Jamie Torrance photo shoot
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Jamie Torrance
Jamie Torrance is a professional photographer who has developed commercial and personal projects for clients on both sides of the Atlantic. I did a short interview with Jamie Torrance to ask him why he took the photos of singular trees in response to Anthropocene.
In response he explained how he was influenced by the photographer Edward Burtynsky who is a landscape photographer who focuses on the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. As Torrance went to the same university as Burtynsky, he felt that he wanted to carry on his legacy of Anthropocene photography. He decided to take photos of trees as he believed that big projects can be lost in translation and that by the time you understand the image it wouldn’t be as effective towards daily life.
Jamie Torrance did a project of 12 images where he would find trees and what impact has happened around them such as the shed that was built up next to the tree showing the relationship between humans and nature. The trees that he chose which were bare as he wanted them to have a dead skeleton look which was helpful as in Canada the winters are long so the trees don’t grow leave until later. As trees grow their leaves back he wanted people to think “If we leave this alone, it will grow back” which is a good way of thinking of Anthropocene as if we just leave the planet alone and stop polluting it with plastic and gases then it will come back the way it is supposed to be.
Image Analysis
The photographer used a wide lens as with the tree image with the bench it had other trees next to it but the wide lens pushed it further away cropping out the other trees. The photographer must have used a high shutter speed as the image has lots of sun light coming in but not too much that image is overpowered by the brightness.
The view point of this image can be seen as an average height of a man, with the leading eye to the centre of the image at the front where the tree is then leading up to the tree in the centre of the image. Even with the grass texture in the centre going in towards the tree with the smooth road either side of the tree leading into the centre.
This image was taken in Toronto in between two roads that wanted to cut down the yet locals protested to keep it as the tree is very old and means a lot to them. So they had to build the road around the tree. But what is ironic is that the ministry of transports is opposite the tree which adds comedy to this simple image of a tree and yet has a story behind it.
Photo Shoot Plan
Javier Hirschfeld photo shoot
Evaluation
With the two images they both show that at least one of the people have been changed into being a photo of nature where they both show a path leading through a forest area give the idea that this is the path we should take to save our planet. In the photo underneath show a woman’s face which gives more connection between the photo and the audience which helps influence change especially that she is interacting with the nature. Whereas with the other photo there is no close interaction and you can’t see the face of any which then puts a barrier between the audience and photo. The use of hands in the photo helps emphasis that physical connection between the two people whereas the other photo just shows two people standing next to each other which lacks connection between the two.
The effective contrast between natural lighting and staged lighting as it emphasises the change and difference between the two as the eye is drawn towards the nature photo then is drawn out to see the two people standing together. If I was to do this project again I would get the two people to hug and show a connection between the two such as mother and daughter, father and son to then really emphasis the care between the person and nature. I would also make sure that one of the faces is seen so the audience can feel a connection between the two people.
Javier Hirschfeld
Javier Hirschfeld creates his work based on the history of art and the classic concept of the pursuit of beauty, giving his work a contemporary pointy of view. The basic construction of his work was focused on the memory of art history, on the pursuit of beauty, seeking the cathartic capacity of classic icons.
Other photographers such as Caravaggio, Zurbarán, are among others the referents who build their aesthetics through photography. In Hirschfeld’s work, there are references that can be easily recognised the established connection between contemporary and classic photography.
On the other hand, looking at Africa, in his recent works we can glimpse his interest in the African studio portrait and the reference to artists such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé or Samuel Fosso.
Image Analyse
The lighting comes from two directions as with the black and white photo the lighting is artificial and coming from the top left where as the layered image with the green leaves has natural sun light coming from the top right corner. With the medium set shutter speed as if it was too slow then the image would be over exposed.
The light green colour contrasts the black toned portrait of the couple. The rough texture of the tree contrasts the smoothness from the suit and plain background. With the pattern of the suit having a lined pattern shows another contrast of how the leaves are different and don’t show a constant pattern throughout.
I find that the image shows how nature is a family/ friend so we must care for them and look after them. Which I find has been showed in an effective way as it is a simple yet it explains its idea without being too noisy or overcrowding the image with too much nature or too much human impact. It shows us as equal, nothing more, nothing less.
Photo Shoot Plan
Andy Hughes photo shoot
Evaluation
In comparison both images give a direct message of littering and how it is unacceptable. I find that my image is successful in the way that is shows the message but is unsuccessful in other ways that the original image portrays. Such as in the image with the red lighter it shows the sand in a cooler colour to then brighten out the main object in the image. Whereas in the other image the sand is a lighter more saturated colour so the background stands out too with the foreground. In the two photos the use of bright colour lighters influences the outcome and is bold showing up against the sand adding more attraction towards the image.
With the eye view of the photos are similar on how they are an ant eyes view but with the blue lighter it has a higher view point compared to the red lighter as it shows the sunset behind. With the blue lighter you can see that it has a stronger background where you can clearly see the sand and grass behind whereas with the other photo the light is covered by the lighter and that all eyes are drawn to the lighter instead of the background with the sand as the tones of the sand are very dull.
Andy Hughes
Hughes spent almost 30 years making images along various coastlines until the late 1980s when he started photographing various items of trash along the intertidal zone. As a young art student, Hughes recalls seeing the exhibition Rubbish and Recollections, by Keith Arnett, co-organised by a renascent Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno and the Photographers’ Gallery, London which the content inspired him and with his experiences of living and surfing in south Wales helped influence the inspiration. Between 1999 and 2006 the photos of the plastic waste being washed up by the waves where he surfed became so constant and time consuming of his work that this project was published in the book ‘Dominant Wave Theory’.
“Whilst Hughes’ images of plastic depicted in heroic scale may give us some concern about waste material and its impact upon a sensitive maritime environment, there is another side to these intelligent images. Hughes presents us with not only an ecological message but a knowing heady rush through artistic strategies using the power of photography’s saturated colour to highlight, frame, and play with scale, in an irreverent awareness of art historical practices”.
Andy Hughes work focuses on the littoral zone and the politics of plastic waste. His photography is focused with the idea of ‘thing-ness’ of plastic, watery worlds and coastal habitats. He has been recently venturing out into gamification (game design), ruinology (the stuidy into reconstructing ruins) and poetry. Which internally gets him to proceed in philosophy, literature, art and film, including archival film, as well as interfacing with scientific research. With the interest in radical conceptions of materialism and the impact this has for politics, ecology and the everyday way we think of others, the world, and ourselves.
In 2013 Andy Hughes was invited to be one of the three artists to join the worlds first project to explore the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic pollution in the marine and coastal environment.
“This image rejects any attempt at trying to illicit the ‘perfect moment’, all notions of the ‘special moment’ at sunset are reversed. The upturned cigarette lighter acts as a kind of inverse black monolith. The monolith from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that explores elements of human evolution and technology. The setting sun is precisely centred, cascading the light rays through a scratched and distorted plastic surface, plastic becomes distressed, bruised and scared like human skin.”
Image Analysis
The light is a natural sunlight coming from the centre, straight above the object, casting a directly underneath shadow. The image has very little control due to natural lighting, lack of positioning control and natural landscape. With the aperture the focus point is the paper bag with a sharp focus. The shutter speed has an under exposure time as if the image was over exposed then the image would be a bright white image due to the bright sun.
In the image there can be seen some saturated colours such as the blue sky, yellow sand and brown paper bag. As the paper bag is crumpled up the image appears to have more texture due to the creases and with the sand it has a rough surface due to people walking and the sea creating an uneven surface adding extra texture to the image. the bright lines of the sun at the top of the image leads the eye to the centre of the image, the bag.
This photo was taken at Muscle Beach, Los Angeles, 2004. This was a way to capture human behaviour at it’s worst point with little to not change on how it looks but just presented as a way of advertising that this ins’t okay with the disrespect of nature around us. We should care for our planet instead of trying to ruin it and mistreat its beauty.
Photo Shoot Plan
Mind Map of Ideas
With this project I want to influence the idea that we need to change our bad habits. In this project I will be using photographers who have influenced me by their Anthropocene photography in help to make people aware that we need to change and that we need to save what is lost.
What is Anthropocene?
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek words ‘anthropo’ meaning human and ‘cene’ meaning recent.
What is Anthropocene?
Our species, Homo sapiens has been widely accepted that we have had such a significant impact on Earth and its inhabitants that we will have a lasting and potentially irreversible influence on its systems, environment, processes and biodiversity. Humans have only been on the Earth for 200,000 years of this 4.5 billion year old planet and yet we have altered the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet that we and all other organisms depend on.
The human race has effected the planet dramatically with carbon dioxide emissions, global warming, ocean acidification, habitat destruction, extinction and widescale natural resource extraction. In the past 60 years the rate and scale of human impacts has reached a scale never done before also know as the Great Acceleration. Not everyone agrees that these changes represent enough evidence to declare a new formal geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Scientists all over the world are still debating.
Warning Signs
The climate of planet Earth is no longer stable and is beginning to heat up rapidly. Scientists now agree that human activity, rather than any natural progress, is the primary cause of the accelerated global warming. Some examples such as agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution are reasons why the planet has been showing signs of global warming.
There has been a disagreement over whether humans will have a lasting and meaningful impact on the chemical composition of the rocks and fossils beneath our feet. This is what needs to be proven to declare a new epoch. As humans have been around for such a short period of time that it’s too soon to tell whether our impact will be visible in the fossil record millions of years from now.
They are still debating the proof for the Anthropocene and are looking for what’s known as a ‘golden spike’ – a marker in the fossil record which could demarcate the Holocene from the Anthropocene.
Industrial Revolution
There are some suggestions that the Anthropocene began at the start of Britain’s Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, which created the world’s first fossil fuel economy. With he burning of organic carbon in fossil fuels enable large-scale production and drove the growth of mines, factories and mills. Ever since then, other countries have been following with the increased demand in coal, with the increase of carbon dioxide emission.
Others argue that the Anthropocene began far earlier, when humans began farming. There are even more suggestions that it started in 1950, when nuclear weapons cast radioactive elements across the globe. From the nuclear bombs there were radioactive debris that made its way into rocks, trees and the atmosphere. This may represent the golden spike that scientists are looking for but there are no set conclusions.
Plastic Pollution
Plastic could become a key marker of the Anthropocene as millions of tons of plastic is produced every year which is then washed up onto the beaches but plastic isn’t biodegradable so it ends up littering soils and ocean beds. There was a 2019 study of sediments off the Californian coast found that plastic waste has be rising since the 1940s. The study of scientists are trying to find out whether plastic pollution could be another marker for the golden strike.
THE NEW TOPOGRAPHICS Photoshoot in School
The New Topographics are photographs of a man-altered landscape with the exhibition which includes the work of 10 photographers from the original show: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel. Inspired by The New Topographics my class decided to walk around the school and highlands college taking photos of the buildings and urban influenced building structures.
Task 4 ~ Isolation Photoshoot
Lewis Baltz
Editing process
First I used the spot healing tool to delete the two signs above the door and next to it so image would be focused more on the whit and blue colour block. I then used the clone stamp tool to cover up the messy spots that were made when deleting the signs.
To made the image similar to Lewis Baltz I decided to change the image to black and white. then to finish odd I changed the canvas size to 40 inches by 50 inches.
