Since both of the black and white photos and their coloured ones hold very different strengths in what they help emphasise, i am going to pair them up and explore different ways to display them together.
I chose my favourite photo from each technique to show a range of distortion and how different materials distort and alter the background. I feel like these photos stood out from the others due to their clean and crisp materials, to me they were also the most aesthetically pleasing out of the edited handful.
I also feel like these photos share a lot of similarities with my chosen artist, Nick Fancher. However, one large difference between Fancher and I’s work is that Fancher shows no examples of using clingfilm in his photos, I decided to add this material as i thought it would complement the theme of Anthropocene in a broader way than just bubble wrap and oil.
Anthropocene is defined as human activity having a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. I feel like my photos present that as the materials in the foreground are also materials polluting the earth currently. The fact that these materials are in the foreground and not apart of the landscape also puts emphasis on the pollution overpowering the natural and rural landscapes.
This is my favourite comparison out of the 4 for many reasons. I also didn’t use one of my edited photos in an altered landscape style as i thought it wasn’t appropriate as what i want to show was development and change. First, I feel as if this area in the photo is the most developed, meaning more comparisons between the two.
once difference between the photos is the flooring, in the older photo, you can see the road is cobbled whereas now, the road is tarmacked with parking lines painted on. In the left front corner of the old photo, there is no obstructions, in fact the whole road is clear, comparatively in the modern photo, there’s a bin, rafts and cars obstructing the road all the way down.
My work is similar the Rauschenberg’s as we both set out to do our projects with the same intentions of rephotographing locations in older photos we have both previously found prior to the project. However we differ by Rauschenberg studying and recreating all photos previously taken my Eugene Atget. Whilst my photos were found on the Jersey archive page, taken by unknown and potentially different photographers.
Anthropocene is shown in this photo through all the changes. The tarmacked road, cars and rafts that weren’t previously there, but put there by human activity.
To start my choosing process, i chose the photos that had the most similar view point to my reference photos, this was to increase the accuracy of comparing the two time eras. Next, I edited my photos to have the same black and white tones as their partnering photo.
St Catherines Breakwater
Harve De Pas
Liberty Wharf
Gorey Castle
To my surprise, it is clear in most of the comparisons that they are still quite similar to an older era, considering the growing rate of development in Jersey. I like how they turned out, especially considering that due to the development in Jersey, it was difficult to stand in the exact same place as the previous photographers i.e, at Gorey, there is now a shed, meaning i couldn’t get to where the photographer was, so had to stand further forwards, leading the present photo to be closer up.
Experimentation
For my experimentation, I decided to steer off from Rauschenberg’s style of displaying the photos and decided to find a way to merge to two time eras using an altered landscape technique.
Although this is an advanced way to compare the differences, i still feel like the original Rauschenberg display is more efficient as the viewer can see the whole of the two images and not just parts of them.
Once I selected my best images from the various techniques, i used various tabs to edit all the photos, supporting an emphasis on the foreground distortion and creating a clearer contrast.
Experimentation
When looking at the photos on the contact sheet, i was afraid that they didn’t go as planned and be really blurry and practically useless, especially with the bubble wrap ones. However, i feel like i did a good job in editing to bring them out more, which i am very happy with. I think my favorite technique is the oil running down glass. I feel that this looks the most
I chose to keep the photos in colour as i find that in black and white, its harder to see the background and it seems too difficult to make out the message i wanted to send with these photo. i also feel like the coloured photos are better as they create a more eye catching and appealing background. However, the black and white photos have more emphasis on the materials in the foreground, making them look more clear and crisp and therefore more effective when coming to presenting how plastics harm and cover the planet.
Rauschenberg was born in New York in 1951. In 1997 and 1998, he took three trips to Paris and rephotographed 500 of the images made of that city by Eugene Atget between 1890 and 1927 to create the Rephotographing Atget project. Rauschenberg started this project in 1989 when on a trip to Paris, came across a spiral-topped gateway, which he knew was the same gatepost as in one of Atget’s images, leading to a curiosity if any more places may be holding their poses.
ALL PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER RAUSCHENBERG – REPHOTOGRAPHING ATGET.
Image Analysis
These side-by-side photos, taken by Atget in 1905 and Rauschenberg in 1998 clearly demonstrates Anthropocene because of the large amount of differences between the two time periods.
The biggest difference between the two photos is the lack of greenery in Rauschenberg that previously existed in 1905. In the center of 1905, a large tree is found with another not far behind it. However, in 1989, there is a wall and bench seen where the tree used to stand, with what seems like a gravel path in front surrounding the statue. However to the left of these photos, you can see that the greenery, perhaps a row of trees, remain untouched.
From an Anthropocene perspective, other than the statue, i feel like the benefit of this similarity is that it shows that the human mark is there but not quite taking over the whole of all landscapes.
Nick Fancher is a portrait and commercial photographer based out of Columbus, Ohio. His clients include The New York Times, ESPN Magazine and Forbes Japan.He graduated from The Ohio State University with a BFA in fine art photography in 2005. He specializes in a no-frills, run and gun approach to lighting. He began his photography education in high school in 1997. He attended Ft. Hayes High School’s career center for Commercial Photography.
Fancher seems to take an interest to an unusual form of portraiture, this being a wide variety of distorted imagery techniques, using water, oil, plastic bags all incorporated with the model.
Image Analysis
“When Anger Turns to Honey”
This photograph depicts a coloured portrait recently taken by Fancher. The overall feeling from this photo is that the meaning behind it is quite dark and sinister, this can be supported by that dark tones created by low levels of lighting complemented by the dark clothing the model wears. The artificial lighting used is extremely beneficial to the overall mood as Fancher used the manipulation of light intensity to his advantage.
From the title, we can presume that Fancher used honey running down glass to create the dripping, distorted effect. I reckon that he used honey as it has a high viscosity, meaning it isn’t so runny, giving Fancher more time to set the camera up and get it in focus. Looking at it from an anthropocentric view, the honey could resemble oil and the distortion it is bringing to the ocean and sea life.
As the photo has a short field of view, there is a big focus on the model in the center. The way that the tone is so dark contrasts against the models paler face, drawing the viewer attention to the face, where the honey is found in it’s main movement of running in a downwards direction in the foreground.
Contextually, The model in the photo is Chelsea Wolfe, who Fancher was a fan of and has now been in collaboration with her since 2013. This photo was inspired by Wolfe’s song, ‘ When anger turns to honey’ as it complemented his Strata honey explorations. Taken through pexiglass and honey and using only one light. On his blog, Fancher states that his ‘favorite thing about honey is how it refracts light.’
Photo shoot 1- for my first photo shoot, I will elaborate on my distorted image idea, using cling film, bubble wrap and oil to create distortion. I will use these materials as they are all transparent so the background will be clearer, making the distortion more effective. My artist study will be Nick Fancher as he displays an array of images, using both the oil and bubble wrap technique.
Photoshoot 2 – in my second photoshoot, I will develop the approach of comparing the same locations around jersey from now to over 50 years ago, using photos from Jersey’s photo archives. A perfect example of how I want to approach the idea is the rephotographing Atget project done by Christopher Rauschenberg.
The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans. The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period either after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period.
We have reached an unprecedented moment in planetary history. Humans now affect the Earth and its processes more than all other natural forces combined. The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.
New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscapes. The photographers associated with new topographics were inspired by the man-made surroundings, selecting subject matter that was all around. The collection includes photos from car parks, suburban housing and warehouses. These photos risen in response to the new postwar extensions.
Lewis Baltz
Lewis Baltz documents the changing American landscape of the 1970s in his series, “New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California.” The project’s 51 pictures depict structural details, walls at mid-distance, offices, and car parks of industrial parks. Contrast and geometry are important in these pictures, but what marks them as uniform is Baltz’s attention to surface texture and lifeless subject matter. Often displayed in a grid format, it is important to Baltz that his pictures be seen collectively as a group or series. The series format suits his desire that no one image be taken as more true or significant than another, encouraging the viewer to consider not just the pictures but everything outside of the frame as well, emphasizing the monotony of the man-made environment. The pictures themselves resist any single point of focus, framed as they are to present the scene as a whole without bringing attention to any particular element within.
Lewis Baltz was born in Newport Beach, California in 1945. He holds a BFA from San Francisco Art institute (1969) and an MFA from Claremont Graduate School (1971). Baltz was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1973 and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1977. He has exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work is in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago.
All photos by Lewis Baltz
image analysis
Lewis Baltz: In the Desert | Nevada Museum of Art
This photograph ‘In the Desert’ by Lewis Baltz, is apart of a collection of photos consisting of black-and-white photographs that Baltz took of construction sites and abandoned areas in the northern Nevada desert region between 1977 and 1986. This black and white photo perfectly demonstrates the growth and development of landscapes shifting from nature having control of the plain to man made objects being planted onto those plains.
At first look, the contrast between the dark cables and the light desert ground is very intense. This helps emphasise the cables in the foreground, showing the viewer that the change happening in America is inevitable. However, after looking for longer, i see more industrialised objects in the background. Perhaps trucks or shacks. These blurred objects secretly support the new topographics as its showing the viewer that there are changes happening all around, not just the work that the cables imply.
The natural lighting causes little to no shadows cast over the image, this makes the background more solid, helping emphasise the contrast between the ground and the grass.
