Within editing my images I wanted to present derelict buildings and abandonment through Sternfeld’s use of colour. A lot of the rooms in the derelict hotel I was photographing were yellow, leading to an interesting colour scheme throughout some images.

EXPERIMENTATION

First I experimented by changing the images to black and white.

I realised quickly that changing the images to black and white means I lose Sternfeld’s influence and the images quickly became boring so I decided to keep them in colour and concentrate on the yellow motif occurring throughout the images.

To maintain the yellow in the images I changed the temperature of the images to between +2 and +12, with this same rule going for the saturation and vibrancy of the images, this was so the images could be consistent in their colour scheme as some rooms were brighter than others.

I edited all the other images similarly, making sure to erase areas of over/underexposure depending on the lightning of the room by changing the exposure and contrast. I also levelled the images to ensure that the horizonal lines were straight.

#2 SUB-SELECTION OF IMAGES AND EDITING

After editing all my images I did another sub-selection- finding inspiration from Sophie Calle’s ‘The Hotel, Room 47’, more specifically, the way Calle displayed her work- presented in a grid titled the room number of the hotel room she was photographing.

The obvious similarity is that Calle and I are photographing a hotel however Calle’s work is displayed alongside extensive descriptions of what the room was like and the ownings of the room inhabitants and presented as a catalogue of documentary-style images in grid format- which I would like to do in photoshop as I really like the irony of displaying images of a derelict area as if it was brand new.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP EDITING

First, I printed and cut out the images I wanted to use in a set and arranged them by hand until I liked the arrangement- next I tried to recreate this arrangement on photoshop.

First I opened a plain A4 page on Adobe Photoshop and opened all my other images on separate tabs.

Then I dragged each image onto the plain white page and resized and arranged them until they fit the page how I wanted it to be like.

The images ended up on the page like this however I was unsure of this layout so I continued with some layout experimentation.

I really like the inclusion of negative space in my experiments as it reminds me of blueprints of building plans- an interesting contrast between ruin and new buildings.

I also became interested in juxtaposing images of the hotel abandoned with images when it was still in business, as seen in the image above where a picture of the same penthouse room in the 2000s is distanced from pictures of the room in its current state by negative space- the black and white of the old image also being an interesting comparison as black and white is often linked to age- with old buildings often having been demolished quickly to make way for new buildings however in this case the black and white photo is showcasing the hotel when it was in a much better state compared to the yellow centred images- ironically, yellow being the colour that represents vitality and youth.

I ended up liking the last experiment (#4- seen above) the most as the arrangement reminded me of Sophie Calle’s work while the use of colour to Joel Sternfeld’s work and the depth of the images to Jeff Wall’s ‘The Destroyed Room’- especially in the bottom middle image. The negative space adds some abstraction to the piece which I find interesting as well.

Editing photo 3 –

Experiment 1)

For this edit, I started off by using the spot healing brush which helped me to tidy up the photo where there were marks leftover from the lightbox I was using, then to make sure this was even better I cropped the photo to make sure there wasn’t much excess space. I also wanted to eliminate the slight yellowness in the background of this photo because I wanted the colour of the blue plastic bag to stand out well and having a white background would help this happening. I achieved this by using the brightness and contrast to transform the way the background was seen initially as grey with a yellow hue to it and then to keep the vibrancy of the blue in the bag I used the vibrancy and saturation to maintain this. I then used the hue/saturation tools which provided me with a way to adjust the colours in the photo to neutralise them which softened the background and gradually made it appear to be white, which I was extremely happy with.

Experiment 2)

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For these 2 edits I experimented with turning the photo into black and white on photoshop and this was achieved through bringing the hue, saturation and lightness down which drained all of the colour from the photo but it did appear more grey then black which I didn’t like so to adjust this slightly I used the brightness to brighten up the background and highlights then brought down the contrast which helped to balance this out as it made it darker. I was really happy with how the first edit turned out and I think that it is quite successful as the plastic bag is very defined through the use of the black and doesn’t get lost in the background which could’ve happened. I also decided to use the inverted filter on photoshop which transforms the photo so that the colours are changed to be the opposite so the black would be white and the white becomes black. I thought that this is similar to an old picture you would find of a jellyfish due to the way the bag is also positioned which can link into Anthropocene by showing how the environment is always going to be effected by plastic pollution due to how this photo has an old look to it.

Editing photo 4 –

Experiment 1)

For this edit, I also started off by using the spot healing brush on photoshop to tidy up the photo where there may have been marks on it. I also wanted to bring out the colours of the plastic bag and to achieve this I used the magenta filter mainly on the channel mixer which made the colour gradually become more defined and to make sure it was secure in keeping this colour I adjusted the Vibrancy as well. I then decided to crop the photo twice throughout this process as I didn’t like how much extra space of white there was and I decided to zoom in. If I were to edit this photo again, I wouldn’t zoom in as much as I did because when I was experimenting with it with other photos and techniques the photo appeared to be quite blurry which I didn’t like.

Experiment 2)

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For these edits I used the hue and saturation tool to change the colour of the image in various ways and then used the channel mixer to help brighten up these colours. I really like how 1 and 2 turned out as the colours don’t merge into a massive surface area and the finer details of the creases are still able to seen and don’t get lost in the photo. I don’t like how edit 3 turned out when changing it into black and white and think that it isn’t as successful as the others through manipulating the colour of it because it turned out to be more grey instead of black which doesn’t contrast as well against the white as it gets lost in the photo.

Further editing of both photos and others –

Experiment 1)

I enjoyed experimenting with this technique of layering 2 different photos in my work because I think that the use of them being inverted shows how they can create a successful contrast against each other and create the sense of an optical illusion when looking at the photo. I think that I have successfully been able to line up the photo each time to show how it gradually gets smaller and smaller but keeping consistent in lining up with the one previously.

Experiment 2)

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I enjoyed experimenting with double exposure and I think that these 2 edits turned out to be quite successful because Double Exposure 1 creates the image of a flower through using an image I have edited previously as a base then layering this on top and changing the opacity of the image on photoshop, it can symbolise how the impact of Anthropocene is making the natural environment fade away. For Double Exposure 2, I think that it turned out quite well through using 2 different pictures on top of each other then faded into each other as it has created a cross in the middle through the merging of the layers and plastic, I think that this can symbolise how we need to stop and think about the dangerous effects of plastic pollution.

For my third and final main image I decided to head over to photoshop and test out some features such as, invert, find edges, pixelate and vibrance. This idea doesn’t have any inspiration from any artist.

To begin, I tested out features to try and make the house stand out more in the image. Firstly I changed the whole photo to the colour scheme of black and white because it is much more effective on this type of image.

Next, I picked out 4 filters/ features and had to decide which one I am going to work with:

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After trying to decide which one I preferred the most I ended up choosing the colour effect. I chose this because it makes the image a lot more interesting and eye-appealing with a different style of editing. I do really like the colour effect because it creates an unnatural feeling towards viewers.

I also tested out other filters such as ripple but I don’t think it was effective as the colour effect. Ripple experiment:

I decided to try and mix 3 effects together and experiment whether it would look more intriguing. I also, tried to mix just two of the effects together to see the outcome. Here’s how they turned out:

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After making a hard decision I chose to pick the image with only the colour effect with black and white because it looks very clean and basic but stands out very well.

Final outcome:

Evaluation:

Overall, I am very happy with the way this image turned out because I feel this is a very good response towards the topic of Anthropocene. The colour in the image presents a man made structure however the black and white presents how nature has been damaged from human life.

For my experiments I want to make a collection of 3 images that can be displayed together as a tryptic or alone and be just as effective and thought provoking.

First experiment wave overlay

For my first experiment I took an image from my 3rd shoot inspired by Marco Mori and his reusable fashion shoot to create this image:

for this image I used a PNG off google of a wave crashing to help show the effects that fashion has on the ocean I think this image is effective as it helps show how chemical waste and plastic debris from fashion ends up polluting the sea

Images I used for my second edit multi exposure

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for this image I used two of my images from my Vilde Rolfsen inspired shoot and one from my Marco Mori shoot to create the feeling that you’re looking through a plastic bag in order to emote how fashion can feel suffocating to society. through a multi-exposure image.

Third experiment

I took my image into photoshop and used a PNG of this blue fabric to create a mask over the models face and then I turned the opacity of the PNG layer down so I could rub out the excess of the image so it lays flat on the models face.

I wasn’t happy with my original composition so I went back and focused on fixing the awkward section around the mouth area until I was happy with my final image.

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This edit was inspired by Craig McDeans mask image that I analysed in my artist reference.

Evaluation of experimentation

Over all I’m pleased with my final experimentation outcomes as I managed to achieve what I set out to do. Something I would do differently next time would be insure that I take more similar photos that I can edit in succession and take my own photos to use as overlays instead of relying on PNGs to edit my images, However relevance to my topic was achieved and overall I think these are good images that correlate with the theme of Anthropocene through fashion.

My process

After reviewing my images, I have decided to move away from the idea of Laura Romero and Anastasia Savinova’s collages, and more into the documentary photography of my studied artists: Peter Mitchell, and Sharon O’Neill. However, I am still interested in the idea of compiling my images in a collage, so am still influenced by my collage artists. The aim of my photographs is to show the reality of the housing crisis, and evidence of the strong class and wealth divide in the island – my editing will not hide or ‘sugar-coat’ anything in my pictures. I am planning to edit some of my images in Black and White, and some in colour, with a grainy look that emulates my chosen artists’ work, a lot of which is from the 80s/90s, so was taken on film cameras.

Further evaluation of my shoots and their relevance

In the end, as I have changed my idea and moved away from the idea of including industrial buildings, my shoot of finance and other industrial buildings are probably not going to be used in my final outcomes for Anthropocene. – this includes my images of the abandoned warehouse. This is because, after researching the housing crisis further, and with my interest in documenting this issue increasing, they became less relevant to my idea. I want to produce carefully linked work that shows a clear outcome from my chosen ideas and pictures, so therefore I chose not to use my images of industrial buildings. However, I do not regret carrying out these photoshoots, as they allowed me to choose what I thought was going to work within my project, and then develop this into a further photoshoot.

Edits from my first photoshoot: The cedars, Le Marais, and Marina Court

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This edit is from Le Marais. I chose this image as one of my best images and to edit it due to the strong lines within the image – I also love the sense of repetition in the lines of windows in this image. In my editing, I used Lightroom to change my image to black and white, as well as adding higher contrast to the image. I think that adding contrast and adding shadow was important for this image – it helped to keep the harsh lines and repetition clear and sharp, which was important for me as they are what makes the image successful.

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Due to the high contrast between the sky and the building in this image, I wanted to enhance this further in my editing. I did this by increasing the contrast, but most importantly adjusting shadows, and adding whites. This meant that the areas of white, the sky and windows of the building, remained bright, but the darker areas stood out with high contrast at the same time.

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I chose this image as one of my selections/to edit, due to the way the light hits on the left of the building, but not the right – this creates a contrast between the sides of the image, between light and dark which I really like. In my editing, I wanted to keep this light vs dark in the image, so did not increase the contrast too much – I added a little exposure too, to ensure the bright parts of the images stayed exposed correctly with the added contrast.

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I used heavy cropping in this image – I think this helped the image’s composition a lot, as the eye is drawn purely to the sky, which takes the focus away from the actual building. Therefore, I think my cropping was effective in removing unwanted distraction in this image.

De Quetteville Images

Below are some examples of editing – completed on develop mode, in Lightroom Classic.

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This image of my third photoshoot is one of my favourites from my shoot at De Quetteville Court – I used slight cropping in this image to make sure that the bushes framed the house, which I think worked best compositionally. – I used high contrast and low exposure, but upped the whites slightly to enhance the darker parts of the images but also to keep the white of the door and building behind bright and intense. I think this helped the cohesiveness of the image – the new building looked starkly different in the original, but with my editing, it blends quietly into the background – this creates a soft comparison between the old, dilapidated estate, and the new, modern tower behind.

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For this edit, the door had a really vibrant blue colour, as well as some purple flowers at the bottom which toned nicely with the blue – because of this, I edited in colour as well for this photo – I produced two edits using virtual copies in Lightroom.

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This edit and the one below are my two deadpan style images from this series – I used black and white again for these, but slightly more muted – I kept the exposure and whites up, to ensure the image didn’t get too dark as I added contrast and blacks.

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In this edit, I wanted to focus on the details in the image – I did this by using high contrast, but also using texture and clarity to ensure the fine details in this image stand out.

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In this image, cropping in my editing was very important. I wanted the main focal point of this image to be the door, so I cropped the image in tighter – I left a little of the leaves to the side, as the darkness of the leaves when in black and white toned in well with the darkness of the door and fence – therefore I think cropping and editing in Black and white for this image made all the parts work more cohesively together.

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Due to the strong sense of geometric shape and line in this image, I thought that editing in black and white with high contrast would fit well – the sense of line and shape in this image was strengthened by the use of clarity, texture, and contrasting blacks and whites.

Other examples of my editing

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Evaluation of my editing

Overall, for this project, I think my editing was quite successful. As I was editing, I thought about each particular part of an image, and how the different parts would work together with different editing tools. I think that black and white was the right choice with my types of images – the high contrasted nature of my edits helped to highlight the strong sense of line and repetition in my images, as well as helping to contrast the light and dark elements of my images, which were often strong. These pictures were taken on overcast days, which produced bright and sometimes overexposed images – editing in black and white helped this, as it blended the blacks and whites in the whole image, not just highlighting overexposure in one area.

Links to my theme and artist references

I think that my editing links well to my idea of documenting the reality of the housing crisis – black and white allowed me to show the plain reality of my area I was photographing, without glossing over anything or hiding any ‘unwanted’ parts of my images. My work I think links closely with the work and comparisons of Sharon O’Neill. – both the images she was comparing to, and hers. Even though Sharon was comparing time directly in her series, by using archive images from the architect of the building, and I did not use direct comparisons, I think that my work still comments on the passing of time, and ‘desirability’ or ‘undesirability’ of an area, like Sharon O’neill did, – I showed how buildings that used to be ‘desirable’ when built, have now been discarded, overtaken by newer buildings – showing evidence of the lives of those who lived in flats, and also the architecture of those still lived in with my images from housing estates not abandoned.

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Furthermore, although my images are not edited in colour, I think the deadpan style and angles, as well as the actual subjects, link very closely to Peter Mitchell. However, after comparing my image with Peter’s, I realise that to mimic his style of shooting, I should have used less zoom on my images, with the whole building in shot. However, I think that the theme of Peter Mitchell’s work, photographing the mundane, links heavily to my work – I tried to inspire my work by his in this aspect, by photographing the mundane reality of what parts of St Helier look like as a result of the growing housing crisis and wealth divide.

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For this idea i am going to be using photos telling a story of rapid urbanisation and the left overs of the past generations and how the world is rapidly changing leaving the past behind i will be using YVES MARCHAND & ROMAIN MEFFRE as my artist reference because they photograph derelict buildings which i feel links with this strongly

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CONTACT SHEETS

my idea – my idea is to use photos of derelict buildings and also building sites to show the speed of which our world is urbanising and changing

what i did

i started by narrowing down my images to a select few for this series

i then took the photos into light room for some editing

i decided to do something different to my artis reference by making the images black and white i then ruther edited in more detail to get the right final image

then repeating this for each one i was left with my final images

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Evaluation & Comparison

overall i was happy with this idea and how it turned out I feel that i worked well with the theme of Anthropocene portraying the humans impact on the world and what’s around us which i thought to be a good way of showing this how ever i did change slightly to YVES MARCHAND & ROMAIN MEFFRE as there images are predominantly colour i decided to use black and white for my final images

photos in response to Charlotta María Hauksdóttir’ and George marazakis

This image is in response to George Marazkis and Charlottas work. For this image I wanted to bring out the purple and yellow tones.I did this by increasing the saturation, decreasing the exposure to enhance the water dropping, and increasing the contrast to show the shar formations of the rocks.

This image is in response to George Marazkis and Charlottas work due to the serenity and awe of the natural landscape. firstly I reduced the exposure and increased the contrast to emphasise the different natural colouring in the rocks underneath the waterfall. I then lowered the highlights so that you could clearly see the rock and sand formations. i wanted this image to be slightly darker so that the gave looked like it could go on forever.

This image was also a response to George Marazkis and Charlottas work. In this image i wanted to reduce the brightness of the sky, due to it being a cloudy midday. However i chose to take this image on a cloudy day to create an ominous, dreamy effect. I then increased the contrast slightly so the rocks were more pronounced.

I am going to take this image into photoshop and distort it to make it look futuristic and almost like an optical illusion. I increased the contrast to make the sky appear more blue and increase the reflection.

photos in response to Andrew Moore

I kept this photo black and white to show the brightly coloured swimming pool, almost how it is viewed in a child’s eyes. i increased the contrast slightly to saturate the tiles around the pool. I also decreased the exposure to dim the whites slightly.

for this image i put it into black and white, to me this image is quite chaotic, which i quite enjoy. I decreased the highlights to that you can see the dirt on the tables.

this is another image which I find quite chaotic. I put this in black and white because the image is originally quite dull, apart from the overgrown green weeds. I decreased the exposure slightly and increased the contrast to show the shadows in this image better.

I wanted to keep this image in colour due to the bright blue from behind the windows. i increased the contrast and decreased the exposure to emphasize the wallpaper on the left of the image.

For this image I increased the saturation to highlight the fire extinguishers in the centre, and decrease the exposure and increased the contrast slightly so that it was the main focal point of the image.

for this image I decreased the exposure and increased the contrast so that the light hitting the washing machine was cooler. i also decreased the highlights so that the whites in the image were dimmed.

for this image I wanted to make the back in the window more clearer. I changed the image to black and white and decreased the exposure and increased the contrast so that the window almost looks like a painting or a television.

This idea was heavily inspired by Laura Romero and her topic ‘Intervals’ which is a combined image of multiple buildings/ structures to create one main building. I chose to use her ideas because of how aesthetically pleasing all of her work turns out. Also, the buildings she uses presents the idea of Anthropocene through the man made structures all being combined together. For my image I am going to try to accurately replicate one of her images with my own photos of buildings by using photoshop.

To begin I chose out 7 images that involved some sort of building linked to the topic of Anthropocene and made sure they would fit well within this edit.

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After correctly positioning my images I changed the opacity of each layer to try and seem as if each building slightly fades into one another. The use of changing the opacity helped the overall product really come together and link well. I put most layer opacity to 85-90% except for the building that are positioned upside down where I put the opacity lower as the buildings travel down.

I then tried to experiment with different colour backgrounds to try and see if it would make it more effective. Here’s how some turned out:

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After seeing the results I quite liked the background colour being a light blue but still didn’t think it was as effective as the previous white background. Also, I think the pink background creates a vibrant and eye appealing effect towards the viewer due to the pink being the only vibrant colour displayed. I decided to keep the white background because of the blend it creates towards the structures.

Final outcome:

I really like the way my image has turned out through the inspiration of Laura Romero as I think it looks pretty similar to her style of work. I decided to add a black border around the image because it contrasts a great effect onto the main image focus.

Image comparison:

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As you can see, mine and Lauras image have some similar features and some differences. In my image I added a black border around the image (side border has been cut-off by the blog) because it makes the image stand out more compared to Lauras. Also, Lauras image seems to have smooth edges with a slight fixed shape without many rough edges, however mine hasn’t been positioned together the same and has rough and uneven edges. Lauras image has buildings that are faded together nicely with mine only having buildings that overlay each other with a decreased opacity. My image has buildings that are industrial and cause harm to the world and Lauras has buildings that seem to be derelict on unused which can be noticed through the boarded up windows and the state of the buildings.

YVES MARCHAND & ROMAIN MEFFRE-

Marchand (b.1981) and Meffre (b.1987) live and work in Paris. Initially pursuing photography individually, they met online in 2002 and started working together with the beginning of their Detroit project in 2005. Steidl published The Ruins of Detroit in 2010. A second printing is planned for later this year. They are currently completing their Gunkanjima book, also to be published by Steidl, and they continue to work on a project documenting American theaters that have either fallen into decay or been transformed entirely. Their work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and has been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, The British Journal of Photography, Time Magazine, amongst others.

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i feel this strongly links with the current theme of Anthropocene due to his photography being about derelict buildings which are relics of time showing humans impact on the land around them and to not even be used and to just sit there

Artist References

My 4 primary artist references were: