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.
YVES MARCHAND & ROMAIN MEFFRE work
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
I was able to fully complete 2 photoshoots in preparation for this exam, I followed the plan I made for the exam by taking photos of buildings as well as industrial sites to portray the theme and topic of Anthropocene.
Shoot 1
I was able to capture a total of 200 photos in shoot 1 which is more than enough to work with to produce final outcomes to the best of my ability. For shoot 1 I took photos in and around the la Collette industrial site .
I used the flagging technique to select the best photos from this shoot to use for manipulation and editing. After using the flagging technique, I had 60 photos to once again choose from to use for editing and manipulation. To narrow down these photos, I used the rating system to select the best photos from these 60 photos. Using this technique I came up with 20 photos to use for editing and manipulation.
flagged photos
Shoot 2
For shoot 2 I captured a total of 260 photos to work with and narrow down to select for manipulation I also used the flagging technique for this photoshoot. For this shoot I took photos around gorey aswell as some from town
After using the flagging technique, I came up with 44 photos as a lot of the photos were blurry or too dark or too light to be able to use. I then used the rating technique to once again narrow down the photos to use for editing and manipulation. After using the rating technique, I had 13 photos to edit and manipulate to create final images.
flagged photos
Review of photoshoots
Although I aimed to take 4 photoshoots with at least 75 photos in each, I managed to get 2 photoshoots. Even though I only did 2 photoshoots I was able to get 200 photos in shoot 1 and 260 photos in shoot 2 which was well above the amount of photos I aimed to take. With a total of 460 photos I believe I have more than enough photos for me to create the most effective final images for the Anthropocene project. I believe the quality of the photos I have taken overall are quite good and I managed to photograph the locations I planned on photographing, a couple of photos I have taken have not come out as I would have liked as some have been blurry, too bright or too dark. Using the different filtering techniques on Lightroom I am happy with the final selection of images I will be using for editing and manipulation with Lightroom and Photoshop in order to come up with the best possible final outcomes I am able to produce.
For this idea i wanted to take inspiration from Ingrid Weyland and her topographic of fragility project as i feel it strongly links with the theme Anthropocene and like her work
For this image analysis I looked at this photo from Ingrid, showing ice caps, however Ingrid has added scrunched up print of the photo. This was most likely done to show humans effect on the land. The picture was taken on a gloomy day, and has the ice cap centred most likely to emphasise the effect humans had on the ice caps as the scrunched up paper also shows the fragility of the ice caps due to the humans . The rough texture of the paper ball gives a good contrast to the softness of the background image.
contact sheets
i then flagged it down to my final images to use
then left with my final image after some editing
Final image
Final Piece & Process
To make this piece I started by printing out the original image, and then a section of the original image to then crease and layer over it.
ORIGINAL CROPPED OUT PART TO PRINTSCUNCHED UP PICTURE
once i had all the components i played around with it a bit to get my final image
final image
overall i think this went well so i decided to try again using a different photo
new image from same photo shoot cut out for crimpled paper final image
Evaluation & Comparison
Overall I think that these pieces came out very good and mostly how I planned, they are similar to the work of Ingrid Weyland, not only in the process used to create but also in the way that they represent “the fragility of the natural environment” with the distorted paper patches representing the impact humans have on the earth.
I am using this photo shoot as it is a large industrial site and i feel that it strongly links to the theme of this project
Waterfront
i am using this photoshoot as it is a large piece of reclaimed land which i feel connects to Anthropocene and how humans are changing the world as well as large building sites there
Ronez quarry
i am also planning to do a photoshoot at ronez as it is a large quarrey in jersey which is a great physical way of showing humans impact on the earth
Ed 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.
Jennifer Baichwal
Nicholas de Pencier
Nicholas de Pencier is a Canadian cinematographer and filmmaker. The spouse and professional partner of filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal in Mercury Films, he is the cinematographer and producer on most of her films as well as codirector of the films Long Time Running. and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.
The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.
Stephen Shore (American, b.1947) is an American photographer well-known for producing deadpan images of banal scenes. He is a pioneer of colored art photography. Shore was born in New York, NY, and is largely a self-taught artist. He became interested in photography at the age of six when he received a darkroom kit of photography as a gift from his uncle. At the age of nine, Shore was given another photography gift; this time the gift was a 35 mm camera, which he used to start taking photographs right away. Soon after that, he received Walker Evans‘ American Photographs and was convinced of his photographic abilities so much so that he presented several of his works to Edward Steichen (American, 1879–1973) of the Museum of Modern Art at the age of 14. His interest in photography continued to grow, and when he met Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987) at the Factory three years later, he became a regular at the studio, and photographed works and visitors there. At age 24, the photographer held a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts, July 13, 1974
Soon after the solo exhibition, Shore embarked on a series of road trips and took several photographs of the American and Canadian landscapes he crisscrossed. The trip from Manhattan to Amarillo in 1972 proved to be eventful and awakened Shore’s interest in color photography. He took a series of photographs of the streets using different types of cameras. Shore received a NEA endowment fund in 1974 and a Guggenheim grant in 1975 that helped him further his work. In 1982, he published Uncommon Places: 50 Unpublished Photographs, a major work in color photography that, together with the works of William Eggleston (American, b. 1939), helped to cement the place of color photography in art. He is believed to have borrowed from the Photorealism works of other artists. Shore also published other books like Essex County and The Velvet Years.
for these images i changed the threshold creating the black and white look a lot like Keld Helmer Petersen’s work but for the second one I inverted it to have a slightly different one
Wires, Copenhagen, 1950s keld helmer-petersen
Power Lines, Chicago, 1951 keld helmer-petersen
Keld Helmer-Petersen
who was he ?
Keld Helmer-Petersen is one of the most influential Danish photographers in the 20thCentury. He was an international pioneer in colour photography and was a central figure in not only Danish but also European modernist photography. His career spanned 70 years and he had strong interest in modern architecture, industrial areas and structures. He was very prolific and continuously experimented and challenged the many possibilities of the photographic image. His efforts have put a mark on photography as an artistic expression.
