Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence.

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Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of humans on the planet.

“We come from nature. There is an importance to [having] a certain reverence for what nature is because we are connected to it… If we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.“
– Edward Burtynsky

Examples of Edwards work:

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George Marazakis

George Marazakis is an Anthropocene photographer who was inspired by Edward Burtynsky that has a very similar style of images compare Edward. Marazakis has a repetitive style of images by photographing locations that seem to be more dry and desolate.

Examples of George Marazakis work:

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Artist comparison:

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This is a comparison of two different Anthropocene artists, Edward Burtnsky and George Marazakis. I first noticed that both images are very similar, with both displaying what seems to be either a mine or a quarry. In Edwards image the tone of the land is noticeably more darker compared to which could be related to how the world is slowly becoming in danger. Both images seem to show the same amount of landscape with Georges including a little lake at the bottom of the mine.

To compare the two artists, Georges images display less colour and involve colours that are a lot more dull and boring. However Burtnskys images are all taken in different kinds of landscapes showing a lot of vibrant and also dull colours. Georges photos are mostly seen to be taken in desert landscapes without much man-made structures. Burtnsky is trying to show the impact of humans on the world by expressing his thoughts through photos of industrial landscapes.

Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

The Anthropocene is characterized by rapid anthropogenic environmental change, yet rapid environmental change and ecological responses to change are not unique to the present epoch. All ecosystems, past and present, have been subject to rapid environmental change resulting in novel ecosystems.

The Anthropocene, or Anthropocene Epoch, is a proposed name for the geological epoch that we’re currently living in. The name is intended to indicate that human actions have had a significant and lasting impact on the environment since the Industrial Revolution.

Moodboard:

Ideas for Anthropocene project:

• Industrial sights
• Sand dunes
• Plastic objects
• Portraiture involving objects
• Abstract images
• The dump
• Landscape

Examples of Anthropocene photography:

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For these photoshoots, I travelled to many locations around the St Helier side of Jersey to try and capture my best images which I could use for the urban landscape project. Whilst taking photos I took a range of 150-200 and then selected which ones I believe would work the best for me. After rating my images on Lightroom I decided to narrow it down to a final of 10 images which I knew would look good when edited.

These are my 10 final images for urban landscape:

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I selected these as my finals outcomes for the urban landscape photography project because I believe they are the images that came out the best compared to the others. These 10 images were the best from a range of 150-200 images because of the lighting, positioning and angles. I used Adobe Lightroom to edit 9/10 of these images by changing features such as the exposure, highlights and clarity which all had a very good effect on all images.

However, 1 of my images was created on photoshop because of the more advanced features that can be used instead of Lightroom. This image is the first one displayed at the top of the post. I thought to edit this image on photoshop because I had an idea that I believed worked out very well.

For this image edited of Photoshop, I first started off with taking cut-outs of most man made things displayed in the photograph and made all the cut-outs into new layers. After creating all my layers, I highlighted every layer and decided to play around with the ‘Stylize’ tool to see what worked best. Finally, I decided to choose the ‘Find Edges’ feature which makes every layer highlighted stand out more than the rest of the image.

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On the left is my image taken in St Ouens on a stormy day. On the right is an image taken by Ansel Adams which was captured in Wyoming.

Both of these images have many similarities and some differences. To compare these images, I first saw the way the mud tracks from my image and the river in the second image have very similar features such as, they both start at the bottom of the photo and turn out of the range of the landscape captured. Also, both images are displayed in black and white which has a very good effect on images that display colours of green and brown. Another similarity is that if both images werent in black and white they would both have a very similar colour scheme including colours such as, green, white, brown and grey.

I have also noticed a few differences between the two images. One of these differences is that my image has many man-made things such as, football field, playground, and the tractor mud tracks, however in Ansel Adams image all scenery displayed is natural with no man-made structures in range of sight. I also noticed the image by Ansel Adams shows a lot of landscape which is hidden by the shadows and in my image it only has a small range captured.

Contact sheets

Lightroom edits:

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My favourite image:

This photo was taken on Les Varines hill as the sun was going down. I like this image because I think the clouds and sun have a really good effect on the image due to the colours mixing together effectively. I also like the way how the exposure is low which makes the sunset stand out more than the trees and wall. The sky reveals a lot more detail than the bottom half of the image which is what I was hoping for when editing this image.

Joel Sternfeld is an American fine-art colour photographer. He is noted for his large-format documentary pictures of the United States and helping establish colour photography as a respected artistic medium. Sternfeld’s work is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Joel was influenced by the roadside photography of Walker Evans, Sternfeld’s projects document people and places with an exacting sense of colour that visually rhymes with the subject matter, as seen in his seminal series American Prospects (1987). “No individual photo explains anything.

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Even though Joel Sternfeld isn’t your typical “street photographer” he started off as one. Although he was inspired by his contemporaries at the time and started off shooting with a 35mm Leica (like everyone else) he eventually branched out and found his own voice shooting large-format 8×10 colour landscape photographs.

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American Prospects – Book by Joel Sternfeld

American Prospects is a book that was first published in 1987 and was produced by Joel Sternfeld. The book contains 152 pages and 71 images all displayed in the same way. All the images that are in the book all have similar features such as a slight natural location with a few man-made structures throughout. The book usually costs around £85-£100.

Ansel Easton Adams 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.

Originally working in the Pictorialist style, widely popular in the 1910s and 1920s, Adams encountered Paul Strand’s photography in 1930, and rejected his earlier painterly, soft focus style for a new “pure” and sharp focus approach.

Adams’s professional life was dedicated to capturing through his lens the forgotten and unspoiled wilderness of America’s national parks and other protected conservation areas in the West. He was a committed environmentalist and nothing short of an icon for the 20th century conservation movement.

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Ansel Adams most famous photo goes by the name of ‘The Face of Half Dome’. On the chilly spring morning of April 10th, 1927, Ansel Adams set out along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully to capture an image of the striking sheer face of Half Dome, one of Yosemite National Park’s most iconic natural features.

Sublime photography – The Sublime is a western aesthetic concept of ‘the exalted’ of ‘beauty that is grand and dangerous’. The Sublime refers to the wild, unbounded grandeur of nature. The Sublime is related to threat and agony, to spaces where calamities happen or things run beyond human control.

Sublime photography moodboard:

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Painting vs Photography

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In the top photos that are originally paintings the colours used are all slightly dark and dull which is very similar with the photography taken by Joao Laet of a burnt forest in brazil. All images have a lot of shadowing which creates an effect of darkness and danger towards the viewer.

João Laet

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Sir Donald McCullin CBE is a British photojournalist, particularly recognised for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and impoverished. He was born on October 9th, 1935 and has now aged 86 years.

McCullin took a range of different kinds of images such as, landscape, rural, war photography, portraits, close ups and much more. He is most known for his war photography because of how powerful most his images are, but he also does have a big amount of good landscape photos.

“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” – Don McCullin

Don McCullin landscape photos:

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Image analysis:

In this image you can see multiple people that seem to be running away from something unknown but it can be imagined they are escaping from war that is happening where they are. The image is displayed in black and white due to this photo being taken many years ago which I think makes the image look more effective and creates a dark tone. In the background you can see a lot of fog/smoke which was confirmed to be tear gas due to soldiers gassing the neighbourhood. McCullin seems to be attempting to catch emotion with this image by photographing people who seem to be running for their life which at the time all the people are going to have many emotions at the time such as, frightened, shocked and helpless. On the wall there are people that look like their wearing soldier uniform such as a helmet and some look to be holding a weapon. This means this image must’ve been taken during the World War in the 1940s which is when most of Dan’s images were photographed.