For my urban landscapes project I went on a photoshoot around Halve Des Pas and La Collette. I took around 250 images that documented the urban landscape in that area.
When viewing my images i selected these images as I believe they had the most potential to be good images once developed.
I have developed each of my best images in colour as well as black and white. This gives two very different perspectives of the same area. The black and white images relate the the new topographics and the colour images show off the time period that we live in.
For these edits, which I like the outcomes of, I wanted to experiment in the style of Charles Sheeler and Rut Blees-Luxemburg, I began by darkening the photo slightly with the contrast, exposure, shadows and blacks which gave it a darker appearance. Then to make the lights appear brighter, similar to Luxembourg’s work I brought the whites up which amplified the lights which were on inside the office building. Then to give the photo the “streetlight” effect which appears in Luxembourg’s work I made the temperature and hue of the photo warmer but to stop it turning completely yellow I adjusted the tint, vibrancy and saturation which would cancel that out of happening. I then changed it into black and white as well which is similar to Thomas Struths work, and I really liked how it turned out because it creates a lot of different shapes which are highlighted by the lighting.
For these edits, I started off by working in the style of Thomas Struth where a few of his photos are quite dim and bland in the colour palette which is used when he photographs and as the picture was already quite dark I began by mainly adjusting the highlights to tone down the brightness and the shadows as well to make it appear darker and gloomier, like Struths work. To create the dim, bland and washed out effect Thomas Struth reciprocates in his work I brought the temp and the tint up to make the photo slightly warmer then brought the vibrancy and saturation down which drained quite a bit of colour from the photo. I then experimented with the colours in the photo where I was able to adjust how they appeared on the photo, which was able to be changed drastically, as the colour was being drained to appear bland. Then to experiment further with his style as he uses black and white filter in a lot of his work I selected the filter but I didn’t like how it turned out a it came out too dark, especially in the bottom left corner where the building is completely lost.
For this edit, which I think is successful and I really like, I primarily focussed on editing in the style of Rut Blees-Luxembourg because the photo already had a warm, orange/yellow “streetlight” tone/feel to it due tot he lighting of the underpass. I chose the photo because I liked how the 2 cars were in the same space opposite each other, showing them both going different ways. I didn’t want to change a lot of this photograph while editing as I liked the effect it already created so I adjusted ad controlled the lighting a small bit and made most of the lines more defined. To brighten the effect further through the style of Luxembourg so to define the darker tones I applied a small tint/temp towards it which helped to control it then used the orange and yellow colour to0 give it a little more vibrancy and bri9ng it to life. Then to centre the photo up as it wasn’t straight I cropped it which made it centred and appeared cleaner with the straight lines.
For these 2 edits, which I did in Adobe Lightroom in the style of Rut Blees-Luxembourg, I began by bringing the lighting down from inside the office building which made the photo appear slightly overexposed and this effect can be clearly seen through the windows in the background where everything else gets lost (such as objects in the windows) because of this. On the other hand, I think that the warm, yellow tones of the building work well with the orange which creates a good contrast of colours making it stand out well due to the abstract shape as well which goes against the traditional, uniformed order of the photo of straight lines and square boxes which are repeated throughout.
Most and least successful edits –
Most –
Successful: – Yellow, orange, brown tones work well together. – Cars going opposite ways, same place in the road. – Similar to Rut Blees-Luxembourg’s work due to the warm, soft lighting which I’ve created. – Creates a distinct contrast against the darker surroundings above. – Different shapes of straight lines, square boxes on side, lines in the road all work well together and doesn’t make it look messy.
Not successful: – Not centred or straight. – Too much dark space above, cropping needed. – Slight overexposure on the space in front of the car on the right, creating a glare.
Successful: – Balanced amount of light and dark space. – Straight lines, uniformed shapes. – Taken from an angle which adds dimension. – Mixture of black/white tones which work well together, don’t overpower one another. – Similar to photographers work due to the angle which I’ve taken it at and the building which I’ve photographed.
Not successful: – Needs to be cropped slightly at the bottom to make the windows appear more level to help balance the photo and shapes in it. – Crop the right side as there is too much negative dark space on the side. – Adjust the darkness slightly in the middle to make the windows appear clearer and not as if they are blacked out.
Least –
Successful: – The buildings follow one continuous line, no gap in-between which adds fluidity to the photo. – Defined shapes created through the windows, bright and able to see clearly. – Taken at a slight angle which changes the perspective and makes it appear bigger.
Not successful: – Too much dark space on the top right corner of the picture, drowns the smaller building out. – Needs to be cropped at the bottom or brightened to make it not appear as one huge block of dark colour.
Successful: – Strong, vibrant orange colour contrasts well against the background. – Adds a different shape into it. – Buildings are continuous in the background, no gaps in-between adding fluidity to the photo.
Not successful: – Yellow tones have made the darker areas a dark brown, instead of black. – Lighting in the buildings in the back have turned quite overexposed to the windows get lost in each other.
For my second urban photoshoot I went on a walk and mainly took photos down at Havre Des Pas, a bathing pool/beach, and La Collette, an industrial site, there are also other various pictures which I took along the way of various buildings and building sites which I think fitted under the theme of urban for my work. I really enjoyed this photoshoot as I was able to explore a range of different sites with various objects, pathways, buildings etc to photograph and I’m very happy with how many of the pictures have turned out.
My 4 best shots to edit –
These are the 4 pictures which I think are my most successful and will edit in Adobe Lightroom from my walk from La Collette to Havre Des Pas because I like the way the sunlight compliments them nicely and doesn’t overexpose them and how I have references to my photographers which I have chosen to study as I wanted to make sure their influence was seen as I thought about what photos to take.
New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape
The photographer were inspired by the man-made, selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape.
What was the topographics a reaction to?
Topographics are a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.
Urban photography is a broad term describing photography that showcases all aspects of an urban environment, combining elements of many other types of photography, including portrait, fine-art, landscape, and architecture photography as well as photojournalism.
Both images (my own photography and that of Ralph Eugene Meatyard) share many similarities and differences. To compare these images, I can first see that both images include the use of a cluttered abundance of trees, swarming and filling up the entire photograph. Although in my image, all the trees are slightly wider and more detailed than the ones in Eugene Meatyard’s. His image has darker trees in the background whilst my image has every tree being more or less the same shade of grey.
I have also noticed that both images are in black and white and contain very similar shades and tones of both colours. I have however noticed, that Eugene’s Meatyards image is slightly more far away so you get the entire length of the tree whilst in my photo you can see that I’ve only captured a smaller portion of the trees. Eugene Meatyard’s also includes someone’s shadow whilst mine on the other hand, does not.
Eugene Meatyard tends to include props in his photographs whether it be landscape, portrait, or any other form of photography. He includes people into his photos, cars, shadows, masks and loads more. I have only captured the trees itself and left it at that.
My photograph
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
These photos have a very similar sense of imagery due to the wavy tracks that were created in both. However, Eugene Meatyard’s is more of the entire landscape and is much blurrier than of mine.
My photograph
These images are both similar themselves in the sense they both focus around the structure of the jagged and messy tree branches, but they are different in the sense that I’ve captured a picture of smaller branches close up and just focused on that, whilst the other image includes a child and is also focusing on bigger pieces of a tree. They do both however, have the same shades of black and white.
