PHOTOSHOOT #1

For this photoshoot i experimented with my images one by one because I wanted to present these ones as a whole to really bring the focus on the architecture. I also put all of them in black and white to replicate my artist reference Hilla and Bernd Becher’s work.

EXPERIMENTATION #1

For this photo i not only lowered the saturation but also the exposure. The black and white effect creates a dark atmosphere which i think highlights the harm mankind are doing to the environment.

EXPERIMENTATION #2

I did the same for this image except added highlights to capture the clouds in the sky as it heightens the tower making it appear as if it is looming over the camera.

EXPERIMENTATION #3

For my last photo, I turned down the exposure and saturation to create a chaotic atmosphere and show that power stations essentially symbolize destruction. I lowered the highlights to make the sky one colour and blend in with the gradient of the tower.

PHOTOSHOOT #2

Unlike my first photoshoot ideas, for this one I wanted to showcase mine in three different layouts, presenting a different emotion in each collection.

EXPERIMENTATION #1

I found four of my photos that had distinctive square or rectangle shapes and grouped them together to create an abstract display in reference to one of my case studies, Paul Talling, who presents some of his works in layouts according to shape on his website. I had to edit and adjust some of the photos so that they weren’t off balance, for example the one above which was slightly tilted.

I also experimented with the same set of photos in black and white, but preferred the original layout as it had more bold and defined shapes plus the black and white made the images look devoid of emotion when that is the opposite of my goal for this theme.

EXPERIMENTATION #2

For my second experimentation, i took photos of parts of the hotel i felt were in the worst state which to me were the most interesting photos because they told a story. On Lightroom i edited them by turning down the saturation and lowering the temperature to give the images a faded blue undertone.

EXPERIMENTATION #3

For my last experimentation of this photoshoot i took photos of vandalism and graffiti to try and replicate Paul Talling’s work as he has many projects centered around street art & graffiti. I experimented with a few different sets of images before choosing the one I felt looked the best. These photos were originally in colour but i switched them to black and white because I felt in colour they clashed and looked messy.

PHOTOSHOOT #1

The photos labeled red are ones that turned out blurry, had bad lighting or poor location. Since the majority of my first photoshoot was taken on my phone, some photos turned out blurry/shaky because of the camera quality.

The yellow labeled photos show the ones I liked, but wasn’t sure if they fitted my theme, for example no.13 – the photo is clear and in a good location, but wasn’t relevant to my theme as there was too much sea and not enough material to show that it was representative of industrial buildings.

The green photos are the ones I liked the best – although i will not being using all of these in my final photos, after editing i will be able to determine which ones showcase my theme the best. My favourites or no.8 or no.11, as I think they represent my artist reference the best.

GREEN PHOTOS (UNEDITED)

PHOTOSHOOT #2

Like photoshoot #1, I chose to label the red photos based off quality location or lighting – parts of this photoshoot included images with people in, which I chose to label red because i want to showcase the hotel as empty to give an eerie atmosphere.

For my yellow labelled, some I really like but they were just a bit blurry or slightly off angle and I wanted the photos, especially in this shoot, to be as near to my chosen aesthetic as possible and I felt these photos weren’t good enough.

My green labelled photos showcase a number of different rooms, materials and all were taken in places with different lighting, which is why I chose them e.g no.10, which was taken with the flash on in a dark room, compared to no.3, which was taken without flash using natural lighting. Like photoshoot #1, I won’t be using all these but will pick the few that really stand out to me.

GREEN PHOTOS (UNEDITED)

PHOTOSHOOT #1

For my first photoshoot, I went around town and the harbour, photographing satellite towers and power stations like La Collette – for this first photoshoot I wanted to capture the industrial side of anthropocene and what is behind the harmful impact on the environment. Being inspired by my artist reference Hilla and Bernd Becher, i photographed mainly architecture around the island.

My plan was to photograph the buildings during night or evening time when it was getting dark outside so I could show the chaos that goes on with power stations & pollution whilst still keeping the photo simple in an attempt to capture Becher’s simplicity of their work in my own.

PHOTOSHOOT #2

For my second photoshoot, I wanted to explore abandoned and derelict places to show how nature takes over once left to its own devices and convey emotion through the empty atmosphere of abandoned buildings. Also I have been fascinated by abandoned places for years and thought this would be a good opportunity to showcase this in my work.

I chose to go to a derelict hotel, where I photographed a number of rooms including the outdoor pool, which was one of my focal points of the shoot as it has mostly been taken over by nature which I thought went well with my theme. I made sure to think back to my artist reference Paul Talling as I took my photos, trying to capture the emotion in his work in my own images.

PAUL TALLING

Paul Talling is a london-based photographer who, for 19 years, has been photographing London’s derelict places and documenting it on his nationally-recognized website, Derelict London. He began taking photos in 2003, after witnessing an abandoned candle factory being demolished. This fascinated Talling and he soon developed an interest in photographing abandoned places. His objective in his images are to show the darker side of London and find the emotion in derelict areas. He later released a book about his work which went on to have good reviews from critics.

Talling includes graffiti and vandalism in his photos to capture the humour and to show the past travels people have been on whilst exploring the ghostly beauty of abandoned places. I am inspired by Talling’s work because of the stark reality of his photos – he shows the decay of buildings and doesn’t sugar coat it, in a way his photos are almost candid because he photographs exactly what meets the eye – I plan to use his method of photography whilst doing my 2nd photoshoot of abandoned places.

IMAGE ANALYSIS

This image was taken as part of Tallings abandoned offices collection. The image appears to be of an old window which has since been covered by the graffiti as a reminder that mankind has an ever-changing impact not just on nature but on their own creation. The photo is predominantly grey with a few lighter/darker shades, but the main focus of the image is the crack in the centre of the window – not only does the colour make a sharp contrast from the other dynamics of the image, but it also sets an atmosphere and might make the viewer curious as to what’s behind the window. From a viewers perspective, the cracked window represents the peacefulness of a derelict place being destroyed by break-ins and vandalism.

BERND AND HILLA BECHER

Hilla Becher was a German artist born in 1931 in Siegen, Germany. She was one half of a photography duo with her husband Bernd Becher. They photographed industrial structures including water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories. Their work had a documentary style as their images were always taken in black and white, and never included people or any other background ‘noise’. They exhibited their work in sets or typologies, grouping of several photographs of the same type of structure. The are well known for presenting their images in grid formations. 

Their work is among the most impactful and influential of architecture photography because it spreads a message. They were often labelled as conceptual artists and influenced minimalist and conceptual artists like Ed Ruscha, Carl Andre and Douglas Huebler. As professors of The Dusseldorf School of Photography, they influenced a generation of German photographers who were their students (including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth.)

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Becher’s work overlooked beauty and the relationship between form and function. Both subjects addressed the effect of industry on economy and the environment, which has inspired me for my anthropocene project – I plan to photograph buildings in the same way they did, showing how the simplicity of their works have underlying meanings that show the effect industrial architecture is having on the changing environment.

IMAGE ANALYSIS

This image is called Duisburg-Bruckhausen, Ruhrgebiet, and was taken in 1999. It captures two opposites of a man-made environment in one photo – one one side, you have row after row of houses and cars, decorated with few fragile trees. However, on the other side you have big industrial power plants with toxic steam coming out of the chimney to show the dangerous effect we are having on polluting the Earth’s air and damaging the environment. The photo being in black and white furthermore shows this, the dark colours creating a bleak and chaotic atmosphere with the power plants looming over the houses below.

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.

Keld Helmer-Peterson was a Danish photographer, widely known for his lead role in abstract photography in the 1940s. His career spanned 70 years and he had strong interest in modern architecture and industrial areas, primarily focusing his work on structures and parts of buildings i.e scaffolding or framework.

Architecture and design played a great role in Helmer-Petersen’s work, both professionally and as an artistic field of interest. From 1952 to 1956, he worked with photographer Erik Hansen, after which he established his own studio specializing in architecture and design photography. Peterson also released a series of books documenting his photography, both in colour and black + white, such as 122 colour photographs, Fragments of the City and Black Noise, which was part of a series of three books that showed his abstract style of photography.

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Keld Helmer-Peterson had an abstract way of taking images – the final product would consist of mostly black, with a white background to illuminate the silhouette like the photo above. On photoshop we used our urban landscape images to replicate Petersen’s work. To do this, i took my photo and used the Threshold tool to change the tones of my image, using a slider tool to add more black/white shades to the image. The final product represented an abstract art piece.

New topographics was a term invented by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar minimal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. Most images consisted of man-made objects in nature and run – down buildings, predominantly focused on textures.

New topographics was a reaction to idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental, much like Ansel Adams’ work. New topographics emphasized man vs nature in form of photography, showing how urban areas and buildings had taken over nature, but photographed in a way that covered the ugly side of built-up areas and presented urban landscapes to look just as beautiful as nature.

ROBERT ADAMS

Robert Adams is one of the most important figures of modern American photography; a key figure in the New Topographics movement. He photographs in black and white, usually during daytime, of urban areas that are typically deserted, save for a few people that make an appearance in his work. Adams’ monochrome style was influenced by 19th-century photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson and Carleton Watkin, who also focussed on the landscape of the West (in its more primitive state) as well as Lewis Hine, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, all of whom married social and aesthetic concerns in their work. 

The turning point in Adams’ career was the creation of his photo-essay, The New West, in 1974. Divided into five sections, the book takes us along the Colorado Rocky Mountains, with photos of the entire suburban Southwest. Starting from the empty streets and street signs, Robert Adams takes the viewer on a journey with him, finishing his book in the suburbs with the rapidly growing streets of houses and mobile homes in a sparse stretch of land, before presenting us with an entire town of these compact white caravans, which appear tiny and somehow insignificant against the backdrop of the towering mountains and an omnipresent sky to show the nature found amongst urban landscapes. 

LEWIS BALTZ

Whilst Robert Adams’ photography style combined nature with man-made landscapes, Baltz’ style of work is entirely urban. He made photographs in series focused on a particular theme and published them in book form, as in The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California (1975), Nevada (1978) and Park City (1981). His work, like Adams, challenges the tradition of western landscape photography by presenting a less innocent view of the landscape. Baltz’s perception of the landscape reveals the effects of twentieth-century culture and suburban development on the nation’s topography.

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One of his most famous works, The New Industrial Parks is part of a series developed in the 1970s deals with wide-ranging cultural and philosophical questions about the growing urban landscape. By focusing his attention on the familiar, Baltz created a powerful work in his critical photographic approach to the built environment.

MY PLAN

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My plan for urban landscape photos is to focus on decaying or derelict buildings/constructions as i’ve always been drawn to them and now have the chance to photograph them. I chose some photos of abandoned places that i both like and appeal to the theme of new topographics. I also plan to photograph busy, urban areas like town or parks. My images will be in black and white to mimic photographers of the new topographics era and i will try to eliminate any unnecessary objects in the photos to give a miminal approach like Lewis Baltz’ work.

PHOTO SELECTION + EDITING

Firstly I went through my images and colour coded them, separating the green ones to represent which photos I was using. I wanted to show a range of different landscapes and elements of nature. I was thinking of grouping different images together to show contrast e.g the soft clouds in the photos of the sky juxtaposed by the pebbles on the beach.

The majority of my photos will be in black and white to show my inspirations taken from photographers like Ansel Adams or Minor White however other photos will be in colour to show present day photography and the colour in nature.

BLACK + WHITE PHOTOS

The images i chose to edit in black and white are the ones i think represent my photographer inspirations the best. The original photos didn’t provide enough inspiration for me so alongside turning down the saturation I edited the exposure and contrast to show a clear focal point for some of the photos, for example the image with sky view – I highlighted the clouds and attempted to eliminate the bottom half on the photo to make the focus the light of the clouds contrasting the rest of the image.

My favourite image from my black + white photos is the one of pebbles on the beach, taken at Anne Port. I like this because the pebbles provide different shades which reminds me of Ansel Adams’ zone system. I also like the photo because it shows texture in a different way to my other images.

COLOURED PHOTOS

I selected these photos because the colour reminds me of romanticism photography/art and colour being used to bring an image together. I edited most of these by turning the saturation up slightly and lowering the exposure.

My favourite photo from my coloured images is the one of the sea, because to me it looks like a painting, and the yellow tone of the clouds over the sun reminds me of romanticism art/the sublime. Although the sea takes up the majority of the image i’ve made the clouds/sky the focal point because to me it evokes the most emotion.

COMPARING IMAGES

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I’ve compared my photo (left) to one of Minor Whites pieces (right) i’ve chose to compare these images because they both present texture in a different way. Both photos are in black and white, however my photo is a harder texture and more defined whereas White’s image is a blur of texture, making it almost difficult to figure out what the photo represents. Both photos show a different range of light and dark tones in different places. However, the image on the right has wider areas of dark or light.

THE SUBLIME

The sublime is considered an art term, first invented by Edmund Burke  in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful published in 1757. Although first invented as an art form, the sublime applies to photography too. It refers to the quality of greatness and aesthetic captured in a photo – for example a clear image with a range of colours and focal points is a good example of the sublime. The purpose of the sublime is to evoke emotion in it’s viewers – whether happiness or fear.

ROMANTICISM IN ART

Photography was primarily inspired by art particularly the romanticism art movement which was prominent towards the late 18th century. Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789.

 Romanticism art in landscapes focuses on the sky and its surroundings however romanticism art primarily focuses on people and emotions – some of the most famous paintings depicting war or love are products of romanticism in an art form.

You will already see that the Romantic movement was broad and far-reaching. Despite the variety of individual expressions encouraged by Romanticism, there are several key Romanticism characteristics, which underlie Romantic art. These include growing nationalism, subjectivity, and concerns with justice and equality.

ROMANTICISM IN PHOTOGRAPHY

 Romanticism as an art form crossed between music, painting, photography and many other art forms. Landscape photography was popular at this time, therefore, romantic landscapes were common. The landscapes focused on the beauty of nature and included a lot of running water and vast forests. Romanticism photography focuses on capturing emotion in the image hence why most landscape photos capture running rivers or a windy day and seem to stop it in time, to capture the emotion whether it be happiness or chaos in one photo.