These are some of my main ideas for the photoshoots for the Anthropocene project. I think this allows me to show a wide range of how humans have had an impact on our planet, which helps me to put more creativity into the project. I plan on focussing more on the bright coloured LEDs to show plastic bags and rubbish. I also think I want to make some sequences on old-to-new photos as I think they show how the island had developed over many years and has become more modernised. I like how these ideas are different but can also be paired together as it shows how we have developed and have adapted to the place we live but also the consequences that have happened to the island while it has changed and the population has increased.
Mood-Board
I have based my mood-board off on the photographers that I have been inspired by and will base my photos on. These photographers are Steven Gallagher, Naomi White and Troy Paiva.
Earth’s history is divided into a hierarchical series of smaller chunks of time, referred to as the geologic time scale. These divisions, in descending length of time, are called eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages.
The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when the human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Anthropocene is derived from the Greek words anthropo, for “man,” and cene for “new,” coined and made famous by biologist Eugene Stormer and chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000.
The Anthropocene is a new, present-day epoch, in which scientists say we have significantly altered the Earth through human activity. These changes include global warming, habitat loss, changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, oceans and soil, and animal extinctions.
The new Anthropocene Epoch suggests that humans 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. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and modern humans have been around for an estimated 200,000 years. Yet in that time we have fundamentally altered the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet on which we and all other organisms depend. But not everyone agrees that these changes represent enough evidence to declare a new formal geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Scientists are still researching and debating this.
The Anthropocene Project: Edward Burtynsky
The Anthropocene is a collaboration with Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky, and Jennifer Baichwal and is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate the human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth. It was originally conceived as a photographic essay and the third in a trilogy of films including Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and Watermark (2013), the project quickly evolved to include film installations, large-scale Burtynsky High-Resolution Murals enhanced by film extensions, 360° VR short films, and augmented reality installations. The trio embraced and developed their innovative techniques and started a journey around the work to capture evidence of human influence on the world. the final collection is pieces that will show viewers the new world of the Anthropocene epoch.
Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. He has photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes which represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of humans on the planet. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet; an inspection of the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes. Some of his exhibitions include Anthropocene (2018), Water (2013), Oil (2009), Manufactured Landscapes and Breaking Ground.
I wanted to take two shoots so thought of places that could provide interesting material, both for standalone images as well as images that could be used for photo montaging.
For my first shoot I decided to go to Samares Manor, a site in Jersey with a large manor and botanical gardens that can be visited. These gardens feature a large variety of plants, and take inspiration from Japanese gardens. This provides a nice amount of both natural and manmade subjects for me to photograph.
I ended up going during the afternoon on a sunny day, these were not the best conditions since a lot of my images were very bright but I still like how they look.
For my second shoot, I decided to go into the local town and take pictures of construction sites I could find. They were relatively easy to find, and stopped at each as I went through town.
“New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was an exhibition that epitomized a key moment in American landscape photography. New Topographics was a turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signaled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. New Topographics represented a radical shift by redefining the subject of landscape photography as the built (as opposed to the natural) environment.
Hilla Becher and Bernd Becher
Hilla Becher was a German conceptual photographer. Becher was well known for her industrial photographs, or typologies, with longtime collaborator and husband, Bernd Becher. The Bechers went out with a large 8 x 10-inch view camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward “objective” point of view. They shot only on overcast days, so as to avoid shadows, and early in the morning during the seasons of spring and fall.
These images below are taken by Hilla Becher:
I have chosen to study this artsits because of the way she displays her images. I really like the way Hilla has taken a range of photos from different angles around the buildings and presents them in a black and white display and placed on a white border. I think the way that they display their images shows the idea of Anthropocene because it presents the man made and industrial areas having an effect towards the natural landscape.
Her husband Bernd Becher has a very similar way of taking photographs and editing by displaying his images in the same way.
These images below are taken by Bernd Becher:
Image analysis:
Images taken by Hilla Becher
These photos taken with a large 8 x 10 inch view camera displays these images in black and white which makes the image seem dark and eerie. These images portray the idea of Anthropocene by presenting the effect of pollution and humans towards nature. Some of the photos displayed are from the same building meaning Hilla and Bernd would photograph industrial buildings from different angles to try and present the full effect. The lighting used creates an effect towards the buildings by making them stand out and making them more dark than usual. The buildings shown give off a bad vibe due to the lighting and positioning of the camera which could of been foreshadowing the future where these types of buildings destroy natural landscape and produce pollution.
used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.
why should we tackle this subject through photography?
Photography can depict the effects of time weather its through climate change or how man made buildings and products have taken an effect on our environment hopefully raising an awareness to how what the human civilisation have done through time has effected our current surroundings.
mind map
mood board
I’m going to attempt to portray greed in society through portraiture and add elements of fashion for one of my shoots I will take portraits of models wrapped in fabrics and plastics to show the effects these materials have on wildlife and the environment we live in to bring light to how fashion as an industry has drastic effects on ocean pollution and even in agriculture because even if we don’t see the actual effects now people in other countries suffer the consequences of landfill and deal with harsh chemically polluted water daily. I’ve selected these images for my mood board as I feel like they fit under the topic of greed the portraits have this essence of chemically damaged through the textures shown.
Anthropocene refers to the time in which humanity affects the earth substantially in terms of climate, natural ecosystems, resource availability, the atmosphere, the oceans and so on, as opposed to when nature itself is the most impactful force on the earth.
Anthropocene typically generates themes of pollution, destruction of habitats/landscapes and other negative connotations which displays nature as something dying due to humanity’s advancements.
Moodboard of Anthropocene Photography
For artists/photographers, the theme of Anthropocene can create work attempting to display humanity’s affects on the environment by capturing destroyed/tainted landscapes or other sombre subjects.
Case Studies:
J. Henry Fair
J. Henry Fair is a Berlin/New York based photographer who uses his photography to “tell stories about the things that affect people”, which typically involves photographs that show large-scale destruction or pollution of a location. Fair uses his photography to promote conservation that ranges from small scale protection of space from development to preventing damage to an environment from an international company.
I chose Henry Fair as a photographer to study because I think the way he uses his photographs to shine a light on the damage the environment is experiencing fits nicely with the theme of Anthropocene. I also find the images surrounding oil spillages in particular to be interesting, as they are both artistically nice to look at, but also concerning in the sense that it shows humanity’s impact on the planet.
Oil from BP Deepwater Horizon spill at the Gulf Macondo well floats on the Gulf of Mexico
I like this image because of its bright colours and the patterns they create. I think the colours make the image look more abstract, making the viewer think first about what they are seeing, then why the photographer is showing them this – I think that works very well with the theme of Anthropocene. In addition, the use of complementary colours, the bright blue sea contrasting with the orange parts of the oil, gives the image a more artificial look, which could link to the theme of Anthropocene in the sense that humanity uses artificial substances such as plastics which eventually contaminate the natural landscapes, shown clearly in this photograph. Clearly the bright red patches on the right (bleeding into the left) side of the image act as the focal point, which could have been done by Fair to put emphasis on the oil spill and its effects on the earth. I think the lack of any shadows makes the image itself more clear, allowing the subject of it, the water and oil, to stand out more.
More Examples of his Work
Troy Paiva
Troy Paiva is an America-based photographer who’s career started in 1989. His exploration of desolate urban settings lead to his distinct use of light painting in these settings, giving his images a unique, alien-like aesthetic. Paiva has made several books displaying his works, each showing urban ‘graveyards’ of abandoned ruins. He specialises in night photography, which allows his images to gain a sense of surrealism, as well as allowing the lights to be made clearer, giving some of his images a very abstract look.
I chose Paiva as a photographer to study because I thought his light painting photography was unique and created a clear parallel between the natural and the unnatural through his use of artificial lighting. I was inspired by his use of colour and I wish to use it in my own project.
I think Paiva’s use of complementary colours in this image gives it an unnatural, abstract look, which I think links well with the theme of Anthropocene. The colours also give the car a sense of life and animation, which contrasts with the desolate landscape it inhabits seen in the background. I like how Paiva took the image just after sunrise/before sunset, allowing the sun to be seen, illuminating the sky and landscape, which gives the image more colour and shape (especially in the background). The coloured lights also give the car (especially the interior) bolder shadows, providing a contrast that helps the car stand out more. I also think it is interesting how Paiva used a red light to illuminate only the exterior of the car, while the interior of the car is only illuminated by a green light, I think it gives the image a more artificial look. The lines that shape the car are far more straight/regular, whereas the lines and shapes of the natural landscape in the background are more irregular, which creates a contrast between the car, as a man-made object, and the landscape.
More Examples of his Work
Comparison
Similarities
Both of these images use colour as a way to give the image an abstract look
Both images use unnatural subject matter (Fair’s using an oil spill and Paiva’s using a car)
Both contain natural elements that contrast with the unnatural ones
Differences
Fair’s image focuses more on the awareness of damage to nature, while Paiva’s image seems to aim for a more artistic focus
Fair’s image uses soft, irregular lines due to the subject being strictly natural (the sea), while Paiva’s image uses both soft and hard lines to create a contrast between the urban and the natural
Fair’s image uses natural lighting, while Paiva’s image uses a combination of natural and artificial lighting (however the artificial lighting seems to dominate the lighting of the image overall)
David Thomas Smith is an Irish photographer who uses satellite images to create photomontages, which are reflected versions of the original images. He often picks complex man-made structures with a large dependence on oils, precious metals, and tourism, to explore the impact of Anthropocene on the landscape. The reflections show the dull and repetitive nature of architecture in a capitalist society, while also showing how these things could be seen as beautiful from another view.
These pieces are displayed on large canvas’ so people can look at them up close and see each of the small details. They also bear similarities to traditional Persian rugs, with their size and incredible amount of detail.
“Appropriated imagery is a predominant feature in my work; I think it’s a rather fitting way to work in a world that has become awash with images. I make work that is multi-dimensional. Having come from a background in documentary photography, it is important to me to draw attention to socio-economic and political issues. While at the same time exploring more metaphysical concepts. I make my work aesthetically pleasing, rich in detail and large in scale in the hopes that the viewer can reflect on the ideas and issues that are prevalent in the work, whilst also getting a better sense of their own position in the world.”
David Thomas Smith
Smith uses aerial photography to obtain images of the city from above and then manipulates them to create dense, kaleidoscopic pieces. In this image, the city has been reflected, resembling a cross (often associated with Christianity, even if Smith is not a Christian, he would still be familiar with the symbols due to his Irish heritage.) – contrasting the city of Las Vegas known for its casinos and various luxuries. The colours are dull despite it being day, juxtaposing the average view of Las Vegas, of it at night with bright colourful lights. There is a clear grid and the image is incredibly geometric, showing the rigid and repetitive nature of modern city design.
Yao Lu is a Chinese photographer who combines photography with traditional Chinese paintings, and explores the relationship between people and the environment. He uses many of the aesthetic conventions of painting when deciding the compositions of his photomontages and wishes to use them to show the contrast between tradition and development.
Lu’s photomontages depict strangely proportioned construction sites fighting against the traditional Chinese painting style he uses. He layers images of green netting, often used in construction and around debris, behind coats of clouds, shrouding them in mystery, forcing the audience to take a closer look and realise that the green is in fact unnatural and artificial, and consuming the landscape around it.
In this image, Lu has used a brown paper background, and the focus is on two hills, one in the midground and one in the background. He uses his signature green netting to represent grass and clouds to cloak the majority of the empty space. In the foreground is a building following traditional Chinese architecture, potentially some kind of temple. It is off balance- potentially representing how the balance between humanity and nature has been tilted due to humanity’s hunger for more. It could also represent how China (and by extension the rest of the world) is neglecting tradition and the past. The clouds surrounding this building look more like storm clouds, perhaps foreshadowing the dark future humanity is heading towards in the coming climate crisis. The area around seems abandoned, inhabited only by some construction equipment sitting in the dusty wasteland. On the hill in the background seems to be a city, spewing cloud like smoke into the sky. It is significantly higher up, looking down on the old world below.
For my first photoshoot, I’m going to try and take pictures of different building sites, scaffoldings and actual buildings to show how humans change their environment.
2ndPhotoshoot:
For my second photoshoot, I’m going to focus on taking pictures of more rural areas and edit them next to my industrial ones to show contrast of the damage made.
3rd Photoshoot:
For my third photoshoot, I want to focus on taking photographs of abandoned and overgrown buildings. This is because it shows humans have done to nature and it fighting back.
Ed 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.
Image analysis
In this photo, Edward Burtynsky portrays the amount of rubbish being dumped in this world. It makes you think about how every discarded tire in the world will probably end up in a place like this. This photo shows Anthropocene in the aspect that humans are destroying the world gradually, and how these tires are covering up the beauty of the land around. This looks like it would be a nice valley, however due to the impact of humans it has been masked by these discarded tires. This photo makes you think about how if this carries on, in 100 years not just tires but any rubbish could cover up historical landmarks to never be seen again.
Jem Southam
Jem Southam was born in Bristol in 1950. He studied at the London College of Printing for a Higher Diploma in Creative Photography from 1969 to 1972. He is now Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth.
Robin Friend
Robin Friend (born 1983) is a British-Australian photographer. His book Bastard Countryside brought together “15 years worth of exploration” the British Landscape with a large format view camera. Included in this publication by Loose Joints is an essay the landscape writer Robert Macfarlane.
Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of humans on the planet.
Burtynsky
His work
For some 35 years, Burtynsky has been photographing humankind’s industrial intervention in natural landscapes. His panoramas have expanded with technology. Since 2003, he has used helicopters and, since 2012, a bespoke drone. His images help us look down on our planet in a new and detailed way
Burtynsky’s prints are large, usually 60 inches by 80 inches. You often need to read the labels to know precisely what you are looking at. The photographs on show in London range from copper mining in British Columbia (the viewer peers down into a great pit beside a sinuous road of loaded trucks climbing and descending) to oil pirating in the Niger Delta (a scorched earth of oil slicks, languid muddy waters and sparse vegetation) and a gleaming Italian marble quarry (an astonishing vertical wall of Carrara marble, marked out in great blocks and ready for extraction).
More about his work
Burtynsky refers to himself as “an artist.” His work, he tells me, has been influenced by the Abstract Expressionists. In previous interviews, he’s made reference to Jackson Pollock and Paul Klee, and you can see this in the shapes and subdued earthy palettes of his photographs. “I am thinking of Pollock in the intensity and vibrancy of the surface,” he explains.
Image Analysis
I have selected to analyse as i think this is on of the most eye catching images of his work. The main aspects which catches our attention is the contrasting colours, as the image is full of warm and then cooler tones images and the yellow and blue juxtapose each other. Furthermore, I think that the the message behind this image is important as it represents how pollution has negatively affected out environment, with the blue and yellow lines contrasting so much so with the ground which could link to how oils corrupt the earth when misused. This links to my project as I will be photographing the industrial areas of the island and showing how much the island has changed due to the human population. The rule of thirds is used in this image, with the yellow only taking up one third of the image, with the corruption of the blue taking up two thirds, this may be a reflection of how much human life has alerted the natural landscape.
George Marazaki
The idea to frame his natural landscape as a symbol for disease did not come to Marazakis right away. Instead, he slowly made the connection over time, after realising he was continuously drawn to a generating a certain type of landscape photography.
The ominous tone of Marazakis’ images are grounded in their muted colour scheme, which makes the scenes appear somewhat extra-terrestrial. It’s surprising to learn that they were all taken in Greece, where overcast days are few and far between. “These are the original colours and scenes,” Marazakis says. “I almost never go out shooting in harsh light, and I really love heavy clouds and fog, which are hard to find in Greece. To achieve this result, most of my work is made in the winter, in the early morning or late afternoon.”
“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”
-Marazaki
Examples of Marazakis’ Work
I like that his work is recognisable and I agree that it has an ominous tone, however I think this makes his work unique. I like that his pictures are more dull because I think this brings more attention to the landscape in the image rather than the vibrancy of the photograph. Furthermore, the fact that the rule of thirds is used in most of his work means that the composition of the original photographs has been well thought out.
“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.”
Link to my project: I like that Marazakis’ work is to illustrate humanity’s effect on earth, photographing natural aspects such as clouds and mountains and also have structures such as greenhouses and stone buildings. There is a contrast between every image and i think that what his work stand out as interesting. Recreating his work in my own style would relate it to our island of Jersey, and I could photogram the industrial estate and farmland to do so. Furthermore, I think that what makes his work even better is how it’s clear and identifiable, Marazakis’ work has an important message behind it, focusing on very current world issues. Anthropocene has only been recognised since the 1950’s and to use modern technology to spread awareness of the issue means that these ideas are easily linked to my project.
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Bernhard “Bernd” Becher, and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser, were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids.
Bernd and Hilla Becher first began their still-ongoing project of systematically photographing industrial structures – water towers, blast furnaces, gas tanks, mine heads, grain elevators and the like – in the late 1950s.
At each site the Bechers also created overall landscape views of the entire plant, which set the structures in their context and show how they relate to each other. The typologies emulate the clarity of an engineer’s drawing, while the landscapes evoke the experience of a particular place. The exhibition presents these two formats together; because they lie at the polar extremes of photographic description, each underscores the creative potential of the other.
He once said he “was overcome with horror when I noticed that the world in which I was besotted was disappearing”.
-Bernd
There was more to it than that, though. Bernd Becher’s fascination with industrial architecture was rooted in his childhood in the Ruhr, and he was acutely aware that the mega-structures throughout Germany, Europe and America would soon disappear from the landscape, just as the ones around his home had as Germany moved into a new, post-war economic era.
Bernd and Hilla Becher have profoundly influenced the international photography world over the past several decades. Their unique genre, which falls somewhere between topological documentation and conceptual art, is in line with the aesthetics of such early-twentieth-century masters of German photography as Karl Blossfeldt, Germaine Krull, Albert Renger-Patzsch, and August Sander.
Image Analysis
I have selected this image of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s as I think that the grid layout of twelve and not nine makes for a more interesting image as there is more to looks at, and their is more opportunity to create more affective images as part of the final piece. Firstly, I think that the fact that these images are in black and white means that the image may appear more authentic and this highlights the different shadows and shapes within the water towers, for example the squares in the 8th image. Furthermore, the variety of shapes within this image creates a more exciting image, meaning that the contrast between the circles, rectangles and the cylinders placed next to each other creates depth to the image.
Frank Gohlke
Frank Gohlke is an American landscape photographer. He has been awarded two Guggenheim fellowships, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work is included in numerous permanent collections, including those of Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Gohlke was one of ten photographers selected to be part of “New Topographic: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape,” the landmark 1975 exhibition at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.
Gohlke
His work
In 1971, Gohlke relocated to Minneapolis, and a year later, in 1972, he began his first major body of work, documenting the grain elevators of America’s central plains. Over the next five years, from 1972–77, the project took Gohlke from Minnesota to Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. From his early aesthetic interest in grain elevators, Gohlke became fascinated by their design, their connection to the surrounding landscape, and their function within the cities and towns they occupied. His photographic practice grew to include a research component whose relationship to the pictures themselves was one of reciprocal influence
Frank Gohlke has, in his work, dealt consistently with questions of human usage and perception of land. He has photographed farmland in central France (on a commission from la mission photographique de la DATAR) conducted a personal survey of a portion of the line of latitude 42˚30’ N, which bisects Massachusetts; made two series of photographs tracing the courses of the Red River in North Texas and the Sudbury River in Massachusetts; and documented the urban landscape and residential architecture of Queens, NY (conjointly with photographer Joel Sternfeld, on a commission from Queens College)
