Gabriele Basilico

The self-proclaimed “measurer of space” was born in Milan in 1944. He originally pursued the career of an architect, however was unsuccessful. As a photographer, he started out with landscapes, later shifting his focus to architectural photography due to his previous study of the subject. He received international fame in 1982 for his photographic report of the development of industrial areas in Milan,  “Ritratti di Fabbriche, Sugarco“. His work even helped to document events of war on the Lebanese capital of Beirut. He is regarded as one of the most famous Italian photographers ever due to his great number of locations he has worked in.

Gabriele Basilico

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Ansel Adams

Some consider him to be the grandfather of landscape photography. His work is widely known as it is some of the first of its kind. I would enjoy trying to replicate his work. He was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. He and Fred Archer developed an exacting system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a deeply technical understanding of how tonal range is recorded and developed during exposure, negative development, and printing. The resulting clarity and depth of such images characterized his photography. My only planned reference to him thus far will be to use his method of manipulating the sky. He used a technique to make the sky appear much darker than what was authentic. I like this effect as it adds a depth of mystery to the images.

Website link

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Frank Gohlke

Frank Gohlke is an American landscape photographer. 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. During a career spanning nearly five decades, Gohlke has photographed grain elevators in the American midwest; the aftermath of a 1979 tornado in his hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas; changes in the land around Mount St. Helens during the decade following its 1980 eruption; agriculture in central France; and the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan. Due to these varied areas of speciality, I believe that Gohlke is a suitable and interesting Artist reference who could help influence some of my work.

https://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/frank-gohlke

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Tomás Cambas

Tomás Cambas was born in Buenos Aires on August 17, 1989.
He is a graduate of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires. He studied photography at the David Beniluz School. He conducted a work clinic with Eduardo Gil, Juan Travnik, Santiago Porter and Alberto Goldenstein. He was selected for the 2014, 2015 and 2017 editions of the National Fund for the Arts “Francisco Ayerza” awards, for the “Itaú Cultural de Artes Visuales” award in 2016, and for the “Arte x Arte” award at the 2018. He was also selected in the same year for the Luz del Norte award. In 2019 he was selected for the UNNE Award for Visual Arts. Currently, he studies Plastic Arts at the University of Buenos Aires and attends a construction clinic with Walter Barrios.He lives and works in Buenos Aires. Personally, I find Cambas’ “The Square Kingdom” collection the most interesting, due to the colour variations and contrast. His use of simple, yet intriguing areas to photograph will most definitely be an influence to my imagery.

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https://www.riseart.com/artist/39938/tomas-cambas

Image Analysis

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Adams

This style of imagery has a very strong impact, a result of the strong angles and contrasting colours, even though the image is black and white. There is a visible clash between the dark sky and the white snow, a feature of photographs I will try to replicate. The scale of this image is also executed very well.

Cambas

The use of colour here is very interesting. The subtle dark maroon and black are perfectly sided by the hint of green spray paint, resulting in a powerful photograph I am hoping to include in my work.

Basilico

The wide-angled lens used to take this photograph has provided a different meaning to how I see this image overall. On the left there is what looks to be a paved road which has been moderately looked after, but on the other side there seems to e a back alley that has not been touched by humans whatsoever in years. As a result of this, the bushes are overgrown and the road now contains potholes. A contrast between two very opposite sides.

Gohlke

This image shows a small village in the middle of a desert with an open sky overhead. There are huge railroad tracks striking through the middle of the image, which is clearly where the artist wants our attention to be drawn. Other than this, the rest of the image is rather empty.

I imported these photos of my 1st photoshoot on to Adobe Lightroom where I was able to view them and decide whether they were successful photos or not. I used ‘Z’ to reject the photos which I didn’t think were good and ‘P’ to pick the ones which I think were good and what I could go further with in editing, I am glad with how most of these photos have turned out while working in the style of Vilde Rolfsen.

During this photoshoot, I created a plain white ‘infinity curve‘ background with some card which I had and this allowed me to be able to experiment with f-stop and ISO while in darker lighting as it provided a clean and plain background. In my work, I also used a flashlight underneath the layered coloured plastic bags to create a main point of the photo, which creates a tunnel effect and I think that it has worked well in most of my photos.

Least successful photos –

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These photos are the ones which I think are my least successful, this is because of the camera settings not being right for the lighting settings, which can make the photos appear grainy due to the dark lightning which can be seen in the first 10-15 photos as I was experimenting with the different camera settings on my camera to see what worked well with the lighting,

I used forced, harsh lighting in my photos which can be seen through pictures 148-168 but I didn’t like how it made the colours seem dim and created a yellow tone throughout them.

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A few of the photos also came out blurry or too overexposed due to the use of the flashlight which I didn’t like as it washed out the photo and the creases of the plastic bags, which was a small detail I really liked due to the effect which it adds to the photo, wasn’t defined enough as I was too close and the camera lens wasn’t able to focus effectively due to this.

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At the end from photos 157-181, I also experimented with taking photos of the rolls of plastic bags which I had but I didn’t like the way any of these photos had turned out because of the lighting which I was using which made it appear grainy and created a yellow tone, which I explained beforehand. If I were to do this photoshoot again I would make sure that the lighting is either dark with minimal light or bright, natural light as I think that it would create a lighter, less forced effect on the photos which still makes the colours vibrant and pop out, which I really liked.

Most successful photos –

These photos are what I have chosen to be my most successful towards the theme of ‘Anthropocene’ in the style of Vilde Rolfsen on to edit on Adobe Lightroom because of how they have focussed while I was taking them, creating the effect of a tunnel which is what I wanted to do, which can be seen in photos 72-75 and 86-85.

I also like the way the crinkles in the photos have created the effect of a crystal/marble/ice tunnel or caves which you can find in certain places of the world due to the use of the colours which I chose to put together and layer with the coloured plastic bags as I thought that they would work well in creating this effect, this can be seen in the photos above.

I think that I also successfully created a whirlpool effect, which is also another idea which I wanted to experiment with while carrying out this photoshoot and I think that can effectively be seen through photos 1, 2, 3, and 57-60 as the creases and positioning of the plastic bags which I have done creates a swirling motion which I really like that can link back to the Anthropocene and how the rubbish is effecting the ocean yet we are just letting it stir and stir, creating this whirlpool motion.

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Here is some more information on different caves which I have discussed.

To edit these photos further in Adobe Lightroom, I will choose 4 which I think are the most successful and experiment with the lighting and making them darker/lighter which will control the lighting in some places and make the finer details, such as creases, more defined and able to be seen clearer so that they don’t get lost as I think that they add an extra level of effect to the photo as they help in creating all of the different shapes, and then I will also bring them into Photoshop where I will layer them on top of each other through changing the opacity of the photos.

For this photoshoot I used a plain white background to ensure that I could achieve the best lighting possible using artificial lighting. I also tried to play with the aperture and ISO settings to allow the most depth in the images I created.

For my second shoot I ended up only having 49 images inspired by Vilde Rolfsen these are the images after being imported into Lightroom

These are the images that I decided to keep and the ones I didn’t before applying the flagged filter to only show the images from the shoot I wish to edit

unsuccessful images

I think theses images are unsuccessful for a number of reasons as the camera settings weren’t quite right, I don’t like the composition of them or lighting being odd in some areas of the images which draw negative attention and reduce overall depth to the image. over all I think these images didn’t capture the swirl essence that Vield Rolfsen captures

After I imported the images I refined my selection using P and X and ended up with 23 images that I liked from my shoot

Then set up a staring system from 1-5 which now meant I have the 13 strongest images from my shoot which I then went on to edit in develop mode

For this shoot I used bubble wrap and black tool fabric to attempt to portray the damages of the fashion industry on the planet I took these photos against a cobble wall to give a more defined feel to the model and the props in the images I also took some simple portraits to edit later on in photoshop.

I had 139 images from my first shoot inspired by Craig McDean after being imported into Lightroom before I began the editing process.

Then I refined my selection using P and X which left me with 50 images to begin the staring process

unsuccessful images

I think these images are unsuccessful do to being unfocused and have been taken with the wrong settings at the wrong angels or composition is off to what I was hoping to achieve.

These are the images before I do a star rating for 1-5 for this shoot

These are the top images I’ve selected from this shoot all being 5 stars on the star rating before I begin my editing process in develop mode.

PHOTOSHOOT #1

My first photoshoot involved going to a derelict hotel and taking photographs of anything that interested me- when doing this photoshoot I kept Jeff Wall’s “The Destroyed Room” in my head as immediate inspiration however as Wall’s image was staged I struggled to find rooms which were not empty and had the depth that Wall’s image had.

PHOTOSHOOT #2

My second photoshoot involved walking through St Helier, St Clements and St Johns to find images more connected to a new topographics subject- so houses and buildings with a banal aesthetic which remind me of Joel Sternfeld’s work. This photoshoot ended up being a lot smaller than the first one as I realised I wanted to explore the nature of derelict buildings and abandonment instead of new topographics- using Joel Sternfeld’s colour aesthetics in my work.

Contact Sheets

After completing my photoshoots, I imported my photos into Lightroom Classic, into my folders for the topic of Anthropocene. – I have one folder for shoot 1 – housing, and one for shoot 2 – buildings.

Shoot 1

In my first photoshoot, I took photos of housing blocks and estates: Le Marais, St Clements, and St Helier – the two blocks of flats I photographed in St Helier were next to the tunnel and next to the bus station.

These pictures are from a block of flats near the bus station. I found that for photographing housing, using a portrait orientation worked better for a more balanced composition in my images, however landscape worked also with a larger zoom (picture 22).

These images were taken from outside a block of flats next to the tunnel in St Helier. The pictures started off great but the weather began to impact my images, so I had to stop (pictures 56 and onwards are impacted by the rain)

These images are of the same block of flats next to the tunnel in St Helier. – the weather impacted my shoot a little here with rain getting on the lens – I had to stop my shoot as I was worried about my camera, and I continued my shoot again later in the same location, as I liked the quality of the pictures, just not the weather conditions. From about picture 85 onwards was my second attempt at photographing these flats. – I was happy with my second attempt at this shoot, and I think that the moody skies help to add contrast and shadow to my images.

These pictures are of the three blocks of flats at Le Marais. I started off photographing them from afar, as I wanted to show the difference between these huge towers and the nature in the fields right next to them – I think I captured this contrast quite well in images 122 to 134. Then, I went into the estate itself to capture the blocks closer up. I found an angle pointing up to the sky, a high angle, achieved some great shots, as I think it emphasises the size of the block. I also liked the more zoomed in shots, as they created a more abstract image, focusing on the regular pattern of the windows.

Here I took more pictures of Le marais, featuring more of the whole buildings – I want to use these as the outlines of my collages in the style of Laura Romero possibly. Also, from picture 183 onwards I took pictures of another block of flats, which were not far from Le Marais, next to the lighthouse.

Evaluation

Overall, I am quite happy with this shoot. I think capturing the more tired and dilapidated areas of housing is important in relation to Anthropocene is important, as a lot of these flats with not be in place for much longer – they are all soon to be renovated and some turned into higher rise, more modern blocks of flats. I’m therefore pleased with my choices of location for this shoot as I think these areas show how the population of the island is increasing the buildings higher and higher, but to also show how places like Le Marais seem slightly forgotten, and neglected. – the housing crisis is putting more and more stress on social housing, which I wanted to show through this photoshoot. I wish I had taken more pictures of the buildings as a whole however, as these will be useful to use as my outlines / bases for my collages.

Shoot 2

In my second photoshoot, I took pictures of industrial buildings, both modern and run down / abandoned.

Here I photographed the finance buildings near the bus station and the waterfront. I had trouble getting the correct angle with a few of these images, meaning I often ended up with wonky images – however I aim to fix this in my editing.

More images of the finance / industrial buildings near the bus station – I tried to capture the differences between buildings next to each other, to include in my collages later on (picture 66 to 73 for example).

Photos of Ann Street Brewery : I had some trouble with under/over exposure when photographing the old brewery – I experimented with ISO on manual mode until I found the right one – wrong ISO – picture 116, 117, and 118, fixed ISO, 119 onwards.

These are more images of Ann Street brewery, and the surrounding housing, some of which was disused, about to be demolished – this really interested me, and I think this area created some images that will be successful in my collages / final outcomes. For example the graffiti (123) which Anastasia Savinova uses in her work.

More images from my Ann Street location – these were quite successful, for example 135 – 140, of the new housing block amongst the old, and the back of the brewery (147).

These images were taken at the derelict Department for Infrastructure building next to Fort Regent. I mainly chose to photograph this building for the patterns of the boarded up windows – I plan to incorporate different types of pattern with windows from different buildings in my collages. I found this building quite difficult to photograph how I wanted as there was fencing around it – I tried to use this fencing in my images (picture 250 – 257 for example), but if I was to do this shoot again, I could have maybe found a way around this fencing to photograph the building from the angles I originally wanted.

Evaluation

I have mixed opinions about my second photoshoot – I think the photos of the finance buildings around the Esplanade and the bus station could have been better – if I was to do the shoot again I could maybe use a tripod to ensure straight and clear images, as a lot of mine were wonky at this location. However, I was quite pleased with my images from Ann Street – I found this area very interesting to photograph, as all of these semi abandoned housing blocks behind the brewery were right next to the new, modern developments – I think this showed how some parts of Jersey are just completely forgotten by the government. This was completely new to me (the area) and in hindsight, wish I had taken more images.

Photoshoot 3 – development of last 2 shoots

After selecting my best images and evaluating my past two shoots, I decided to research more on the housing crisis, and the overdevelopment in the island. – I decided to re visit one location from my second photoshoot, at De Quetteville Court. I previously photographed this area, but focused on the old brewery next to it. After my first photoshoot in this area, I was intrigued – the new block of flats has been built, but sits next to the old flats and houses, which have laid empty for some time now. I wanted to photograph these, to highlight the waste of vacant properties on the island, as I researched, as well as how the housing crisis puts more and more pressure on social housing to keep improving and changing. This leaves the dated, vacated buildings behind – I wanted to document this through my development of my ideas in my third photoshoot.

I photographed the old estate at De Quetteville court, the surrounding streets, and also an abandoned warehouse.

In my images of the vacated estate, I wanted to take deadpan images of the houses (pictures 58, 54, 70), to show how they have been left, still with posters in windows, and windows open, but boarded up and bare – this contrast was something I wanted to show in my images.

More pictures of the estate – I was also interested in how nature has taken over in some of these images, with flowers growing into windows and fences, despite the large amount of grey and concrete everywhere (pictures 120,117).

My final images of the estate – I then moved to a disused apartment building and warehouse – I had trouble with straight images again here, as I could not get to the angle I wanted to, due to the location.

Evaluation

Overall, I think this was a successful addition to my collection of photos for this project – my added research into the housing crisis helped inform my decisions, like going back to an area such as De Quetteville after researching its’ history and refurbishment. It was helpful feeling like I was actually commenting on an issue within the island, that I felt strongly about, rather than just taking pictures with no meaning behind them.

Abandoned locations and abstract signs of decay

What I did for my first photoshoot was headed towards St Catherine’s Bay and around the area, I began to notice a few abandoned and decollate places such as an abandoned shed or hut covered with greenery. I wanted to photograph this in particular as I thought it displayed the sense of nature fighting back against the structure that was built on top of it. I soon came across an abandoned looking warehouse near the government house, which displayed some clear signs of aging. Soon I began to explore St. Saviours which is where I came across the abandoned looking greenhouse that I enjoyed the look of.

Another area I decided to visit was this abandoned pub that lies near the industrial tanks and the recycling unit. I visited this area once before during my urban landscape photoshoots as I was also exploring slightly abandoned structures. This place in particular, I thought would be a perfect photo opportunity to take more abstract photoshoots, following the inspiration of Aaron Siskind. Along the esplanade road, I also discovered an abandoned home that I decided to photograph, which was extremely run down and contained falling pieces and a teeming amount of plants that were consuming the view of the building.

For my photoshoots, I would most likely follow a similar style to that of Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre as I particularly enjoy their style of photography. They make abandoned places look quite lifeless and decrepit, almost displaying a somewhat dystopian location.

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————- Rejected and flagged images ————-

Flagged images:

———— Colour coded and star rated images ————

These are all the images that I have colour coded and added a star rating to. The photos I have here are my final selection for me to choose between, and I have flagged and rejected the images that I took throughout my entire photoshoot.

My green labelled images here, showcase a range of different areas and close up, almost abstract patterns from decaying sections of buildings and other materials I discovered. I particularly liked how these images turned out compared to many of the images highlighted in my yellow, colour coded section and the red section too. They display a somewhat, dystopian sense to them, presenting that nature is still a very prominent aspect of life and will continue to fight back against the urban areas.

Here I have my yellow labelled images which once again, display a variety of different focal points, although, some of these images haven’t been as successful as my green ones. A few of the images, which I labelled as yellow, I will be using however, as I enjoy the result of a couple. They link to the theme I am trying to achieve with my images when presenting Anthropocene. I will have to do a bit of editing however, to get them to a degree which I find acceptable.

Finally, I have my red labelled images which didn’t turn out quite like I wanted them to. I ended up highlighting these as being my unsuccessful shoots. They were either quite blurry, didn’t show the message of Anthropocene in Jersey, or just weren’t particularly exciting photos. They didn’t capture the vision I was going for

Best images:

Industrial landmarks and pollution

What I did for my first photoshoot was I visited the recycling centre in town, where I got the opportunity to photograph all the waste that had been thrown away by many people. I thought this was a perfect way to capture the sense of Anthropocene as it really shows that man-made items and objects, get easily disposed of and cause for pollution to resonate. Electrical items, metal and other materials, are very difficult to dispose of, so they must be incinerated which causes for pollution to occur in the air, damaging the environment as we know it. I wanted to focus on capturing the incinerated pile of debris and also the broken items that had been thrown into the massive heaps of rubbish.

I then continued to take photos around the same area but moving more towards the composting unit next. Around that area, I began to spot zones that contained abandoned and broken down cars that clearly looked unfixable. I wanted to capture how easily they’ve been disposed of, showing that humans tend to use up extremely polluting items in such a short period of time.

Soon after leaving these sites, I continued to stay among the same area but decided to head down the side of where more industrial tanks and machinery was. Trying to mainly keep the structures central and remain as the focal point of the entire photograph.

Artists that I would particularly like to use as my focus for this photoshoot is Edward Burtynsky who dives into the world of industrial photography. His series of photographs that he took whilst in China, display a perfect sense of industrial pipes and manufacturing units that damage the environment around us. I would also like to take on Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher as my other inspiration who I created an artist study on in my previous topic ‘Urban Landscape’.

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————- Rejected and flagged images ————-

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flagged images:

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———— Colour coded and star rated images ————

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Here I have all the images that I have colour coded and added a star rating to. These are the narrowed down selection that I have flagged and rejected from my entire photoshoot.

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My green labelled images display a variety of different areas among the location I decided to carry my shoot out in. I particularly liked how these images turned out as I believed that they highlight the sense of Anthropocene more, showing the heavy impact humans have on the environment.

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My yellow labelled images display once again, a variety of different focal points, but some of them haven’t envisioned exactly what I wanted to achieve. A few of the images, which I labelled as yellow, I will use, but I will have to do a bit of manipulating to get them to a degree which I find acceptable.

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My red labelled images didn’t turn out quite like I wanted so I have highlighted these as being my unsuccessful shoots. They were either quite blurry, didn’t show the message of Anthropocene in Jersey, or just weren’t particularly exciting photos.

Best images:

Photoshoot 1:

For my first photoshoot, I would like to focus on photographing industrial based areas and landmarks that include pollution that was caused by factories and human manufacturing.

Photoshoot 2:

For my second photoshoot, I would like to focus on taking photos of abandoned buildings and destinations, looking for locations that contain plant-ridden structures just to symbolise that nature is fighting back against the man-made structures.

This was my first photoshoot of my Anthropocene project. I went to AAl’s recycling centre at la Collette in order to photoshoot his new wash plant that is used to clean waste materials from demolition sites and make it a useable material that is sold off to other companies and private projects.

I followed my photoshoot plan and managed to get many photos in the short time i was granted access.

I went through all my images from my La Collette photoshoot 1 and selected any pictures that i believe had potential.

Next i used the rating tool in order to narrow my images down even more in order to distinguish images that can be my finals. i used 3, 4 and 5 stars. I only selected images rated 4 or 5 stars to continue in the selection proses.

My next method of image selection was using colour coding to see which images are the best. Red is the images that will not make the final cut, yellow is the images that i will keep available incase i do decide to use them and green are the images that i am going to develop into my final images.

After consideration of my highly rated pictures i have decided that these 9 images will be my final images for this photoshoot.

Final Images

For all of my Final Images i have increased the texture and the clarity. I feel that this gives the effect of industrialisation and shows the industry that these machines are working in as well as what they are creating.

Black and White

I also developed each of my best images in black and white in order to provide some more contrast between the colours. However i still believe that the images in colour look better.

Photo Gallery

Evaluation

Overall I am very happy with my first shoot. I was lucky to get the opportunity to photograph this private facility. I was given a tour of the wash plant that allowed me to get to all areas of the plant however many of these images did not work out. This was due to the images of the inner workings of the machine meaning very little without the context of the rest of the machine and wouldn’t mean anything to a viewer who had not seen the entire machine at work. However images taken outside of components that are clearly recognisable such as the diggers that load or the conveyor belt came out as some really nice images.