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altered landscapes

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You may wish to intergrate the concept of altered landscapes into your project based on Anthropocene.

You could develop a set, sequence or group of final images.

You may choose to employ a range of creative and experimental techniques (digital and traditional) to create your new environments…

  • Creating changed, changing or altered landscapes
  • Creating altered landscapes by combining a range of images in Adobe Photoshop
  • Explore panoramic landscapes
  • Using photo montage/cut-n-paste techniques and printed matter (combine your own images with images from the internet, magazines, print-outs, newspapers etc)

You may already have a range of suitable images to start your designs…but may need to find additional images to work from:

Here are some examples to help inspire your ideas…

Tanja Deman
Image result for panoramic landscapes contemporary photography david hockney
David Hockney inspired “joiner” photographs
3-d / dioramas
Dafna Talmor’s Constructed Landscapes
Felicity Hammond
Beomsik Won
Surrealist approaches
Jesse Treece
Krista Svalbonas

Paint directly onto photographs, as in these works by Gerhard Richter:

Gerhard Richter overpainted photographs
Gerhard Richter has painted over 500 of his own photographs (with many more works discarded): commercially printed images that are overpainted with spontaneous gestural smears, using leftover oil paint applied with palette knives, squeegees or doctors’ blades. In the examples above, the thick painted lines divide the composition and inject colour into what is otherwise a rather drab interior scene. The paint disturbs the viewer – shatters the illusion that we are quietly observing a scene – pulling our attention to the tactile surface and smear of texture in front of our eyes.

Combine paint and photographs digitally, like Fabienne Rivory‘s LaBokoff project:

Fabienne Rivory photography
This project by Fabienne Rivory explores interactions between imagination and reality. Selecting photographs that represent a memory, Fabienne digitally overlays a gouache or ink painting, introducing an intense vibrant colour to the work. Students might like to experiment with this idea by creating a photocopy of a work and applying ink or watercolours directly (watery mediums will not ‘adhere’ to an ordinary photography surface).

Overlay multiple photos from slightly different angles, like these experimental photographs by Stephanie Jung:

experimental digital manipulation photography by Stephanie Jung
Stephanie Jung creates stunning urban landscapes, overlaying near-identical city scenes that have been taken from slightly different angles, at different transparencies and colour intensities. The repeated forms (buildings / vehicles / street signs) suggest echoed memories, vibrations of life; the ebb and flow of time.

Cut out shapes and insert coloured paper, as in these photographs by Micah Danges:

photography with cut coloured paper layers
These landscape photographs by contemporary photographer Micah Danges have separate photographic layers and incorporate stylised abstract elements. The simple strategy of cutting pieces out of a photograph and adding layers of different paper can be a great technique for high school photography students.

Make an photography collage using masking tape, like Iosif Kiraly:

masking tape collage
Whereas the previous photomontage montages involve precise trimming and arrangement of forms, this collage has an informal aesthetic, with visible pieces of masking tape holding it together. This can be a great method for shifting and moving pieces until the work is well balanced and cohesive. Iosif Kiraly’s work explores the relationship between perception, time and memory.

Photograph a single scene over time and join the pieces in sequence, like these composite photographs by Fong Qi Wei:

Fong Qi Wei photography
These photographs are from Fong Qi Wei’s ‘Time is a Dimension’ series, and show digital slices of photographs taken over several hours at one location. The shots above show a seaside in sunrise, with the images organised together in a way that shows the changing light conditions.

Inset scenes within other scenes, as in these photographs by Richard Koenig:

richard koenig photography
Richard Koenig hangs a print and rephotographs this in its new location, creating intriguing illusions of space within space. Perspective lines within the two images are aligned to create optical confusion, so the viewer is disconcerted and unsure about the separation of the two spaces. His work often features intimate, private moments inset within generic, impersonal, public environment.

Back to the Future

http://www.marinacaneve.com/en/portfolio/are-they-rocks-or-clouds/

Constructed Seascapes

Take a look at these photographic images (click on each image to expand):GUSTAVE LE GRAY – THE GREAT WAVE, 1857. ALBUMEN PRINT FROM COLLODION-ON-GLASS NEGATIVE.DAFNA TALMOR – FROM THE CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPES II SERIES. C-TYPE PRINTS MADE OF COLLAGED COLOUR NEGATIVES

  • Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe?
  • What similarities do you notice about these two pictures?
  • What differences do you notice?
  • What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes?
  • In which of these landscapes would you prefer to live? 

A bit of research…

​Read the following descriptions about the making of these images:

Gustav Le Gray – The Great Wave, 1857Dafna Talmor – from Constructed Landscapes II
‘​The Great Wave’, the most dramatic of his seascapes, combines Le Gray’s technical mastery with expressive grandeur […] At the horizon, the clouds are cut off where they meet the sea. This indicates the join between two separate negatives […]Most photographers found it impossible to achieve proper exposure for both landscape and sky in a single picture. This usually meant sacrificing the sky, which was then over-exposed. Le Gray’s innovation was to print some of the seascapes from two separate negatives – one exposed for the sea, the other for the sky – on a single sheet of paper.This ongoing body of work consists of staged landscapes made of collaged and montaged colour negatives shot across different locations, merged and transformed through the act of slicing and splicing […] ‘Constructed Landscapes’ references early Pictorialist processes of combination printing as well as Modernist experiments with film […] the work also engages with contemporary discourses on manipulation, the analogue/digital divide and the effects these have on photography’s status. 

Blog Posts This Week…

  1. Research Altered Landscapes and produce a definition/explain what they are.
  2. Produce a Case Study about your chosen altered landscape photographer, include an analysis of one key image. Explain/show how this has inspired your ideas and process.
  3. Show your images, process, editing, selection, final outcomes and evaluation.

Click this link below for more resources…AS-PHOTOG-LANDSCAPE-guide-V2-JACDOWNLOAD

Remember to follow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :

  1. Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
  2. Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
  3. Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
  4. Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
  5. Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
  6. Image Selection, sub selection (AO2)
  7. Image Editing/ manipulation / experimentation (AO2)
  8. Presentation of final outcomes (AO4)
  9. Compare and contrast your work to your artist reference(AO1)
  10. Evaluation and Critique (AO1+AO4)

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