-genre’.

During it’s early days, the ‘Altered Landscape’ genre was heavily focused on natural landscapes and the beauty it presents with photographers such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston leading the ideas and type of connotations landscapes/ their images conveyed. However, during the mid 70’s the Altered Landscape style of photography changed dramatically due to it’s newer influencers such as Bernd and Hilla Becher. This new style of photography focused on landscapes and the effect man-made structures, such as caravans, had on it’s appearance and meaning.

In some ways, modern day Altered Landscape photography acts as a visual source of history combining both old – landscapes and new – houses, buildings, gas stations; conveying quite an emotional feeling towards viewers, forcing them to ask questions like – ‘Is this for the best?’ or ‘Are we ruining our planet?’.

From my research on some artists and altered landscape images, I would say that by under-exposing the images the actual landscapes are even more highlighted due to the emphasis on things such as texture and shadows. This also allows the landscape to be the main focus of the image as no ‘blinding’ light or colours ‘distract’ the viewer from the actual image.

Artist Research –

Photoshoots –

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Stephanie Jung Inspired –

 Fong Qi Wei Inspired –

Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who was inspired and influenced by Albert Renger-Patzsch, the experiments at The Bauhaus in Germany and by Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Chicago. Helmer Petersen achieved fame for his coloured photography but he also published several books of black and white images that consist of dramatic contrasts. All mid tones have been removed in his black and white images. He created these images using both cameras and flat bed scanners to achieve the effect of pure black and white photos.

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My Own Images

Urban

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Natural

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How I did it

Bunker (St.Peters)

I took a variety of different photos and different angles around the outskirts of Fort Regent. I changed the exposure for some of the photos (exposure bracketing) to see how to the contrast/tonal values changed. I’ve selected my favourite images and decided which ones I won’t use.

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Best Photos

I picked these images because each of them are different from each other and have something unique about them whether it’s the angle they’ve been taken from, the lighting or the scenery/ individual buildings. Each photo has something that the eye is automatically drawn to and they each have a main focus. Some things to point out about the uniqueness of some of the photo are: the different depths of field and the vibrancy of the images.

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Editing My Best Image

In this edit I used HDR toning to bring out the best colours and tones from high and low exposure and from the original photo. I like this photo because the sharpness is higher compared to the rest of the photos, I also like the bright reds and greens contrasting with the dull bunker.

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I adjusted the photo to black and white and I got inspiration to do this from Ansel Adams and I tried to get every shade in Adams’ zone system.

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Outskirts of Fort Regent (St. Helier)(3)

I took a variety of different photos and different angles around the outskirts of Fort Regent. I changed the exposure for some of the photos (exposure bracketing) to see how to the contrast/tonal values changed. I’ve selected my favourite images and decided which ones I won’t use. These photos were taken later on in the day and some of them were at night.

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Experimental shoot (shutter speed variation and camera movement)

Best Photos

I picked these images because each of them are different from each other and have something unique about them whether it’s the angle they’ve been taken from, the lighting or the scenery/individual trees. Each photo has something that the eye is automatically drawn to and they each have a main focus. Some things to point out about the uniqueness of some of the photo are: the vibrancy and fullness.

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Editing My Best Image

In this edit I used HDR toning to bring out the best colours and tones from high and low exposure and from the original photo. I like this photo because there is more vibrancy and dramatised colours than the rest of the photos.

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I adjusted the photo to black and white and I got inspiration to do this from Ansel Adams and I tried to get every shade in Adams’ zone system.

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