Camilo Jose Vergara is a Chilean Photographer based in New York City.
He trained as a sociologist with a specialty in urbanism and this is exactly what his photography emulates. He focuses on ‘rephotography’ in series with urbanisation and the Anthropocene. This means he shot the same buildings over a span of time to document change. This is a method of documenting urbanisation and how man is constantly tweaking the environment around them.
I am most interested in his work where he captures the essence of nature fighting back against urbanisation. He shoots these abandoned, derelict buildings in the fashion of rephotography to document an argument between nature and man. This can be seen through the houses slowly degrading and the earth and plants growing around them. This captures the power of nature and its ambition to flourish juxtaposing to mans greediness and carelessness of leaving ruins to rot in, what was, a beautiful natural climate. Below is an image of the Ransom Gillis House where Camilo has captured this argument and the power of nature.
I believe the way Camilo captures these buildings is an impactful way of looking a Anthropocene. It captures humanities carelessness and the determination of nature in an impactful manner by giving it an aesthetic. The aesthetic being the series of photos where the perspective is exactly them same but there is noticeable change in the environment in every photo. This forces the thought to be made about how quickly our environment changes.
The above image is of the former Camden Library which became abandoned. There are trees growing in the former reading room of the library. Camilo framed these trees in the centre of the image with the library collapsing around them. This creates a stadium around the trees which creates tension and supports the idea of natures determination to grown through humans destruction.
Camilo used natural lighting which is coming through as streaks through the destroyed ceiling. This creates a holy like spotlight on the trees which could imply the idea of the glimpse of hope that nature holds.
The image contains high saturation on the foreground which makes the trees pop with colour but a low saturation and high contrast on the background which creates a gloomy look on the destroyed building, enforcing the juxtaposition between nature and man.
To start off this Anthropocene project I originally believed that with the Landscape objective I took I was going to be photographing things such as cliff paths and more nature based things due to choosing George Marazkis as one of my chosen photographers to do a case study on, however after researching different photographers I found Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre and really liked their images and take on Anthropocene. After looking into their projects I decided to take inspiration from them and take images of vacant buildings. Doing this project in their style proved to be more difficult than I originally anticipated, as they travelled around the whole of America which has approximately 19 million vacant homes and buildings while Jersey’s statistics are significantly lower with only 1397 vacant homes and buildings; most of which are boarded up or still in there original state and just temporarily empty rather than abandoned and decaying like the buildings in Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s projects like ‘The Ruins of Detroit’ which is mainly large abandoned theatres and such. My original intentions with this project were to take images of St. Saviour’s hospital as it is one of the largest if not the largest abandoned buildings on the island. However when I got to the hospital to take pictures the whole building was boarded up so I had to change my plan. I then researched vacant buildings in Jersey and came across The Waters Edge Hotel in Bouley Bay which first closed for guests in 2008 but continued to run the bar and poolside restaurant up until 2015. When I arrived at the hotel it wasn’t boarded up and the doors were unlocked and most windows were open. The hotel has 50 bedrooms however I only took images of the first and second floor as most of the stairs and floors were decaying and unsafe. I believe this photoshoot was one of the most successful parts of this project. Another photoshoot that I believed went well and produced successful images is the one at La Collette recycling centre where they have towers of rusted fridges and freezers. Although the photoshoot at the hotel went well and produced some successful images I do think that because most images are of plain abandoned rooms they are difficult to use to develop and experiment with on photoshop.
George Marazakis is a Greek photographer who has made a significant contribution to the visual enlightenment related to the Anthropocene with his photographic series, “A Cure for Anthropocene”
His work encapsulates the degradation of the environment in a subtle manner rather than a brash, “in your face” approach. His method does not concentrate on shooting the obvious, mainstream aesthetic themes such as animals entangled in plastics and inept images of geological agony that the media force feed society as a way of sort of ‘guilt-tripping’. Instead George shoots natural landscapes where subtle gestures of man’s ramifications can be seen. He seems to weave the elements of industrialism and climate change into his the landscapes rather than making them the vocal point. I feel this is a far superior way of creating awareness to the issue. It focuses on giving a neutral aesthetic to the Anthropocene. This forces the comparison process of making contrasts between the peaceful natural utopia and the traumatic dystopia that humans are inflicting on the planet. This forces audiences to use their cognition which leads to them caring about the issue more.
Another distinct element to his photography is the warm, hazy, monotone hue his images have. It almost implies the idea of the earth heating up and global warming. It also creates a slight sense of panic almost like a fire has started and orangey smoke is pouring out of his images. It develops an apocalyptic aesthetic for Anthropocene.
This subtle approach of integrating slight man made interruptions into his landscapes came about as George began to think of the Anthropocene as a disease. “While I was photographing the landscapes affected by human interactions in the middle of natural spaces, the topography started looking like a body to me – like something with the early stages of psoriasis on its skin,” he explains. “If humans are a product of nature, then we can say that we are a disease attacking our own organism, just like an immune system can attack its own body – like autoimmune diseases.” His work takes this idea of disease and spins it around to create a sense of hope by reinforcing the idea that diseases can be cured, this is imbedded in the name of his project ‘A CURE for Anthropocene’
The above image features a natural landscape with a juxtaposition of a subtle hint to mans presence in the foreground with the carved out paths almost like scars on the earth.
George uses natural lighting and he creates a narrow image in terms of colour and contrast in the foreground while romanticising the background with higher contrast and tonal depth. This creates an almost boring foreground which insinuates the mundane and banal nature of man’s degradation on the earth while contrasting this with the dramatic powerful nature of the sublime in the background.
The image is also framed very symmetrically with the paths in the foreground forming an ‘X’ which creates a satisfying aesthetic.
For this idea I decided to take the two images below and put them together somehow. I decided on using the polygonal lasso tool to cut out the large silver item in this image and placed the image with the lamp behind.
For my next idea I decided to make it more simple and just change this image to black and white to replicate an image in my one of my blog posts by an unknown photographer.
With these ideas I used the same images for both but changed the opacity of the images and switched them around.
For this idea I took an image of a broken mirror and used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out sections of it. I then added a picture of fridges behind it.
I have chosen to explore the concept of Anthropocene through the genre of landscape photography. I plan to react to ideas of nature being transformed through industry and venture into ideas of altered landscapes through my images. I will do this by shooting landscapes in a wider and vast perspective, of which supplies a view of the full picture. This allows a juxtaposition to be made between the natural environment and what man has interrupted it with.
I also plan to express the conflict between urbanisation and the environment by shooting derelict buildings and portraying nature fighting back against man. I plan to incorporate some abstract methods of photographing these buildings, with a more zoomed in perspective.
Below is some inspiration for my Anthropocene project:
For this photoshoot I took a lot of inspiration from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. A key similarity within these images are that they are both taken horizontally, they also are both mostly empty rooms. Another similarity between these images is that they are both very tonal dull images with the only colour being the tarpaulin on the floor in my image. Both images are taken in natural lighting which can be seen coming through the windows in both images. The interior of the buildings in both images are also very clearly abandoned as an extreme amount of ceiling tiles have fell out of the ceiling in the first image and the ceiling is decaying and dripping water in the image that I took. A difference with these images is that the first image has been taken straight on of a rectangular room and my image is taken at an angle of a more geometric room. In the first image the room is also less bright as it is a bigger room with smaller windows. In my image the room is well lit and bright as the whole unseen wall is full of large windows. In both images there are abandoned items, as seen in the bottom right corner of the first image and the left side of my image. I believe that with the inspiration I got from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre I took a lot of images that well represent Anthropocene.
Since I’ve finished my main piece, this is the secondary topic I’m focusing on.
LINKS TO ANTHROPOCENE
There are 2 ways to think how the galaxy and space relates to anthropocene :
The first way to think about it is that air pollution (as well as light pollution) is low in Jersey, so we are able to see the stars at night, compared to somewhere like China, where the sky is filled with smog clouds. So humans are polluting the air, which stared in 1760-1840 when the industry revolution happened, and has just kept increasing.
The second way is more dramatic and extreme, but in space the magnetic field surrounds Earth, which acts as a shield around the planet. The magnetic field is generated by electric currents due to the motion of convection currents of a mixture of molten iron and nickel in the Earth’s outer core, these convection currents are caused by heat escaping from the core, a natural process called a geodynamo. If we disrupt the process by causing global warming, and increasing global temperatures, then the magnetic field will break and crack, causing the Earth to be in danger to solar storms caused by the Sun.
First I selected my favourite images from both La Braye and Faulkner Fisheries photo shoots.
The top 2 are from the La Braye photo shoot, where as the bottom 2 are from the Faulkner Fisheries photo shoot.
Faulkner Fisheries image : ISO 200, f/3.5, 21 second shutter speed
Galaxy with lights : ISO 1600, f/3.5, 30 second shutter speed
Galaxy La Rocco Tower : ISO 6400, f/3.5, 25 second shutter speed
I took these into Photoshop, the top 2 I edited normally using the camera-raw filter, where as the bottom 2 I merged together, as 1 photo the building was light up and had a better sky, and the second photo had better foreground lights.
These were the edits I did for the Faulkner Fisheries, these are the screenshots in the camera raw filter. the top 2 were extremely similar adjustments.
The clarity/noise/texture really brought out the patterns in the constellations.
FINAL IMAGES
After editing the images in Photoshop, this is how they turned out :
Overall, all the images display star constellations, the first 2 were taken at the same time in the same place, where as the Faulkner Fisheries on was taken at around 10PM about a week later. Which is why they have different constellations. Although, I do like the constellations which you can see in the first images I took.
The foreground with the long exposure of the lights creates a contrast in colour with the dark night sky in the background. The tower in the middle image is a silhouette among the stars, which is a different approach but I still like it.
All 3 use the rule of thirds, as that technique helps focus on sky, or part of the image that fills up 2/3rds of the image.
Overall, my favourite part of all the images, is that you can actually see the constellations, and their patterns.
CRITIQUE
These images are not perfect, they can be so much better if I have better equipment. A crystal clear wide angle lens would produce a better image. A star tracking mount would work as well, and make it more clear.
DISPLAY
In Photoshop I edited my images into an empty art gallery, then added bevel and emboss and, drop shadow.
IN THE STYLE OF DILLON SAW
Saw uses image manipulation in his work, and oftenly space and galaxies are reoccurring themes. So I decided to make a piece in his style and inspired by him.
This is the work which inspired me to create my own. As you can see he makes the Moon a big part in his images.
PROCESS
I chose 3 images to use, then brought them into Photoshop and made a final piece on this topic.
These are the 3 raw images which I’m going to edit. I took a screenshot each time I did a substantial change.
First, I stared off by layering the 2 images over each other, then I removed the sky from the White House image. After I colour matched them using a colour balance adjustment layer, and increasing the purples and blues. Afterwards, I added in the Moon after removing its background. Continually, I used a layer mask to remove a part from the Moon to make it a crescent, as I felt that the pointed edges would contrast the other shapes in the images. Then I added glow behind the Moon. The finally added a camera raw filter using the setting below.
FINAL IMAGE
Overall, It turned out well. It has a nice flow to it, and all the colours match. It was very simple, but clean, which is why it has worked quite great.
I tried to keep it dark despite the foreground image being taken in the daytime, which actually kind of helped as it looks like the Moon has lit up the sky alongside the building.
The composition is decent, to an extent where the Moon isn’t dominating the sky, and the White House isn’t too big. It creates a contrast with the straight lines on the building compared to the moons curved edges and pointed lines. The Moons pointed, sharp edges could be a “threat in the sky” to puncture the Earths magnetic shield, and put everyone at risk.
The clear star constellations represent the clean air which allows us to see the stars shining at night, and can be shown as a warning to people if air pollution isn’t controlled, we’ll lose this incredible natural view.
CRITIQUE
If I could change on thing it would be the Moon. I would make it smaller, as it would make it more realistic, as in real life the moon isn’t that big when viewed from Earth.
EDITED VS RAW
The right image is my final image from Photoshop, compared to the left which is the raw images in the same layout as the final piece, with no adjustment layers or effects.
DISPLAY
I used an empty gallery and edited my image into it. I warped it to the angled wall, then added bevel/emboss and, shadow drop. This really helped me present my work. It being against plain walls has brought out the small details.
MY IMAGE VS SAW’S
Both are based along the same subject and concept. I like how Saw has used a mix of colours in his background, compared to my image which is a bit dull. Although, my image includes stars which helps identify its night time.
Saw’s use of the tree is really impactful in regards to nature and purity. Although, I feel that it is unbalance, and is only including nature. This is where my work thrives in displaying a balance of man-made buildings and natural planets and stars. This draws ties to humans, which is the main problem to all of the climate change going on around the world right now, that relates back to the idea of anthropocene.
Overall, I like my image more, despite being less colourful, as I feel that it relates to the topic more, and the goal that I set at the beginning, which was to create a piece which involved the White House with the moon above it, that symbolises anthropocene through space.
My aim is to create a piece in Photoshop in the style of Dillon Saw (the first artist/photographer I studied) an altered landscape/image manipulation, but with Sebnem Coskun’s (2nd photographer) content, which is the plastic pollution in the ocean and ocean pollution.
I envision a boat with buoys on, in the center of the ocean that has lots of rubbish and bottles floating around in the sea. You would be able to see under water and above the water.
THE PROCESS
Image selection
Making the image (showing the development)
Presenting the image
IMAGE SELECTION
Firstly, I decided to chose images that I plan to use from the Bouley Bay photo shoot and the St Brelades photo shoot. These photos would be the ones that I used to make the final image in Photoshop.
These are the photos I chose to use from the St Brelades photo shoot. The water is for the main top of the water, the seaweed I plan to have floating underwater. And the rock would be underwater on the sea floor, or maybe poke above the surface (if there is enough space).
These are the photos I plan to use from the Bouley Bay photo shoot. The headland/coast will be the background. The rocks would be underwater and the seabed. All the fishing nets, rubbish and fishing equipment will be floating in the sea. The red boat will be in the center.
The underwater picture. I checked with Mr Cole, if I was allowed to use it. It is a picture I took in an aquarium then in photo shopped everything out and only kept the underwater perspective. I will change the saturation and hue later.
Before
After
Screen grab from Photoshop
MAKING THE IMAGE
Firstly, I made a new document in a good portrait dimension, I chose portrait as I would like the viewer to concentrate on the main focus, the rubbish and pollution. Then I added the underwater image, and positioned it to fill up a bit more then half of the screen.
I changed the hue and saturation to match the next image. I also added some shadow to the top of the image to make it a little darker, On top of the brightness and contrast adjustment layer, where I made it darker and increased the contrast.
After, I added the photo of the sea from the St Brelades photo shoot, however, the sunset colours didn’t really match the whole ascetic, so instead I used the image from the Bouley Bay photo shoot, which was better. I positioned it above the underwater picture, then I made only the vertical part of the image “squished” to match the perspective I was going for.
At that point, I added a layer mask of get rid of the sky and background, using the black gradient tool. After, I changed the brightness and contrast, and hue and saturation, to match the two images together. I made the top of the sea brighter as the sun would be lighting it up. Then a added a small amount of motion blur at a 0-2 degree angle, to make it a bit smoother.
Next, I deiced to add a background, which was from the Bouley Bay photo shoot, and was the image of the headland/coastline. I put that layer to the back so everything was on top of it. I aligned it so that the water I edited was on top of the water in the background photo, which kept the perspective.
Additionally, later I will edit out the dirt on my camera; as you can see in the sky, using the spot healing brush. Then I increased the saturation of the background, to make it stand out more.
There was something off, it felt like the transition from above to below the water was to sharp. So I made a waterline from a zoomed in image of the sea I took, then used the eraser tool to make a “wave” effect. Then dragged it on to my main image, and put it on top of where the change is.
When I put it on my main image it was very blue, so I applied extremely similar adjustment layers to the water line, then added shadows and highlights to blend it into my image. I also used the eraser at 50% hardness and 15% flow, to fade the top of the water into the waterline. Furthermore, To create a sense of depth and distance, I added Gaussian blur to the waterline, to make it look like it was closer.
Following, I made some small adjustments, moved the underwater part up so that you couldn’t see the top of the water. This helped match the perspective. Afterwards, I made the edges of the underwater section darker, this made it more realistic, and created a sense of darkness, which can represent evilness. This is where ill be putting the rubbish, so it makes sense that it has a negative atmosphere, as it is a world wide problem.
Then, I added the boat in, first I had to remove the background. Which I used the eraser and magic wand tool. I temporarily made the background black to see if i missed any parts.
After I made the windows a separate part from the boat so I could change their opacity and add a reflection of the sky.
When I removed the background the trailer was covering the boat, so I used the clone stamp tool to manually fix the haul of the boat.
I added the boat into scene, I put the boat and windows on the top layers, and the duplicated only the boat and put it above the underwater picture, to get the blue underwater effect, I changed the blend mode to soft light, then after I erased the bottom of the boat (top layer) to let you see the layer underneath, to give the effect of it floating in the water.
I added adjustment layers to match the boats colour with the scenery. Additionally, I added shadows to the bottom of the boat, and highlights to the top.
After, I added a reflection on to the water of the boat, this would make it more realistic.
I added the reflection to the top water layer and waterline, I set the opacity to 15% on each so that it wasn’t a solid.
I used Filter > Liquefy to make the reflection more realistic.
I distorted the reflection using a brush with 38% pressure and 50 size, and dragging the cursor over the reflection.
I use a photo of the rocks at low tide from the Bouley Bay photo shoot, to create a seabed in the bootom of the image.
I used a layer mask and a black gradient, to fade the rocks into the water above it. Then applied some adjustments to decrease saturation and increase contrast.
I decided to add buoys to the boat, to add details, I added shadows and highlights to the buoy, then after I added a reflection in the water from the buoy.
Then used the same technique when I distorted the boats reflection, to the buoy and will keep the reflections consistent, to match the astatic.
The second buoy before and after photos, I used a different buoy, but the same techniques to add shadows and highlights.
Finally, I finished the last buoy. Then moved on to the rubbish in the water.
I started to add the rubbish into the water. I started remove all the backgrounds of the images from the rubbish photo shoot, I did this in Photoshop. First, I opened the image in Photoshop, then used Select > Subject, then duplicated the selected selection (the object), then deleted the original image.
One by one, I added each into my final image, after I used all of them I duplicated them, and merged selected layers, the flipped them horizontally to fill the other side.
After, they were arranged, I added a hue & saturation layer, to decease saturation, to give it the old, dull, washed out look.
I then needed to add the fishing equipment to the seabed, which was left behind by fishermen.
I removed the background of the net, then dragged it into the scene. I positioned it behind the rock, then used a layer mask to remove the parts that were over the rock,so it looked like it was behind the rocks. Then I added hue and saturation to decrease saturation, and the brightness and contrast to make it darker as I took the photo in daylight which is a dramatic difference to at the bottom of the sea, where there is no light.
I did the same with a tire in the center underwater.
I didn’t like this as it felt to organised. So instead, I deleted it and made and anchor coming off the boat. I used the rope from the Bouley Bay photo shot, when boat was hanging in the air. And the old anchor from the same shoot.
This was all the edits I planed, so finally, I added a Camera-Raw Filter to fine tune some of the settings and adjustments. I changed almost all the settings, these were the adjustments I made:
FINAL IMAGE– ANALYSE / EVALUTION
This is my final piece, it represents plastic pollution, which was inspired by Sebnem Coskun, using the style of Dillon Saw, and his altered landscapes/image manipulation. Overall, this is exactly what I said I was going to do from the start.
Overall, I think it turned out well! I like how it worked, and demonstrates how, we cannot see the whole plastic problem from the surface, and how we have to look at it from a different angle to see how bad it is.
This being the main piece, which I made in Photoshop. It demonstrates my editing and Photoshop skills, whilst still showing my actual photography and camera skills, as I had to envision the angles and light at which I was taking the photo. This shows how I stuck to my original idea.
I have considered how weight factors in. The bigger items such as crab nets sank, and the light plastic items floated, although some were being held underwater as there was no room the reach the surface, due to the amount of plastic in the sea.
The composition is a strength, and is good as most of the image is taken up by the underwater part, which is the main part of the image. And it holds the message that I want to get across, which is, “ocean pollution is a huge world wide problem.” I chose to do it portrait as, if I did it in landscape there would be empty space.
There is a heavy contrast in colour between the two “worlds”. The underwater section is more green, which signifies freshness and materialism, which juxtaposes the waste in the water, that varies in material, due to the type of rubbish. The sky is a nice, colorful, and vibrant blue, which is the main type of contrast in this image, other than clean vs dirty.
CRITIQUE
There are 2 things I don’t like about the image I made. Firstly, how blue the underwater part is, I would of liked it to be more green, but this is not a big deal. And secondly, I don’t like how the plastic didn’t really overlap. When I tried to overlap them some pieces got lost and turned invisible. Also, I would of moved them up to the surface more, although, I wanted to show that the boat was floating, without covering the bottom of the boat with plastic.
DISPLAY
I got an image of an empty gallery on Google, the brought it into Photoshop and put my image onto the wall. I resized it and added bevel and emboss and a drop shadow at 90 degrees. This added a 3D depth to it, therefore it looked more realistic.
On the left is my final image, on the right is that same image without and adjustment layers, shadows, and highlights. This shows how much editing I’ve done, and all the 300-400 layers there that made this piece look much better.
MY IMAGE VS COSKUN
My image is on the right, Coskuns photo is on the left.
Starting off with a Venn diagram, to visualise the similarities and differences.
As you can see both take on the same concept, which is plastic pollution and the view from underwater.
Coskun’s work being and actual photo, and mine being a digital art piece which implements photography. They shares some similarities, Coskun’s has more depth, this is because she took it deeper underwater, where as mine in the perspective from between the surface and underwater.
Overall, Coskun’s image has more of an impact, just because it is an actual photograph, so when people look at it they realise that, this is actually happening and is a real thing. On the other hand, my piece is fictional, despite being modelled and based of real references. But people know its not reality. Its more of a concept of reality, using conceptual realism. However, both imply the same message about ocean plastic pollution, and how it is a real thing.
The meaning of anthropocene is a geological point of view in which humans have started to impact the earth’s ecosystems or even climate change that has occurred within the past years. Therefore, this word fits perfectly into photography as photographers take pictures which can be documented to show the change’s in the ecosystem on the earth in order to show the rest of the world the downfall in the ecosystems and climates changes on our planet.
Ideas (mood-board/ images)
Anthropocene
Landscapes
places that have construction undergoing or getting pictures of cranes on site.
forests that appears to be damaged which could be done by being abstract.
Places in which there are industrial buildings that cause damage to the environment through pollution.
Portraits
Someone wearing a bin as a outfit or plastics in general.
Using plastics as accessories on the model.
After a simple portrait being taken of a model, I could edit some landscapes onto them.
Altered Landscapes
Picture of king street with the pavements being sand once edited.
Picture of some flats then editing them onto a sand dune.
Taking a picture of a forest changing the bright colours into colours that represent negative emotion.
Case Study
The two photographers that I feel explore anthropocene through the genre of photography that I will be choosing is Camilo Jose Vergara and Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Down below will be images of the photographers mentioned.
Camilo Jose Vergara Case Study
Camilo Jose Vergara was born in 1944 Santiago, Chile who was a New York based writer, photographer and documentarian.Vergara has been compared to Jacob Rills for his photographic documentation of American slums and decaying urban environments. Vergara applied the technique of rephotographing in a series of American cities, taking pictures of the same neighbourhoods from the exact same point at regular intervals over many years in order to show changes of the neighbourhoods over time. He was a sociologist with a speciality of urbanism, Vergara used this to his advantage to show the public eye the social decay happening across the world.
As you can see from the images above that Vergara has taken, there are a series of neighbourhoods that have decayed over time. This goes to show that he was a great sociologist in urbanism as you can see from the landscapes that the images of the buildings he had taken, decayed over time in the fact that they have been broken down or even abandoned. The pictures display urbanism as in the images there are buildings displayed that either got done up and look more modern, or the building has either been taken down or abandoned. These images that Vergara has taken above fit in perfectly with the topic of ANTHROPOCENE as the images displayed show how “humans have started to impact the worlds ecosystem” due to there being wasted land or space that is taking over the environment for no reason as the buildings appear to have no use to them. Moreover, this shows how humans are damaging the environment as these buildings could very well have better use to them as possible places to make it green again in order to have habitats for animals so that they can be safe and have some better environmental living than some abandoned houses and streets.
Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Case Study
Marchand (b.1981) and Meffre (b.1987) live and work in Paris. Initially pursuing photography individually, they met online in 2002 and started working together with the beginning of their Detroit project in 2005. Steidl published The Ruins of Detroit in 2010. A second printing is planned for later this year. They are currently completing their Gunkanjima book, also to be published by Steidl, and they continue to work on a project documenting American theater’s that have either fallen into decay or been transformed entirely. Their work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and has been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, The British Journal of Photography, Time Magazine, amongst others.
As you can see from the images displayed above from Yves and Romain took images of abandoned places which are being overgrown by the nature surrounding it. As you can see they where great in taking landscape images of abandoned places as everything in the picture is visible with use of what appears to be of natural daylight, in order to show every detail of nature taking over in these landscape images. Therefore, these images fit in perfectly with the theme of Anthropocene as you can see that humans have harmed the environment by having these wasteful abandoned buildings, occupying areas of nature like forests or fields, being overgrown by the nature around it due to these buildings being left unattended in the middle of nature having moss or vines overgrown. Therefore, this could be an impactful message to the world as people can see the damage caused to the world with wasteful buildings occupying these forests or fields as the nature growing back in these buildings is trying to take back what use to be there before the buildings where built.
Comparison
Both photographers mentioned above show the term of anthropocene as the images they have taken come across this subject showing similarities. For example, the picture that they took appear to be portrait/ landscape due to the images being of abandoned buildings that are slowly decaying throughout the years. Moreover, you can see the similarities in which the photographers had taken their pictures with the use of natural daylight and the setting’s of ISO 50, f16 and the shutter speed set at 1/500.
In terms of context behind the images they both display similarities of abandoned buildings that have no use to them as they all appear to be damaged leaving rubble behind and even just occupying areas in which could be turned to beautiful parks with trees in them or even just have the buildings knocked down in general not disturbing the environment. Moreover, both photographers present anthropocene because the images display the disturbance of the environment through humans due to the images showing abandoned buildings that are man made. This could have questions being raised to society on wether we are a lazy society or wether we don’t care about our environment in general as we just leave these buildings that are abandoned to slowly decease throughout its existence as these buildings slowly decay whilst people who walk past don’t having any feelings towards these buildings just wasting space when they could just be demolished and have use for these spaces for either society or just leave the areas alone for nature to take over and grow over these areas not causing any more harm to the environment as it already is.
Photo Shoot
Edited Images
The editing done to these images was that for the black and white ones I converted the images to black and white on photoshop and then changed around either how dark or bright a certain colour of that image was to make shadows pop out more and to create a more contrast between light and dark.
As for the coloured images, this was achieved by changing the hue and saturation on these images to make the colour I selected either really pop out or have some other colours be dimmed as they don’t have to be in the image, as shown in my images I went for the theme of red on all of my coloured images.
Compare & Contrast
My image
Camilo Jose Vergara
The photographers work that I will be comparing and contrasting is Camilo Jose Vergara.
Differences – The differences between my photograph and Camilo’s are that mine is in black and white and his is shown natural as in he didn’t edit his image for colour. Another difference is that his images shows off more contrast between bright and dark with the shadowing in his image, whereas mine hasn’t got any shadowing as the building was flat not having any 3 dimensional structure to it to make it have exaggerated shadows. Finally, a key difference is that he appears to have people in his images where as in my image I don’t have people in it. Therefore, this could go to show that the building in my image is fully abandoned and left out to rot going to show how people in society don’t care about the waste of space being preserved by abandoned buildings in the world. Whereas, in Camilo’s image he has people roaming which goes to show the building in his image is in use, not wasting space however, there appears to be graffiti on the buildings and they seem to be dirty which goes to show how the people in society are very lazy and don’t have a car for the environment as they seem to paint over it and not keep the general streets clean.
Similarities – The similarities between my photograph and Camilo’s are that we both appeared to use natural lighting as our sources of light to capture the images we taken. Also, we have both appeared to take on a dead pan pictures of the buildings that we decided to take images of across the street form the buildings. The final similarity between the images are that both buildings appear to be dirty or damaged due to the lack of care that has been given to them, due to society in the 21st century appearing to be lazy or unconcerned for the community in general as this can lead to people loosing house’s as they just deteriorate leading to it being un-manageable for people to be living in these conditions, which can lead to people overpopulating to somewhere cheaper which what appears to be the cause of Camilo’s picture where as for mine the people have already moved out and now the building has been left wasting space.
Final Image’s
The way in which i would present my images would be by having my picture up on a wall for people to be able to walk around and feel them. Moreover, I could consider on putting materials from the images like leaves or rubble so that people who are looking at the pictures could potentially touch them to get an idea of what the image feels like as well.
Evaluation
Therefore having read the history of Eugene in the reasoning as to why he done photography, this gave me the objective of showing the people who look at my images how buildings can be left derelict for no one to care of which could have better use to them. Moreover, I believe that the economy has a big impact on buildings being derelict due to the fact that as the economy goes up in any place the prices go up and cost of living especially in Jersey where it is very expensive in terms of housing, which could cause people to move away from these homes making them derelict leading to the abandoned buildings being forgotten making them relics of the past.
Overall, I believe that I was successful in presenting my objective with my images through to the audience/ people who would see my images in an art gallery, this is because I have images of abandoned buildings that have been around for a long time including the old Jersey Brewery which could be considered as a relic of the past as it is an old building that was of great use to Jersey. However, if I was to do this project again I would change the way in which I would display my images by getting images of old buildings that are now abandoned, then I would split the images in half and put them together in order to show the drastic changes in the buildings over time.
My outcome was successful when recreating Mederos work through photographs. Mederos is best recognized for his signature bubble-wrap style where he paints individual bubbles over portraits for added texture and effect. To create these images I placed bubble-wrap in front of the face to mimic Mederos where he creates texture and light reflecting off the bubble-wrap and distorts the image underneath. You can make out the image underneath by looking at the photograph from a distance. His images don’t necessarily have a meaning or send a message to attract viewers, its the large amount of detail and the unique technique to create his final image that draws attention.
What I like most about this image is the detail on the bubble-wrap that contrasts against the blurred background. The artificial light reflects off the bubble-wrap, like in Mederos’ paintings. The main focus of his artwork is the detail on the bubbles, the background is blurred so the main attention is how the camera focused and captured the detail on the bubble-wrap. I took this image with artificial lights and edited and adjusted the colour to look like his paintings. The repetition of bubbles could represent the continuous plastic use that is affecting our planet. The lack of emotion in the face shows most of us have no reaction to how negatively we’re effecting the earth and environment, yet it is right in front of their eyes and they still act unbothered.
Final edits inspired by distorted view
The creases in the plastic sheet affect the face like plastic affects the sea. At least 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and make up 80% of all marine debris. Marine species ingest or are entangled by plastic debris, which causes severe injuries and deaths. Litter dropped on the street doesn’t stay there. Rainwater and wind carries plastic waste into streams and rivers, and through drains into the ocean. This plastic that covers the lens of the camera has distorted the face and wont be seen how it originally was. The plastics in our seas affect the natural nature of our oceans and ruins its natural form.
I took this image with artificial lighting which reflects off the plastic sheet. The materials I used to create this image has blurred out any facial expressions on the face. This represents how many people don’t react or act upon the waste in our seas.
