I was able to fully complete 2 photoshoots in preparation for this exam, I followed the plan I made for the exam by taking photos of desolate overgrown buildings as well as industrial sites to portray the theme and topic of Anthropocene.

Shoot 1

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I was able to capture a total of 222 photos in shoot 1 which is more than enough to work with to produce final outcomes to the best of my ability. For shoot 1 I took photos in and around the la Collette industrial site as well as up around mount Bingham.

I used the flagging technique to select the best photos from this shoot to use for manipulation and editing. After using the flagging technique, I had 81 photos to once again choose from to use for editing and manipulation. To narrow down these photos, I used the rating system to select the best photos from these 65 photos. Using this technique I came up with 20 photos to use for editing and manipulation.

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Shoot 2

For shoot 2 I captured a total of 321 photos to work with and narrow down to select for manipulation I also used the flagging technique for this photoshoot. For this shoot I took photos around the grounds of St. Saviours hospital as well as other derelict sites around the island.

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After using the flagging technique, I came up with 48 photos as a lot of the photos were blurry or too dark or too light to be able to use. I then used the rating technique to once again narrow down the photos to use for editing and manipulation. After using the rating technique, I had 13 photos to edit and manipulate to create final images.

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Review of photoshoots

Although I aimed to take 3 photoshoots with at least 100 photos in each, I managed to get 2 photoshoots. Even though I only did 2 photoshoots I was able to get 222 photos in shoot 1 and 321 photos in shoot 2 which was well above the amount of photos I aimed to take. With a total of 543 photos I believe I have more than enough photos for me to create the most effective final images for the Anthropocene project. I believe the quality of the photos I have taken overall are quite good and I managed to photograph the locations I planned on photographing, a couple of photos I have taken have not come out as I would have liked as some have been blurry, too bright or too dark. Using the different filtering techniques on Lightroom I am happy with the final selection of images I will be using for editing and manipulation with Lightroom and Photoshop in order to come up with the best possible final outcomes I am able to produce.

For this shoot I used a plain white sheet under the props to make sure the model is the main focal point I shot these images using flash and natural lighting with a variety of angles. I used a suitcase and a verity of clothing and shopping bags to portray the message that humans will continue to over purchase clothing due to the continuous evolving fashion industry even when we’re aware that we have no space and they will be sent to landfill eventually.

I had 75 images from this shoot inspired by Marco Mori after being imported into light room.

Then I refined my final image selection using P and X to filter my successful images from my unsuccessful images which left me with 37 images before beginning my editing process.

unsuccessful images

These images were unsuccessful as they didn’t turn out as I originally planned or camera settings were off due to the way the lighting entered my room and the way the camera picked up the props due to ISO settings being too high.

These are the successful images before I start the star rating system from 1-5.

These are the best rated images from this shoot before I start editing them in develop mode.

I edited these photos to relate to the Anthropocene project ‘The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.’ I didn’t like the outcome too much so i chose not to include in my final outcomes.

Experiments

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These images i experimented with i mainly used photoshop by layering different images onto each other to add certain effect. I.e how we harm the environment and how that can affect certain people who are trying to protect it. Other images i experimented on i just focused on the lighting and positioning of objects so the photo can tell its own story.

Photoshoot 1

This photoshoot will be conducted on a day after school. I am planning to walk around the Waterfront area, including The Raddison and Castle Quay. I have chosen this area as I believe it will produce good images due to the scenery and numerous monuments and statues in the area. There is also a large construction site in the centre, however this area is fenced away from public access. My main focus for this photoshoot is to capture buildings and large objects in a similar style to my artist reference, Gabriele Basilico. I think that this will be a suitable area to photograph as it will show what effects humans have had, which aren’t always bad. Hopefully I will be able to portray what the human race has created at a cost of the planet’s natural resources.

Route Plan

Contact Sheet and Selections

Post-Selection Editing Process

Landscape

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Portrait

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Final Images, Post-Enhancement

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My editing process was conducted as follows; I chose what I thought were my best 6 images from this photoshoot, 3 landscape, 3 portrait. Using Adobe Lightroom Classic software, I gave each image a monochrome filter and decreased the exposure. I also increased the contrast of all images, as well as a few other finishing touches varying from image to image. This was done to make the sky look darker than it actually was in the original. I kept this theme throughout these edits, as well as the finals from the next photoshoot. The best examples of the effect this has from this photoshoot are images 1 and 4. I really like this visual effect as it provides a whole different atmosphere and temperature to the images. A deeper sense of mystery and “the unknown” are also seen here in my opinion.

Comparison Visual Aids

Photoshoot 2

My plan for this photoshoot will be similar to the previous. I am intending to photograph buildings again, however the places I will be visiting are exactly the opposite. I will shift my attention from one side of the Island to the other and photograph the German bunkers and watchtowers along the Island’s Western coastline, as well as a number of other implantations I find en route. I am doing the above as I feel it will provide some interesting and contrasting images to the ones previously taken from Photoshoot 1. This will hopefully show what the buildings we consider new and modern today may look in the not-so-distant future.

Route Plan

Contact Sheets and Selections

Post-Selection Editing Process

Landscape

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Portrait

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Extra Potential Idea

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These images capture how these bunkers and structures are treated nowadays. This could show what buildings that are in use today may look like in half a century’s time. I have kept these photos in colour opposed to black and white. This is because of how the colours of the spray paint contrast with the white and brown scheme of the inside of the bunker. This is linkable to Tomás Cambas’ collection of street photography.

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This style of street photography is interesting for a number of reasons. As mentioned previously, there are obvious colour contrasting techniques used throughout, particularly images on the top row. This is effective because of how distinctive they are, similar to what was captured in my photographs. There is also litter visible on the ground in most of the photos, relating to man’s effect on the planet.

Final Images, Post-Enhancement

These images were edited in a similar fashion to the previous photoshoot. I began by adding a monochrome filter to make the images black and white. I then used one of the vintage-style profiles that Lightroom Classic provides for the user. This made the photos look like they was taken in the early 20th century almost instantly. As this was the effect I was aiming for, I stuck with it. After this, I did not want to make the images look over-manipulated so only a few minor adjustments varying across the individual photos were necessary. These adjustments included decreasing the highlights, shadows and contrast over a majority of the images as the filter and profile had made the darks too dark and the lights too light. I was very pleased with the results.

Comparison Visual Aid

Best Images

These were the images I thought were the best out of the best. This is because of how much they benefit from the filter and profile layered one over the other. They are also great as they show what photographers could be capturing in 50 years time. My personal favourite is image 3, depicting Tour de Vinde with a man fishing on the rocks nearby, into a perfectly calm low tide. It creates a sense of fear as of how something so small can have such a massive effect on something so huge (human’s effect on the planet). This tower is not big. Situated on a small island, between two relatively small countries, on a huge planet which man has almost depleted of all its resources. A sense and atmosphere of scale is surrounding this image in my opinion.

PHOTOSHOOT #1

For my first photoshoot, I went around town and the harbour, photographing satellite towers and power stations like La Collette – for this first photoshoot I wanted to capture the industrial side of anthropocene and what is behind the harmful impact on the environment. Being inspired by my artist reference Hilla and Bernd Becher, i photographed mainly architecture around the island.

My plan was to photograph the buildings during night or evening time when it was getting dark outside so I could show the chaos that goes on with power stations & pollution whilst still keeping the photo simple in an attempt to capture Becher’s simplicity of their work in my own.

PHOTOSHOOT #2

For my second photoshoot, I wanted to explore abandoned and derelict places to show how nature takes over once left to its own devices and convey emotion through the empty atmosphere of abandoned buildings. Also I have been fascinated by abandoned places for years and thought this would be a good opportunity to showcase this in my work.

I chose to go to a derelict hotel, where I photographed a number of rooms including the outdoor pool, which was one of my focal points of the shoot as it has mostly been taken over by nature which I thought went well with my theme. I made sure to think back to my artist reference Paul Talling as I took my photos, trying to capture the emotion in his work in my own images.

Mori is a portrait photographer from London who specialises in working with big brands such as Hugo boss and Puma he does advertising shoots for charities such as the British Heart foundation. Mori studied typography at the London college of print. He shoots his images with artificial studio lighting mostly with a white light rather than a warm tone or yellow he shoots these on a canon camera but he doesn’t disclose which one specifically. He also specialises in sympathetic retouching 

why I chose this photographer:

I selected this photographer as his work during London fashion week partnered with the detergent brand vanish to create the ‘Rewear Edit’ fits my theme for this project of bringing awareness to how fashion effects the world more than we think such as the ocean and landfills. During this shoot models were photographed surrounded by clothing waste. Renowned stylist and sustainability advocate Miranda Almond has looked to a rubbish pile to curate outfits for the shoot, highlighting the fact that Britain sends 350,000 tonnes of clothes to landfill each year.

Mori will inspire me to use multiple new angles and try out a new style of modern and conceptual photography in my project.

examples of his work

image analysis

I chose this image as I think its really successful and eye catching by having the model in a simple off white dress it creates a good contrast between the clothing waste she’s surrounded by. The background being also covered in clothing waste creates a smooth transition from the harshness of the bath tub prop which is used. The image is taken from an above angle which creates an interesting horizon as the heater would be your focal point the image creates awareness to the topic while also creating a tunnel focal point.

I think the way Marco photographed this image shows a high level of conceptual and artistic skill as he has managed to capture a series of textures and 3 dimensional objects without losing the message in the image.

IMAGE SELECTION

I went through the contact sheets and colour-coded the images I was interested in using for editing to make my final selection of images easier

From this selection I ended up with around 90 images that I believe have potential after editing and more sub-selections.

I then started my editing process by going through my first selection of images and doing some basic editing on them (levelling them so they are straight, cropping them to the part of the image I am interested in etc)

While doing this basic editing I colour-coded the images I was most likely to use as my final images.

At this stage of selection I was considering making several typologies as I have many images of similar things, such as windows etc. However this felt too liminal with a lack of meaning, however I may look into triptychs, grids and juxtapositions as display and selection ideas.

I continued with my selection by going through my images and collating 17 images I was most confident in, I colour-coded these images red

Below are the images unedited however these are not my final pieces as I still need to make another sub-selection which I will do during editing.

Best images

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Editing

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For this image i went on photoshop and dragged one image over the other, i then changed the opacity so they would layer nicely. I then sharpened around the sides there was a more dramatic effect.

Comparison

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I edited this picture so it would relate to one of my artists photographs that i studied by using the smudge tool so create a blurred photo effect which Sara Cuce uses.

Each of these photographs have been edited into black and white, i mainly experimented on landscapes because there is a wider range of landscapes that can be photographed.

Editing

I mainly adjusted exposure and shadows for my photographs so then when put in black and white they gave a darker looking effect. I think by adjusting the images have made them look more presentable and visually more interesting.

Craig is a British fashion photographer who works with multiple medias such as plastics and papers to show effects of pollution through editorial fashion concepts

examples of his work

why I chose this photographer:

I chose to research Craig’s work as it has a element of sustainability and I like how his concepts take more thought as when looking at the images its not an obvious fashion has an effect on the world and pollution but when you have a closer look and realise these materials are plastics, paper and cottons shaped into a beautiful array of images. I also think his style of photography is inspiring as I like how he uses different lighting techniques and angles to give certain images a darker more meaningful tone in order to portray my theme I will attempt to use his images and style of photography to expand on my ideas further by implementing his use of multi medias to create 3d images.

image analysis

I chose to analyse this image as I think it shows successfully a good balance between his work on the importance of raising awareness to the pollution that the fashion industry causes the use of contrasting colours such as the yellow of the paper and the blue of the eyeshadow it pulls focus to the eyes using a butterfly lighting technique to create a shadow under the chin and nose of the model while adding depth to the yellow paper the portrait is taken as a sort of headshot style I think this helps portray emotion in the image as you can see this look of almost despair on the models face.