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.
Firstly I changed the brightness and contrast to brighten the image and make the colour contrast stronger
Then I changed the vibrancy to lift the colour and make it stand out more.
Firstly I changed the brightness and contrast to brighten the image and make the colour contrast stronger.
Then I changed the vibrancy to lift the colour and make it stand out more.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Baker explosion, a nuclear weapon test by the US in Micronesia, on 25 July 1946.
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 photographer I have chosen to study and be inspired by for my first photoshoot is Thom and Beth Atkinson.
I chose to study them as they photograph old and destroyed buildings as well as missing sections of buildings. As I want to compare new and old jersey together I thought they would be the perfect photographers to get inspired by for my ‘old jersey’ photoshoot.
About Thom and Beth- In 2015 Thom published his first photobook, Missing Buildings through his own publishing imprint, Hwaet books The collaboration with his sister, Beth Atkinson, brings together an extensive body of work documenting the physical and imaginative landscapes of the London Blitz. Thom’s interest in Britain, conflict and mythology is ongoing.
Some of their photographs-
my contact sheets;
favourite images edited;
I wanted my images to be in black and white as I think it matches the atmosphere and mood of the images- as my images are of destroyed and broken buildings keeping them in colour wouldn’t be as effective as turning them black and white. I wanted to make sure I have a good palette of black and white shades in order to have good and clear contrast between extremely white and bright areas and very dark almost black sections. I think I achieved this well by increasing the contrast and lowering the exposure as well as increasing shadows while keeping the white balance quite high. I cropped these images down to make sure my images were focused on the buildings as the centre point as there were a couple of cars and people walking by in the background which wasn’t needed.
comparing my photography with Thom and Beths
DIFFERENCE- my image is in black and white with sharp contrast points however Thom and Beth’s image is in colour. I feel like that creates a different atmosphere and mood between our two images. Thom and Beths image is also taken slightly from the side which captures some of the windows on the building however mines more from a straight-on point of view. Beth’s and Thom’s image captures more of the building and its right in the centre however my image has two grids full of sky and the building is in the centre but on the bottom of the image.
SIMILAR- both of our images are of a broken or abandoned building that is definitely not used anymore. Both of our images are taken far away in order to capture the whole length of the building. Both of our images are taken at quick shutter speeds in order to not get a blurry photo
New topographics was a term created by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers which included Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz. Their pictures had a similar aesthetic and were mostly black and white images showing an urban landscape.
Most of the photographers linked to new topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher. They were inspired by the man-made and selected places such as parking lots, trailer parks or housing and warehouses to photograph. The message in the images was how natural environments were being eroded by industrial development. The photographers found beauty in the chaos of the industrial world and how they link the complexity of the natural world to the complexity of the industrial world.
What was the New Topographic a Reaction to?
The new topographics were a reaction to the increasing suburbanised world evolving around the photographers.
Lewis Baltz (Case Study 1)
Context
Lewis Baltz was an American photographer born on September 12th 1945 in Newport Beach California. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute and was involved with the New Topographics with his Man-Altered Landscape Exhibition in 1975. He focused on producing black and white images of parking lots, tract housing and industrial parks. He said that when living in Monterey, where the classic photographers such as the Westons, Wynn Bullock and Ansel Adams came to photograph nature, that he was drawn to shopping centres and gas stations instead of nature. The reason this style was so unique was that no-one had done this before so it was a new way of thinking about photography. He died on November 22nd 2014 in Paris, France. His works are held by a wide range of museums around the globe including in France, England and the USA.
Technical
All the lighting in the image is natural as the image was taken in a parking lot outside some sort of store. The light is natural but at the same time harsh meaning that at the time it was taken, there was most likely either a lot of cloud or none at all. Baltz has positioned the camera so that it is in line with the parking space lines, ladder to the left of the image and the trees slightly to the left and right of the image. The image has a low ISO because the image is not very dark and it is in black and white.
Visual
The image has a good tonal contrast between the light walls that have the sun lighting them up and the dark tarmac on the parking lot. There is also contrast between the light sky at the top of the image and the dark leaves on the two trees. We can tell that the sun is coming from the left of the image because of the shadows of the ladder, electricity box and trees. The ladder, trees and box next to the ladder bring a sense of repetition and pattern because they are being shadowed onto the light wall which brings excitement and a sense of illusion. The parking lot has no cars in which is strange as usually you would see people and vehicles in the car lot which creates further tension between man and nature. The parking lot spaces are leading the eye from the dark tarmac to the light wall and from the light wall to the empty sky.
Conceptual
I believe Baltz took this photo to show what effect humans have on nature and how nature is being limited. By photographing a parking lot with no cars or people in, he is saying that we are wasting the resources we have. He is also saying that by building our parking lots and buildings where nature is, we are limiting it to grow in urban parking lots with no space. Also I believe the contrast of tone between the dark tarmac and dark leaves versus the light wall is saying that nature and the ground are being covered, cut down and forgotten about by the growing developing urban and industrial world. Finally, I believe the ladder to the left of the image is a link to the idea of freedom and nature. However there is a covering on the ladder meaning that no one can go up it linking to the idea of nature being limited and disrupted by humans. He is trying to communicate the idea of the disruption of the natural order.
Where Can I Take Photos?
Plan
Photoshoot
Where
When
Why
Industrial and Urban (day)
Finance centre
Saturday 20th March
To create images inspired by Lewis Baltz
Industrial and Urban (night)
Alleys and harbour
Easter
To create images like Gabriel Basilico
Contact Sheet
I went on Saturday the 20th of March to the finance centre along the front near Liberty bus station. I also photographed a few alleyways around that area.
My Outcome
The image above is my strongest outcome of the first photo shoot linking to the New Topographics including urban and industrial. The image I chose was of a window from below that reflects the clouds and light quite well. I edited the image so it is in black and white and so that the darker tonal values are darker. I also made it so that the different tones were edited so that they were distinguishable, linking to Ansel Adams zone system. The outcome has dark and light tonal contrast and good clarity enabling the clouds to be seen in the reflection of the windows. Finally the clouds go from being dark and angry to light and calm as they get closer to the building.
For the theme of Anthropocene, the era of which humans have made significant impact on earth, I have chosen to work with the idea of pollution in the ocean. Instead of taking a straightforward response such as photographing waste on beaches, my idea is to put humans in a sea creatures point of view and ask the question: what if it was me? Although Jeremy Carroll portrayed the struggle of a sea creature through portraiture, where she tied up and restricted people in her photographs, I would like to take a more object based/ maybe abstract approach. My main idea is to collect trash for a short while and place it around my home in places where I personally feel most comfortable. I take pride in keeping my home clean and tidy so this will specifically apply to me and others like me. My places of comfort will be representing the ocean- home to all the sea creatures. The plastic waste that I place around will represent the invasion and discomfort we place upon those creatures. When it come to how these photographs will turn out, I would like to use photoshop to edit them in interesting ways, perhaps changing the hue for a ‘cool’ result- but not too much to distract the viewer from my message.
I went onto the front just after sunset. I wanted to show that even on the coast there is signs of man-made products ‘destroying’ our landscapes.
I focused on taking images of the lights from St Helier which reflected on the ocean. Some would argue that it ruins the scenery and is an eyesore to the landscape. I personally believe that it enhances the beauty of the ocean. The lights that reflected on the sea from the city emphasises how calm and peaceful the ocean was at that time. In addition the lights bring a certain warmth to the image as the sea has connotations of being cold and isolated due to the vastness of it. The lights that are visible show the viewer that people live round there and get to witness its beauty everyday. I also believe that the lights create a nice contrast to the images; since I took the images at night without them the viewer would not be able to see where the ocean finishes and where the sky begins.
I also focused on the lights that were hung along the walkway on the sea front from St Helier to St Aubin. Although they are wires attached to metal poles, In the evening they bring a beauty to the darkness of night. During the day they may seem pointless, since the sun is beaming down on the island; but in the evening the whole of the front has a whimsical feel to it, as well as providing light for those walking down it in the dark.
I took images facing towards St Aubin and wanted to focus on the walls and piers going onto the beach. Not only are they an easy access to the beach, they carry a lot of historical moments on their shoulders. For example when Germany Occupied Jersey during the second world war, those piers would have been prepared for the Soldiers to leave the island should an attack be attempted. So, even though the concrete structures may look ugly along the sandy beaches, they aren’t necessarily just piers/walls/towers. They can be reminders of history.
Final images
Havre De Pas
For these images, I went to the incinerator in Havre De Pas. I thought this would be a good place to go because everything is very grey and dark. I also thought that it would go well with the new topographics work that we looked at earlier in the course.
I put the images in black and white to emphasise the monotone colours of the incinerator and to also fit in with the new topographics work which the majority of the time was in black and white due to the time period it became popular. The black and white also emphasises the general view on the building. Many people think that it is an eyesore, however this eyesore is needed for recycling and also helps the world with climate change just by existing.
This emphasises that even though the industrial things in our world can be ugly, we need to appreciate that they are made to make everyone’s life easier. This shows that we need to move with the times and focus on making our planet a safer place to live for all.
Final images
Favourite Images
These are my favourite images because I believe that they show the difference that industry has brought to our world. I particularly like the bottom left image because it is at a worm’s eye view; which I believe was a good way of showing off all the manmade things surrounding our coast line.
Margaret was born in America in 1904 and died in 1971. She was a photographer and documentary photographer. Being a documentary photographer allowed her to see the changes in the world in terms of technology and industry. She also took pictures during the second world war, meaning she had to witness the horrors and torture that people were put through. Bourke-White was the first known female war correspondent and the first woman to be allowed to work in combat zones during world war 2. In 1941, she traveled to the soviet union just as Germany broke its pact of non-aggression. She was the only foreign photographer in Moscow when German forces invaded.
She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviet’s five year plan,the first American female war photojournalist, and having one of her photographs (the construction of Fort Peck Dam) on the cover of the first issue of life magazine.
Margaret Bourke-White lived the life most of us only dream about. Well, maybe only photographers dream about. But to live life as fully as she did, could only inspire the uninspirable.
Image analysis
Margaret Bourke-White
The image is in black and white which could highlight the fact that the air is polluted because of the smoke coming out of all the factories and trains. The fact that there is very little contrast in the whole image emphasises the fact that there is little light visible to those that live in the house in the centre of the image. The lack of contrast also emphasises the lack of change in people’s lives each day. All they did was work, go home and work again. This is what happens now, however, working conditions were much poorer in the 1930s compared to nowadays.
