What I would like to explore within my study is a link between landscape photography the portrait photography. I would mainly like to focus on the concept of including war related architecture from both Germany and Jersey. Germany is filled with many aspects that revolve around the war and Jersey includes a wide variety of the same content. I believe that the study within the areas of Jersey, Poland and Germany highlights the theme of complexity as they display a wide variety of landscapes that area very complicated to look at during first glance and also contain a much more complex meaning behind them, relating to the war.
Why it matters to you?
It matters to me because Jersey was occupied by the Germans during WWII. It was inhabited mainly by the Germans and Jersey is the island that I was born and continue to live on. It matters a lot to me as it is the place I grew up on and it has an important link to that of the wars that commenced from Germany. The jersey portion of my photoshoots will be incredibly important to me as well because I have a German bunker in my garden so it is part of where I live.
How you wish to develop your project?
The way I wish to develop my project is I would like to take a variety of photographs from each location such as Poland, Germany and Jersey and create a photobook at the very end. I would like to display a variety of locations from each country as to showcase a difference between each historical monument and their similarities and differences.
When and where you intend to begin your study?
I intend to start my study first within Berlin so that I can first get a feel of what i’m going for with this project. I want to capture the historical aspects of the city before I can go down the route of figuring out what I’m aiming to photograph in the other areas. I think Germany is a very good starting point for my project as my topic is going to mainly be based around Germany and the aftermath of World War II, so Germany being my first area to take photographs in seems like a good idea.
This was the first photoshoot I did for the woodland side of the project (as well as the project in general). I took images around a footpath in the valley, which provided me with primarily images of trees and bushes, however I also managed to find streams and a derelict building, giving more variety in the shoot. I took these images about an hour before sunset, giving me plenty of time to use the light, however the sunlight wasn’t always pointed directly at the subject, nor was it always visible, making some images a tad too dark or colourless. I feel like my camera handling for this specific shoot was some of the best I’ve done, as I was able to adapt the settings to changes in the lighting of the subject and positioning of the camera.
Contact Sheets
Editing
To start editing, I selected the images I thought were strong and removed any blurry or under/over-exposed images, leaving me with around 60 images to choose from as my final images.
Next, I went through these images and applied a star rating to them, which will allow me to filter through to the images I think are the strongest. Below are all 4-star and higher rated images:
I also applied a colour to each image using the colour selection filter tool in Lightroom to help visualise my selection. Below is a screenshot of a selection of 3-star and higher images:
Best Images from this Shoot
These are the final images I ended up with after the selection process:
Edited versions:
Black and white versions:
Comparison to Lebas’ work
For this shoot, I made most of my images colder in tone as it fits with the aesthetic of Lebas’ work. I took these images during the later parts of the day during the golden hour, giving the images an effective lighting. However, many of the images were taken in the shade of the woodland, leaving the images with a colder tone and fairly low contrast. Some of Lebas’ images invoke a sense of danger in the way her landscapes seem to trap the viewer within the woodland, I feel like as I was focussing on both a cold tone as well as the sublime beauty of nature as opposed to danger. A difference between my images and Lebas’ is that she uses a wide-angle lens to capture a wide shot of the scene she is photographing, while I use a standard lens, giving my images a regular, rectangular shape.
Evaluation
I think this shoot was successful, as I managed to adhere to my plan and intentions for the shoot, providing me with images which will fit into my final outcomes. Due to the position of the sun, the lighting of each scene I photographed slightly changed, meaning I had to effectively use my knowledge on camera handling to make sure that each image had the correct exposure. For my next woodland shoot, I will aim to photograph more of the colours provided by the sun during the golden hour, as to make my images more vibrant and/or to increase the dynamic range of my darker images. I will also take pictures during the blue hour, as this will allow me to get the colours and lighting that are on Lebas’ images.
What went well:
In particular, I am happy with the images involving the pond/stream I took at the start of the photoshoot, as I think those images offer a nice contrast to the rest of the images in terms of subject matter and composition. In those images, I was able to adjust my camera settings to allow for a long exposure, which would give the water a ‘misty’ look, this is a technique I have been wanting to experiment with for a while. I like the way the colours turned out on some of these images, some have a vibrant green which stands out among the browns and greys, while others have an orange due to the golden hour lighting, which gives a contrast to the green tones, as well as the darker images.
How I can improve:
I feel like the lighting could have been a tad better for this shoot, while I started these images an hour before sunset (the golden hour) I felt that I wasn’t fully successful in capturing that lighting in some of my images, leaving them bland and muddy. Some of my darker images, where I was trying to mimic the style of Chrystel Lebas, I feel like the vibrancy and contrast in Lebas’ work was not in mine, so for the next shoot I will aim to focus on those things.
Andrew Prokos is an award-winning photographer specializing in large-format fine art photography in black and white and in color. His gallery-quality artworks are found in the homes of art collectors around the world and are purchased by interior designers, art advisors, and international galleries on behalf of their clients. Andrew’s fine art photographs have won numerous awards and honors and are featured in prestigious publications and interviews. The photography available for sale through this website is the product of his artistic vision and his almost twenty-year journey as a photographer. You can explore Andrew’s work using the curated photography collections below, which include; architectural photography, abstract photography, black & white photography, color photography, cityscapes, landscapes, long-exposure, and night photography.
Andrew has photographed iconic cities and locations in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East for over twenty years. His collections of large-scale photographs capture the unique fabric of each location in high-definition and intricate detail. You can explore Andrew’s location photography in the curated collections below, which include photography of New York City photography, Boston, London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Continental Europe and the UK. Also included are locations in the American West such as Seattle, Colorado and Bryce Canyon, Utah. Andrew’s award-winning fine art photography series approach architectural elements and urban landscapes from a conceptual perspective. In his series Andrew touches on themes of transition and temporality, abstraction, and altered visual perception through the use of negative imagery. His series have won numerous awards at international photography competitions, and have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and corporate collections around the world.
Andrews work differs from the simple side of this project with his images containing much more complex structures with interesting features. By studying this artist it can help me further understand the difference between the simple and complex architecture. However, some of Andrews images lead further over to the simple side of architecture by photographing simple but unique structures in a simplistic way. He ranges his photos from black and white to bright, unique colours reflecting off the buildings. He photographs interior and exterior parts of buildings to make sure he captures the whole building.
In this image you can clearly see Andrew has photographed the interior of a building from beneath the main subject. He has positioned his camera nearly straight upwards but tilted slightly. He does this to make sure he captures the spiral staircase leading to the bottom of the building. The image involves a symmetric glass dome with light glaring though to complete the brightness of the inside. The image is clearly captured during daytime which creates the shadows on the staircase to make some sort of spiral pattern carrying through the whole image. I would declare this images more over to the complex side because of the unique, symmetrical dome that is unusual for buildings as such. The image was taken inside of the Guggenheim Museum located in New York City, a city filled with interesting and distinctive architecture.
For my first photoshoot, I invited two friends and photographed one of them at different locations around my house using a portable LED light to provide colourful lighting that would enhance my image. Locations shot in my house included my bathroom, bedroom and a field opposite. Shot on TV mode without tripod or flash, the result was vibrant slightly grainy images that matched the aesthetic i was aiming for well. The downside of shooting on TV mode was the majority of my images turned out shaky or unfocused, but the upside was it enhanced the LED light well and gave an outcome i wouldn’t be able to achieve on any other shooting mode. I plan to leave the majority of these photos unedited although may potentially increase the vibrancy in some to make the lighting stand out more, or increase the exposure as since all my images were taken with the LED as the sole source of lighting, some of them turned out too dark. However for the most part I am satisfied with the outcome of my images.
BEST IMAGES
Comparison to Nan Goldin’s work
Comparison to Vinca Petersen’s work
Comparison to Tobias Zielony’s workComparison to Nan Goldins work – both use bold red lighting to enhance the image.
Out of all the photos in my shoot, the red ones stood out most to me as I feel they had the best outcome and communicated my artist references well. I used the red light to give my photos a more intimate atmosphere, especially due to shooting in my bedroom i wanted my photos to have the insider perspective to provide complexity, and through using the red LED i felt this better enhanced them – the underlying tones of orange, yellow and pink also compliment my images well and add a nice touch, and the grainy effect captured on some of my images provide a raw unfiltered perspective and reflect on the documentary / diaristic style I aim to portray in my photos.
My purple / blue images showcase a completely different atmosphere to my red ones as they depict a calmer more peaceful atmosphere through the cool tones. These two images, both taken from the same position and angle, are example of how lighting can drastically change the setup of a photo. In the first one, the LED is the sole source of lighting which results in more shadows and darker tones around the model and borders of the photo – however in the second one, the use of a lighter provided a surprising amount of lighting change in my image – the flame illuminates the model and creates underlying tones of red and pink, and lessens the shadows around the image which results in the photo being more vibrant and colourful – this is why i prefer it out of the two.
