Peter Mitchell

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Peter Mitchell, born in 1943, has been quietly building a career for 40 years. Living and working in Leeds for much of his life, Mitchell treats his surrounding with a unique sense of care that is evident in his work. An essential part of the colour documentary scene in the 1970s and ‘80s, Mitchell’s landmark show A New Refutation of the Space Viking 4 Mission at Impressions Gallery in 1979 has had an immeasurable impact on contemporary photographic culture. Mitchell has never been a prolific publisher of work; 1990’s Memento Mori examined the dramatic impact of the Quarry Hill redevelopment project in Leeds and his long overdue monograph, Strangely Familiar, published in 2013, features formal portraits of Leed’s people and their places of work. Mitchell’s latest work, Some Thing means Everything to Somebody, is an eccentric autobiography told through inanimate objects silently observed by scarecrows. By pairing an intensely personal collection with the symbolic ‘Everyman’, Mitchell has produced something that is not only autobiographical but the representation of what a lifetime can mean.

“It is as if Peter Mitchell has taken the atmosphere and mood of Edward Hopper’s famous painting and established it as a matter of documentary fact in the north of England at a moment when collapse can lead to further desolation or possible renewal. So these beautiful pictures are drily drenched in history – social, economic and photographic.”

– Geoff Dyer

Strangely Familiar

In the 1970s, Mitchell was working as a truck driver in the English city of Leeds, and he photographed the city during his rounds. This work depicts the factories and small shop owners of Leeds, all photographed in a very formal manner with the aid of a stepladder.

https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/strangely-familiar/

In 1979, the photographs were shown at Mitchell’s one-person exhibition at Impressions Gallery in York; this was the first landmark color photography exhibition in the UK. The work was later included in the seminal exhibition ‘How We Are: Photographing Britain’ at Tate Britain in 2007. Strangely Familiar presents 47 color plates, beautifully printed on matt paper and playing off of the artist’s accompanying texts. The book opens with an introduction by Martin Parr.

Early Sunday Morning

Early Sunday Morning, edited and sequenced by John Myers, shows a different Leeds to Mitchell’s earlier publications. It is neither the sombre look at destruction seen in Memento Mori, nor the detached view of ‘the man from mars’ of A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, but a more intimate document of Mitchell’s own Leeds.

The book reveals the layers of the city’s history, exposed by the changes to the urban landscape that epitomised the 1970s and 80s. Hundred-year-old terraces and cobbled streets sit flanked by concrete flats, with newly cleared ground to either side are presented with Mitchell’s typical graphic framing. 

Link to my work

Peter Mitchell’s work links to my project as I plan to photograph the mundane, in a documentary style, just like Peter Mitchell. I plan to photograph normal, everyday parts of Jersey that are overlooked by the government

Sharon O’Neill

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Founder Sharon O’Neill is a lens-based artist and curator. Her work and research explore the ordinary world through which the fabric and details of a place or community are revealed. Her work has a strong emphasis on collaboration, particularly with the development and research of archives, both familial and historical and with curating. Sharon has a Master’s Degree in Photography from the University of Brighton and has exhibited nationally as part of an emerging talent exhibition entitled ‘Into View’ with her work being showcased in national and international media.

In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Photo London & Magnum Photos Graduate Photographers Award. In 2016 she received Arts Council funding to bring together a major exhibition Blueprint for Living that was featured as part of the 2016 London Festival of Architecture and supported by RIBA. Alongside her photographic work, Sharon has also spent the majority of her career as a Photo Editor for national newspapers and magazines in which she has commissioned, researched, curated and produced many bodies of work and archives and has extensive knowledge and contacts within the world of photography, journalism and the arts.

The ‘flats’ collection

Part of London County Council’s massive post-war house building programme to provide needed homes for working-class families, the five blocks on The Fitzhugh Estate in Wandsworth were designed by Sir John Leslie Martin, principal architect of the Royal Festival Hall, and completed in 1956.

Through her research and with archive and contemporary photographs, she explores Martin’s themes of modernism, environmentalism and the ‘power’ of a well-designed home to improve everyday life, as demonstrated in his writing and books from the 1930s and the flats built in the 1950s and asks: ‘Has the power of his ideas stood the test of time as the current residents live in the future of his 1930s vision and are there anything we can learn as we begin to emerge from our ‘lockdown’ world?’

Link to my work

60 years after John Leslie Martin completed the Fitzhugh Estate in London, photographer Sharon O’Neill visited to see if the project lived up to its promises. This housing estate was, in post-war Britain, considered a very desirable place to live. – Sharon, 60 years later, went back to the same estate to document how the flats were in the more modern-day. When she went back to photograph, these flats had become an “undesirable” place to live. This was because, in the 1980s, the dismantling of the council housing in the UK began. I want to comment on the “undesirability” in my images, and I like the comparison element of Sharon O’neill’s images. This is why I have chosen to photograph places such as De Quetteville Court, the old (and new) flats which have been replaced with newer, more ‘desirable’ housing. This is not the same comparison, but I am drawing my inspiration for a lot of my project from Sharon O’neill’s work on comparing two pieces of opinion/time.

https://www.dezeen.com/2016/06/19/blueprint-for-living-sharon-oneill-photography-post-war-housing-estate-london-festival-architecture/ – a link to an article about this collection.

Collage Artists

Laura Romero

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Laura Romero is a Spanish artist and photographer, who was born in Madrid in 1976. She now lives in Mexico, where she explores her home environment and surroundings. She began as an artist at 11 with oil paints and drawing. She studied fine arts at University and says in an interview that this was something she always wanted to dedicate herself to, but to combine it with design. She considers her work to be very intimate, as she tells a story with her images about everyday life and everyday experiences. She intends to provoke the audience to take a second closer look at ordinary things that generally go unnoticed.

Her international participation has been outstanding, appearing in art fairs from Hamburg to Istanbul, Madrid, and Paris, among others. Both her individual and her collective work have been exhibited around the world.

“I consider my work to be quite intimate. Under the scope of my own experiences, I elaborate a story about everyday life, I expose situations we all face day to day. My intention is to bait the audience into taking a second, closer, look; it is an invitation to reflect on everything that goes by in our journey unnoticed.”

This image is part of Laura’s collection titled “Intervals”. The tones in this image were mostly muted, but with areas of brighter colours, for example, the bottom of the image to the right of the image, with the bright yellow and blue tones. This blue tone is seen throughout the image also, for example, lower down on the left of the building, and on the top right. These areas create natural links – leading lines in the image. The eye is drawn first of all to the top right, then down to the left, as the hotel sign is the biggest focal point in the image. It is then drawn from each corner slowly back and forth down to the bottom of the image. The white background of the image causes the outlines of the buildings that have been collaged together to stand out, which highlights the irregular shape and layout of the image’s composition. The use of different windows in this image creates a sense of repetition, even if they are all combined from different buildings. With the idea of combining multiple different buildings and placing them on top of each other using multi-exposure effects, the image links to a sense of clutter and overcrowding in this environment, therefore linking it to Anthropocene.

Intervals

https://www.altiba9.com/artist-interviews/laura-romero-digital-photographic-art – a link to an interview with Laura Romero.

The images I plan to use of Laura Romero as my inspiration is from the “Intervals” collection. Laura has been working with her city for a long while. She likes to “question” the territory in which she lives, and through her works, she builds “a new identity”. The cities she works with represent a part of her own identity and the identity of those around her. In her collages, she attempts the reframe and remake the facades of buildings, and society in a way.

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Habitual Scenarios

The work in Scenarios (Mexico 2016-2018) is a journey to the inner self, an exercise of introspection that emerges from change. In this work, the artist Laura Romero explores her form of space under the scope of the diverse scenarios and places she walks every day. It is through this look that she accomplishes formulate an adaptation that identifies her with the place where she dwells, thus personalising them –and making it possible for the scenario to speak on her behalf.

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A memory of space and a time

In this collection, Laura placed different buildings onto each other, with some being put onto concrete – this shows the theme of looking more closely at everyday buildings once more, which is also shown in the Intervals collection. The memory of space and time collection will also influence my work as I think it links closely with the other collection, and I like how it features the theme of altered landscapes.

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Anastasia Savinova

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Russian born artist Anastasia Savinova is now based in Sweden creating architectural masterpieces through digital processing. The artist’s work is constantly circling juxtapositions; the house and nature, walking to find new landscapes and digital rendering to create the images, the documented photographs processed together to make something unnatural. 

She describes her work in an interview –” In my practice, I work with different media: photography, drawing, rubbing, video, sound, performance, found object, text and sculpture and so on.  I love the flexibility of this. There is always room for experiment and play. I truly admire artists who can focus on something specific, let’s say printmaking, and work with it the entire life and improve and learn every single aspect of this. I’m myself never clear with definitions. There is a lot of fun and spontaneity, but also some challenges in that, of course.  One day I want to dance and the next day I want to make sculptures. It happens that sometimes I don’t get done either and get frustrated. But I “trust the journey” and want to keep this flexibility and naïve curiosity.”

Genius Loci

Genius Loci is a journey to a multitude of places, urban and rural, inhabited and people less, accessible and secluded. The project explores the character and the spirit of the place. Each work is a visual archive, where one picture concentrates the essence and the feeling of a visited site. Streets and mountain passes encounter on the road and off-road are a rich source of visual information such as form, colour and texture; at the same time, all the encountered environments contain something incorporeal.

Ancient Romans believed that every place has a protective spirit – genius loci; in contemporary usage, genius loci refers to a location’s specific atmosphere and the way it is experienced. Each work is composed of numerous photographs of buildings and landscape forms that are authentic for a studied area. These works balance documentary and fiction, factual and imaginary spaces, and become keepers of the memory and the spirit of the Place.

This image is in the Genius Loci collection, compiled from images of Berlin. This image has lots of brown and grey tones, maybe symbolising the darker aspects of the city – Anastasia does this by photographing the unseen parts of cities, and the backs of buildings. There is a sense of repetition in the image, with all the different types of rectangular shapes in the windows – as well as the overall shape of the image with creates contrast – the bright white background helps the image itself to stand out more. There is a use of perspective in these images – some buildings are very large for example in the middle of the image to the right. However, at the top of the image, there are smaller buildings that are minuscule in comparison to the others. I think that the focal points within this image are the bits of graffiti, which contrast with the rest of the colours in the image with their bright white lettering.

Sideway encounters

https://vimeo.com/anastasiasavinova – a link to Anastasia’s Vimeo page, where she posts videos of her art and video work.

Sideway Encounters part of the project focuses on places in-between: sheds and barns and other constructions, discovered during long road trips, at times abandoned and ruined, secretly hidden outside the towns or solemnly standing in the middle of nowhere, lost in vast fields of grass or dusty roadsides, juxtaposed with powerful nature.

Sometimes these constructions are found side by side with animals, which often seem to be the only rulers out there. These large-scale collages visualize a particular atmosphere, the breath of these poetic and enigmatic “in-between” places. Roadless Encounters pictures places, where no road reaches, one can only get there by walking for days: mountain refuges and ruins, forest huts and ancient shelters.

My artists’ influence on my project

I plan to incorporate the idea of collage and multi-exposure effects which are seen in the work of both these artists into my Anthropocene. The concept of the housing crisis on the island as well as overpopulation and industrialisation in my images through my photos of housing, as well as commercial buildings, joined together like my two artists. I like the idea of collaging my images by hand, using ripping and rough edges, but also might experiment with photoshop. Also, I’m interested in the way Laura Romero prints her images onto concrete, and I like the idea of using printing with ink in my project.

Photoshoot plan

I am going to do my first photoshoot of industrial buildings in St Helier, such as finance buildings, as well as others. For my second photoshoot, I am taking pictures of housing blocks, with graffiti/artwork on some to emulate the work of my artists. I am planning to edit a few of my images in black and white, and the rest in colour – this is because I plan to collage/layer them, and this will help this idea to work. My other option is to create a zine of my images, editing in black and white only.

	Genre	Location	Props	Idea	Lighting	Camera Settings
Photoshoot 1	Landscape	St Helier	Possibly a tripod	Anthropocene – Industrialisation of Jersey	Natural – bright	Landscape, manual
Photoshoot 2	Landscape	St Helier, St Clements, St Saviours	Tripod	Anthropocene – Overpopulation and housing crisis	Natural – bright	Landscape, manual
Photoshoot 3	Landscape	Saint Helier		Anthropocene – vacant buildings, housing crisis	Natural	Landscape, close up, manual

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I have used my best images from my 3rd photoshoot to experiment on photoshop with different editing techniques.

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Photoshop Idea 1:

I used this photo of harve des pas swimming pool by mirroring it adjacent to itself in an attempt to show the symmetry and sameness of current architecture.

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Photoshop Idea 2:

My plan for my second photoshop idea is to display the way that the millennial era buildings are bland and similar in the style and shapes used that from certain angles they all look the same.

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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. Through photography, anthropocene focuses on depicting an altered environment through patterns, texture and colours.

Anthropocene photographers and artists focus on presenting the changing climate to bring about awareness using textures such as fishing rope, bottles and other unused plastics to create a piece that evokes emotion in the viewer and spreads a message, whether it be physical or digital.

Some photographers choose to spread a message through public displays such as galleries or exhibitions however some aspects of anthropocene photography include capturing places reclaimed by nature e.g abandoned buildings that have become overgrown to show that mankind erodes nature to make room for a more industrial world.

Photoshoot 1

My first photoshoot is to be taken at la Collette inside of AAL’s recycling facility. The company has recently invested in a modern machine that is capable of washing and sorting any material fed into it. This machine is revolutionary as is allows all rubbish material to be recycled and re-used for new projects. I have been granted access to the wash plant and have arranged to be shown around the facility which should allow me to properly demonstrate how the plant recycles the material and how it is helping jersey to progress on its journey to becoming more eco friendly.

What?	AAL’s new wash plant at La Collette
Where?	AAL’s facility at La Collette
When?	Mid afternoon to give a nice amount of light and shadow
Why?	to show Anthropocene on jersey
How?	By contacting my connections to gain access to the facility

Photoshoot 2

For my second photoshoot for my Anthropocene project i will go to Ronez quarry in St johns in order to photoshoot the effect that mining has had on our island. Due to the facility being private i will not be able to get access into the quarry itself however using the headlands on either side of the quarry i will be able to easily see deep into the operation.

What?	Photographing ronez quarry.
Where?	Ronez Quarry
When?	Mid afternoon for good lighting
Why?	To show Anthropocene in jersey
How?	Stand on the headlands either side of the quarry so i can see

After school I decided to go on a walk in town looking at some construction sites.

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I got lucky with some of these when people would walk through, as I feel it adds a point of interest for some seemingly mundane images. I edited them to be mostly black and white because I have been liking monochrome images a lot recently, and I feel it fits the theme with the idea of humanity consuming natural life leaving behind a dull, grey environment.

Edward Burtynsky

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Ed Burtynsky is a Canadian Photographer who was born in February 1955. he was originally known for his large format urban landscapes. His work shows the rapid industrialisation of out world and humans impact on the planet. `

Burtynsky is an advocate for environmental conservationism and his work is deeply entwined in his advocacy. His work comments on the scars left by industrial capitalism while establishing an aesthetic for environmental devastation, the sublime-horrors discussed in a number of essays on the topic of his work. He sits on the board of Contact, Toronto’s international festival of photography.

“Most of Burtynsky’s exhibited photography (pre 2007) was taken with a , large format Field Camera, on large 4×5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution, large-dimension prints of various sizes and editions ranging from 18 × 22 inches to 60 × 80 inches” – Wiki

Image Analysis

This image by Edward Burtynsky was taken using a drone. this method of photography gives a wider view in order to show the true Anthropocene that the human race has brought upon itself. In my opinion this image demonstrates Anthropocene better than many other images by the artist. However i feel that it also shows the true scale of the worlds over population which really brings to light how the human race has past the point of no return and can never truly return the planet to its original and healthy state. Relating to the overpopulation of the planet the planet is also forced to industrialise in order to accommodate the population growth with jobs and housing.

Mindmap

Action Plan

I am planning on doing 3 photoshoots of different locations, with 100+ photos in each photoshoot. In each shoot, I am going to take photos at different times of day and different weather conditions, this will give me a wide variety of photos to choose from for manipulation and final photos.

Photoshoot 1

One of my ideas for a photoshoot is to travel to the quarry in St.Johns and take photos from the top of the quarry, the photos of the quarry are inspired by one of the photographers I have studied, Edward Butynsky. I believe the quarry is a really good response towards Anthropocene because it shows the effect of human life on natural landscape. I am going to take as many images as I can and edit them to respond appropriately to my project. These landscapes suit the project very well because it shows a clear effect and response of how nature has been destroyed and used for human advantage.

Photoshoot 2

Another idea for a photoshoot is to photograph abandoned and desolate buildings which have been taken over by nature. I believe photographs of these buildings fit with the topic of Anthropocene very well, as it portrays nature taking back land which humans have built on, and buildings which have permanently changed the landscape. One idea of an abandoned building is St, Saviours hospital, which greatly portrays how nature has taken back an old building built by humans.

Photoshoot 3

My last idea for a photoshoot is to take photos of heavily littered areas around jersey, such as the dump. I believe taking photos of a lot of litter fits with Anthropocene as it portrays how much humanity have polluted the Earth and just the amount of litter and rubbish humanity produces which infects the natural landscapes.

I ended up going to Samares manor around midday, during the Easter holidays. There are various kinds of unique looking plants, as well as a herb garden. I unfortunately did not get to take as many pictures as I wanted because my hay fever allergies made me feel unwell so I had to stop.

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I tried to vary the compositions and subjects to give myself enough material for editing.

Troy Paiva

Troy Paiva is an American photographer and pioneer of night photography. Paiva has been using light painted, full moon-lit night photography to capture the abandoned American West for over 25 years.  Telling the story of the ghosts of America’s Western Expansion, from a post-wild west, post-Route 66, 21st Century perspective has become a never-ending source of inspiration.

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His documentarian, yet surrealist work examines the final days of decommissioned military bases, NASA installations, derelict ocean liners, airliner boneyards, and Hollywood prop graveyards. Paiva also photographs abandoned amusement parks, train stations, factories, hospitals, gas stations, hotels, and even entire towns. He says that it is ‘the intensely exhilarating, yet strangely comforting act of sneaking around in the middle of the night, creating art from their ruins’ which he likes the most from photographing these places. Paiva has also written a few books about his time spent light painting in these forgotten places called ‘Night Vision; The Art of Urban Exploration’ and ‘Boneyard: SoCal’s Aircraft Graveyards at Night’.

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Light Painting Artist Troy Paiva | Light Painting Photography

Steven Gallagher and Naomi White

Steven Gallagher is a London based still life photographer who has a graphic and minimal style to his work. His photographs are about showing a single product in its ‘glory’. Colour is a key part of his photography style.

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Personal work — STEVE GALLAGHER PHOTOGRAPHY

Naomi White is a visual artist, photographer, and educator based in Los Angeles. Her work investigates themes of consumerism and identity construction in our camera-bound world. Focusing on the transformative power of photography she examines how photography affects materials, memory, culture, and self.

One of Whites’ projects is Plastic Currents where everyday plastic bags are transformed by light, turned from something familiar into something strange. Naomi’s project shows how she can make non-biodegradable, reviled plastic bags into seemingly organic forms, imitating the very nature they threaten.

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Image Analysis

This image is from Troy Paiva’s ‘Night Vision; The Art of Urban Exploration collection. I really like how he has illuminated the photo by using neon pink and blue instead of just taking it during the day. The different lighting gives the photo a nice atmosphere, one that you wouldn’t get from taking in white or natural lighting. By having the upper level and stair blue and the pink coming up through the opening it creates a faded purple in the background which I think brings the whole picture together because it helps blend the colours and lets the photo flow better making it more appealing to the eye. I also like how Paiva has kept the abandoned building the same and has either left the rubbish or moved it creating different textures and a more eye-catching foreground. Another feature to look at in this photo is the window in the background which shows the outside world and lets the viewer see the drastic difference between what is in the building and what is outside. It looks like Paiva did his photoshoot while the sun was setting because the sky seems warmer and has more orange tones, by allowing the window to stay in the photos it shows the comparison that I think he was trying to convey to the viewers.

This photo is from one of Naomi White’s collections called Plastic Currents. I like how she has managed to get the bag to look like it is floating on water or through the air, which creates abstract shapes and lines making the photo more interesting. Going from the darker red at the front to a lighter more bright orange towards the back creates an ombre effect throughout the photo adding more elements which relate to her description of her whole collecting, where she states that she wanted to make them ‘seemingly organic forms’. I also really like how the plastic is the centre of attention as she hasn’t used patterns or bright colours in her backgrounds. The position and texture of the bag allow the photo to seem more 3D and that it’s jumping out at the view which helps and gives a more direct message and what White is trying to tell her viewers and supporters. Having a bright and ‘in your face photo’ will catch people’s attention, which is what Naomi wants as she is using her collection and these photos to raise awareness of plastic pollution around the world.

• Norwegian fine art photographer from Oslo, Norway.
• One of her biggest and well known photoshoots is “Plastic bag landscapes” where she raises awareness of the throw-away culture while also extracting its beauty.
• She hopes that her work inspires viewers to think twice about their consumption of plastics.
• The inspiration grew from living in London and the vast amount of waste.

More info on Rolfsen here.

Her work – ‘Plastic bag landscapes 2014’

Analysis –

I think that this photo taken by Vilde Rolfsen as part of her 2014 project called ‘Plastic bag Landscapes’ is quite successful in conveying the message which she is creating of raising awareness of plastic bags through their beauty. She is able to make this effect efficiently through her photography by using the effect of layering two different coloured plastic bags on top of each other which have various crinkles in them to create a messy and ruffled effect to the photo. The blue plastic bag in this photo can be used to symbolise the ocean or other areas of water such as lakes, ponds, etc and how the dangers are hidden underneath as the creases due to the positioning of the bag create a whirlpool effect which can show how everything always falls into each other and links together which have bigger consequences in the long run to humans who will live on in the future. The use of the red/orange plastic bag layered underneath and how many people tend to ignore the dangers of pollution which humans are creating as we don’t want to admit to our mistakes and how we have this hidden guilt underneath as we have all contributed towards this problem in some way. I also like how the bag can be seen to be slightly illuminated in the background which can emphasize the red plastic bag and what it symbolises as it creates a sense of urgency as it is highlighted to be in your face.

In my own work, I will consider how Rolfsen uses plastics bags through layering and how she uses the crinkles which have been created through the coloured plastic bags that she manipulates using the lighting in her photos as I really like the effect which that is created from this as it adds a layer of emotion and sensitivity to the photos as it will create a thought process for the viewers. I also want to experiment with the plastic bags being taken individually, similar to Naomi Whites work because I think that it would be a good way to expand on the beauty of plastic bags theme as well as creating mountains or glaciers which are being affected by global warming.