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ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions, Independent

anthropocene – Alexandra Bellissamo

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The relationship between nature and mankind.

Shoot

Conceptual Realism

Conceptual realism is the theory that abstract universals, unobservable general classes or ideal types have a reality that is independent, equal and sometimes superior to the reality of their individual parts or specific examples.

The terminological distinction was made in order to stress the difference between the claim that universal mental acts correspond with universal intentional objects and the perspective that dismissed the existence of universals outside the mind.

Surrealism

Surrealism is the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. Surrealism aimed to revolutionize human experience, rejecting a rational vision of life in favor of one that asserted the value of the unconscious and dreams. The word ‘surrealist’ means ‘beyond reality’. Many surrealist artists used automatic drawing or writing to unlock ideas and images from their unconscious minds, and others sought to depict dream worlds or hidden psychological tensions.

Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.”

Surrealism can be expressed through photo montage. Photo montage is often used as a means of expressing political dissent. It was first used as a technique by the dadaists in 1915 in their protests against the First World War. It was later adopted by the surrealists who exploited the possibilities photo montage offered by using free association to bring together widely disparate images, to reflect the workings of the unconscious mind.

Final images inspired by Bellissamo and surrealism

These images relate to surrealism in the way that they explore alternate worlds with hidden intentions. The message I aim to project through this image is how the thought of nature and how our actions affect the world around us has left our mind. We have put ourselves first and underappreciated the environment whilst doing things that benefit us and damaged the earth.

This picture represents how nature can fight back to how we affected the environment has humans. The way the branches crawl up the neck, strangling them as punishment.

The same with this image as the water falls down the neck, as if it was trying to drown the person in the photograph.

Another approach to these edits could be about the people who care and try to change the negative affects on the environment. This image shows a tree trunk instead of a head and brain. This represents how some people can be so focused on helping the planet and being vegan e.g., that it takes over their day-to-day life and they can become brainwashed.

This edit is inspired by Bellisimo’s collage between humans and nature. To involve the theme of Anthropocene, I edited this image with the reflection of a forest fire in the persons eyes, representing what they can see, compared and contrasted to what is in her mind. The green, healthy forest in her mind is a memory of what nature used to look like before deforestation. Forests still cover about 30% of the world’s land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Between 1990 and 2016, the world lost 502,000 square miles of forest. We need trees for a variety of reasons, they absorb the carbon dioxide that we exhale, and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, climate change. Anthropocene is man’s impact on the environment, this edit represents the large, negative impact we are having on earth.

To create this edit I made the image black and white, created layers with the forest images and cut and pasted where I wanted it to be. I took the portrait in the studio with artificial lighting to have a clear, sharp image. The face being in black and white indicates the lack of happy emotions, like the lack of bright colours. The colourless image represents the negative emotions created by what is seen.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions, Independent, Task

anthropocene – case study

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Darian Mederos

Distorted view

Darian Mederos is a painter and visual artist who is known for his unique and different approach to painting. He is best recognized for his signature bubble-wrap style where he paints individual bubbles over portraits for added texture and effect. Mederos’ work focuses on the ubiquitous human face. Emotive and replete with meaning, our faces encompass the vast human experience, revealing everything at once or nothing at all.

When creating the “Obscura Series”, Mederos creates something new, a photorealistic abstraction. The bubble wrap reflects light and distorts the underlying image, it is only at a distance that the works come into focus.

Alexandra Bellissamo 

The relationship between nature and mankind.

Alexandra Bellissimo makes artworks that focus on “making” pictures rather than simply “taking” pictures. To make her surreal images, she uses collage techniques in combination with her photographs. In doing so, she combines man with nature to create works infused with emotion and psychology.

Alexandra Bellissimo’s body of work extends beyond traditional photograph. Her imagery explores the physical and psychological relation between nature and humans when combined through the use of collage. Her collaging process involves cutting layering and adhering photographic prints together into a single image. Bellisimo’s collages evoke a sense of empathy, intimacy and harmony when humans and nature coexist.

Comparison

  • Alexandra Bellisimo
  • Darian Mederos

Bellisimo’s images are constructed through a combination of photographs and collage. Her outcomes are black and white, crisp and sharp images with a variety of grey scale tones. Her images are taken with artificial lighting in a studio which resulted in high detailed images. Her images have a range of tones from light to dark to create highlights and contrast. The absence of colour helps to bring out the definition of her images. The arrangement and layout of her images tend to be head-shots and portraits. I believe Bellisimo’s photographs have a deeper meaning than what is seen by the eye. Her photographs show the relationship between nature and humans, it could be nature taking over humans as punishment for how we treat the planet, for example.

Mederos paints his images, in the circles of the bubble wrap he paints large strokes, it is only when you step away that the whole images comes together to reveal what is underneath. His images are very warm with a mixture of light and dark tones. Mederos paints the light that reflects off the bubble wrap to create the effect that it has been photographed with artificial lighting.

The difference between these two artists is Bellisimo photographs and collages and Mederos paints large images with big brushes that when stepped away from has masses amount of detail. Bellisimo’s images have hidden messages and send a message about nature and the world around us, compared to Mederos who paints images with large detail that do not need a hidden message to engage the viewer, his interesting and abnormal technique is enough to attract the viewers eyes.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions, Independent

Final Images

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I chose these as my final images because I believe that they are the best images that represent Air, land and water pollution as well as the current situation with medication and the need we have for it since the pandemic hit.

I especially believe that some of my images that represent pollution have a strong message. I used Jeremy Carroll as my main inspiration for those images as I feel as though I accurately adopted his ideas.

I also feel like I have explored more information on the current pandemic and have more of an understanding of how much damage it has done on the economy and the environment. But I’ve also found out how it has brought people together and I believe that I have shown this through my images.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions

NICK FANCHER IMAGE ANALYSIS

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  • Nick Fancher

Nick Fancher focuses on portraiture and mainly shoots using artificial black and white lighting. The black and white creates a dramatic feel to the image and lets off a lot of emotion. The models eyes are darker than the rest of her face which creates a dramatic feel as it feels as if we can’t properly see her or understand her.

This image relates to Anthropocene as the water can represent water wastage and the dripping represents the waste. The water drips keep running off the bottom off the image which could show that the water wastage will keep happening and going if people don’t change their ways.
The image is in black and white and has a strong dark tonal range. The image is not naturally black and white which could represent the unpure water people in poorer countries have to drink everyday as they re unable to assess fresh natural water.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions

Darian menderos image analysis

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Darian Mederos work focuses on painting the all over the human face. He paints bubble wrap over the subjects face which reflects light and distorts the underlying image. He uses the thing layer of translucent bubble wrap to make the viewers reflect and care about the protection of the subject. The subject in this image is a middle age women which can relate to Anthropocene as it can show the older generation and how the human waste has affected them and how they have seen the drastic change in the environment and the earth over their lifetime. This can be more effective to the viewer as it feels like she was chosen for a reason and she is wiser and has more experience with this situation.
The bubble wrap also creates repetition within the image and blurs the models face. The repetition can show that this problem with the plastic in the ocean keeps occurring and isn’t changing or getting better. It can also show that their is an increasing amount of plastic waste and that there is a huge amount of waste that is impacting on our environment the way the bubble wrap impacts the models face.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions

anthropocene – final imageS

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I have chosen these three final images as I believe they best represent the stimulus of Anthropocene, and reflect the type of photographs I had drawn inspiration from and was aiming to recreate. I have chosen all of my final images from my first photoshoot inspired by Jeremy Carrol and Darian Mederos, as I think that they are my best work and the best representation of my abilities and competency. Additionally, I wasn’t very happy with the images I produced in my second photoshoot, which was inspired by Naomi White and Barry Rosenthal. After I had completed each of my photoshoots, I decided to edit my images using Photoshop and experimented with different tools, such as the hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, and vibrance. I explored various different results and altered them until I was happy with the outcomes above.

FINAL EVALUATION

One of my aims for this project was to take photographs which I believed captured the essence of Anthropocene and present them in a way which was impactful and thought-provoking. I chose Jeremy Carrol as my main inspiration as his images are extremely poignant and shocking, which was the type of reaction I wanted to give my audience when the viewed my photographs. I think that one of my strengths during this project was my ability to think on my feet in terms of creativity when I became stuck for ideas. For example, as I went to conduct my first photoshoot, I only had small pieces of plastic which were not big enough to go over my subject’s head. I was forced to use whatever I could find as well as my own pieces, and the images turned out better than I had anticipated. I think that one of my weaknesses during this project was my editing skills on Photoshop. I think that I struggled with this aspect of my process because I had never used the programme before starting this course, and I don’t think that I am that confident yet in my ability to use some of the certain tools, for example, cutting and pasting. Overall, I think I produced some good images which related well to the stimulus of Anthropocene, and I believe I showed some competency when using Photoshop. One of my targets for next time will be to ensure that all of my photoshoots are up to the same standard, and that I am happy with all of the images I am producing.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions

final images and evaluation

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Final displayed images for Darian Mederos:
Final displayed images for Nick Fancher:
Final displayed images for Hendrik Kerstens and Vika Pobeda

Evaluation:

My original intentions for my work was to create images that related to my artists and to the idea of Anthropocene. I wanted to mainly focus on portraiture and show plastic and water wastage through my images. I wanted to show the damage of plastic waste on the marine animals and how it effects our oceans and environment and I wanted to represent purity and the lack of access to pure water for some based on peoples social class.
I feel I represented this well in my mages by using many different plastic objects and used these images to distort and ‘destroy’ the models face in order to represent the damage done to the environment. Although I wasn’t happy with all the images in my shoots I picked the best ones and edited them till I was happy with the final outcome and felt it presented my intentions.
Although I was happy with the majority of my final outcomes I feel I could have explored the water images more and created a more powerful image to represent my ideas more.
I feel that you can see a clear resemblance between mine and the chosen artists images and can see a correlation between the ideas.

ANTHROPOCENE, Controlled Conditions

anthropocene response

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Darian Mederos

Darian Mederos shoot

Editing my images:

First I selected my best images from the shoot and put them into a separate folder so I could focus on a few of the best images.

I started by cropping all my images to get rid of background that wasn’t needed to make the image more smart and effective. I did this to all my final images.c

I then changed the brightness and contrast on my images as they were all quite bright from the artificial lighting. I lowered the brightness and altered the contrast to create the look I wanted.

I then changed the vibrance of the image to create a more yellow tone to the image to suite some of Darian Mederos images. This left me with my final image.

I wanted all my images to be close up images and so I had to crop my images quite a bit in order to achieve this.

Final images:


I like the outcome of my images as I feel they represent my artists approach well and you can see a clear similarity between my images and the artists.
I wanted to represent the plastic wastage in these images by using plastic objects as props in my images. I used plastic waste to distort the models face in order to represent the idea that the earth may look incorrect or different due to the damage plastic has done to the earth. I feel i represented this well in my images as the bubble wrap creates a blurred effect meaning you cant properly see the models face and relates to Darian Mederos images. I also used a plastic bag over the models face to represent all the animals that are trapped or injured by plastic that is polluting the seas and their habitats. I chose to put the bag over her head to represent her being trapped and the ingestion of plastic by animals. I also used cling film and folded the cling film to create dents to distort and change the models face, I also put vaseline onto the cling film to make it looked blurred.

Nick Fancher

Nick Fancher shoot

I used mainy different editing techniques for this shoot. For my colourful images I:

I started by overlapping the 2 images and made them fit ontop of each other perfectly.

I then changed the opacity and experimented with it to find the perfect level to create the image I wanted.

I also put most of my images into black and white and changed the exposure and brightness on all images to create the right feeling from the image.

Final images:



I used water in a few of my images to represent purity and sometimes a lack of access to water. Pure water is so important to reduces the risk of contamination of diseases and it is important when cleaning utensils and everyday items and especially important for a basic action such as washing your hands. An estimated 2.2 billion people need access to safe drinking water, including 884 million currently without basic drinking water service, this means these people do not have easy access to fresh , clean water and face the risk of catching deadly diseases everyday just from a daily necessity. Unsafe water is one of the world’s largest health and environmental problems particularly for the poorest in the world which relates to social class. Woman and young children must carry buckets full of water every few days and sometimes everyday and walk for miles carrying the heavy buckets of fresh water. In regions where freshwater must be retrieved from sources outside the home, the burden of fetching and carrying water largely falls on women. Therefore I wanted to use water in some of my images to represent this as it relates to Anthropocene as humans have caused this lack of access to water.
I also chose to use barbed wire and use the holes to look through to the model to divide up the face and also to make it look like she is trapped in the wire which is what happens to the sea animals from all the waste that goes into the sea.

Hendrik Kerstens and Vika Pobeda

Initially I wasn’t happy with the outcome of this shoot so I decided to try some editing techniques to change my images to fit my aim and represent Anthropocene more.

Therefore, for all my images in this shoot I chose to use multi exposure.

I put some of the images into black and white to add more effect and improve the image , I then overlapped the images.

Then I changed the opacity to the right opacity for the image I wanted to create.

I then cropped down the image to create the final image that I was happy with.

Final images:

I chose to use the multi exposure technique for these images to create a confused and overwhelming look for the viewers.
To create these images I used multiple types of waste that is typically found in the ocean and caused injury to animals whether that be the animal trapped in a plastic bag or a turtle getting a plastic straw stuck in their throat. On a boat off Costa Rica, a biologist had to use pliers from a Swiss army knife to try to extract a plastic straw from a sea turtle’s nostril. The turtle squirmed in agony, whilst bleeding profusely.  Around 700 species of marine animals have been reported—so far—to have eaten or become entangled in plastic.