Richard Mosse
Richard Mosse is a contemporary Irish photographer. Using infrared film, he captures war-torn regions as well as migrant routes. Born in 1980 in Kilkenny, Ireland, he received his MFA in photography from the Yale School of Art in 2008. In 2013. The artist lives and works between New York and Berlin. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City.
“infra”
Mosses work has spanned over decades and it captures the beauty of war and the pollution of the world. One of his projects, “Infra” captures the ongoing war between rebel factions and the Congolese National Army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The aerochrome film the photographer uses, transforms dense green foliage into fluorescent pinks and blues. The surreally tinted backdrop, seems a psychological barometer of violence and surveillance. Mosse said in an interview, “I wanted to export this technology to a harder situation, to up-end the generic conventions of calcified mass-media narratives and challenge the way we’re allowed to represent this forgotten conflict… I wanted to confront this military reconnaissance technology, to use it reflexively in order to question the ways in which war photography is constructed.”
“The Castle”
Another project by Mosse, titled “The Castle” is a conscientious documentation of refugee camps and staging sites along mass migration routes into the European Union via Turkey from the Middle East and Central Asia. Mosse uses a thermographic camera to take the shots of the camps and refugees, which creates very unique and eye-catching photos. Thermographic cameras, sensitive to heat from human bodies rather than light, are used for long-range surveillance and the policing of borders. Mosse retools this camera technology, self-reflexively and with subversive intent. He takes conventional images of dispossessed refugees, usually represented with a humanistic eye, by depicting them as spectral presences in a peculiar landscape of half-recognizable built environments.
Mosse’ work is very inspiring to me and I am really interested in his work, the pictures he has taken which explore the theme of Anthropocene are very unique and I have not seen a photographer take photos like his before. Everything from the cameras used to take the photos, the locations of the photos and the reasoning behind the photos are very interesting to me and inspiring.
Mosse Image Analysis
The aerochrome film used by Mosse to take this shot, portrays the foliage in the image as a beautiful pink colour, rather than the usual green colour. This can be argued to portray nature and the untouched world as very pleasing and appealing to the human eye. The rest of the picture shows the world affected by humans, it contains a digger which has dug up the land, this part of the image is very bland and mostly shows the colour brown; which compared to the beautiful pink is a very boring and ugly colour, this could suggest that the beautiful untouched world once touched by humans turns into this ugly brown world. This image spreads a lot of awareness about Anthropocene and the effect the human race has had on our world.
Troy Paiva
Light painting photographer Troy Paiva has been capturing night imagery since 1989. He considers himself an “Urban Explorer” and says that his light painting photography is a by-product of his passion for investigating the ruins of “Lost America”. Troy spends much of his time alone, in the middle of nowhere, photographing abandon building and places that America has lost to time.
The sense of isolation and loneliness draws Troy to these locations, “I love the surreal feeling of wandering through an abandoned subdivision, alone, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Your senses become heightened and you feel the weight of time.” Troy has written a few books about his time spent light painting in these forgotten places called “Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration”. and Boneyard: SoCal’s Aircraft Graveyards at Night.
Troy Paiva’s work is very interesting to me, the way he adds all of this colour to these abandoned forgotten structures and vehicles gives them life once again which really draws me in to his work. As well as this, his work is very visually pleasing. After viewing his work, it has given me lots of ideas and inspiration in my photoshoots. The subjects he photographs for his images fits into the topic of Anthropocene as, it is all abandoned human built structures which have been forgotten and left to be taken over by nature.
Paiva Image Analysis
This image by Troy Paiva is very interesting to me, it portrays a destroyed car being picked up by an arm ready for it to be fully destroyed for good. Although the car is destroyed, or dead, it is shown to have lots of colour all over it suggesting it still has life to it. This could be portraying that even when nature is destroyed by humans, it still is alive and humans will never truly get rid of nature no matter how much we pollute the Earth
Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence.
Edwards lens captures rivers that run fluorescent, mountains of detritus, and arid landscapes: vivid reminders of humanity’s impact on the planet in haunting aerial photographs. “These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear,” he has explained of his work. “We are drawn by desire—a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success.”
Burtynsky’s work greatly portrays the impact of humans on the world. His photos are very inspiring to me and he is one of the best photographers I have seen when it comes to the subject of Anthropocene. His photos are taken all over the world and truly gives a perspective of just how much the Earth has been taken over by humans, his work gives me many different ideas for photoshoots and photo manipulation.
Burtynsky Image Analysis
This photo, by Burtynsky, is taken from an aerial view. This truly shows a huge perspective of the subject he photographed. A huge open space covered in farmland created by the human race. This photo perfectly portrays the amount of Earth that has been taken over by humans and fits perfectly within the subject of Anthropocene. The lighting and colours in the photo are very bland and basic, which could be emphasising the fact that we have taken over the world and there needs to be change.