For this photoshoot, I would like to capture areas of Krakow that obviously showcase monuments and buildings that were created by German occupants. An example of an area that I am going to photograph is mainly Auschwitz as it was a German run concentration camp which was incredibly devastating for many people during and after this time. I would also like to capture some aspects of Krakow’s urban landscape to capture what the city looks like after the math of war.

Contact sheets:

Here I have a selection of photos that I took from my photoshoot and I went down the route of flagging and rejected which ones I liked and disliked. In order to do this, I pressed P to pick which images I wanted to use for my final piece and then pressed X to reject the ones I didn’t want to include in my final layout.

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Successful photographs:

Here I have a selection of my my flagged images that I am going to be going through to pick out which images I would like to include in my final outcomes.

Unsuccessful photographs:

Here I have a range of images that I took throughout my photoshoot which I will not be including in my final outcomes. I didn’t think they fit the brief of what I was going for so I claimed these to be unsuccessful and won’t be using them in the end.

Colour coded and star rated:

After carrying out my selection process, I started colour coding my flagged images into the categories of green, yellow and red. I wanted to then star rate my images by having 5 star rated images as being definite ones to use, 4 stars as ones I will also use, 3 stars as ones to possibly use, and 2 and below are images I won’t be using for my final layout.

Green:

Here I have a selection of images that I have star rated and colour coded to green which I am going to use as my definite photos for my final outcomes. I particularly liked how these turned out as I believe they are able to showcase what I am going for with the given theme of ‘complex’ and also my choice of study.

Yellow:

These are my selected images that I am unsure of using but might still consider including in my final outcome. I wanted to only chose a few of them from this selection as to not have too many final images.

Red:

Finally I have my red color coded images that I will not be using, I feel that these images don’t fit within the theme I am going for or that these are good enough images to include in my final outcomes.

Best images before editing:

— Editing —

Below I have some examples of photographs that I have edited, showcasing both the before and after side by side so that I could really show the changes I have made.

My intentions with these images was to make them appear more dramatic than they are in reality. The first image was taken whilst at Auschwitz which in reality is incredibly devastating but I wanted to make the image more ominous and eerie by stripping the image of all its colour.

Here I have another example of a photograph I took at Auschwitz. I once again wanted to make it black and white as to make it appear way more devastating and to also make it somewhat similar to the old photographs taken back when the concentration camp was being operated by the Germans.

Photos after editing:

Final outcomes, Analysis and Critique

I have selected this as my first image as I wanted to start off by presenting a very impactful image. The barbed wire and the buildings that were used to kill off several Jews during the German occupation creates a truly saddening display. I wanted to allow for this image to make it clear that these events should never occur again as they are one of the most upsetting events to have occurred within history. I think the use of making the image black and white once again takes out all the life from within the image and also creates a very similar image to that of the old time ones.

I have placed these images together as I believe they all compliment each-other nicely and are all from within the location of Auschwitz, all showing different perspectives of the location and showing a range of areas that was present from within the facility.

For this first photoshoot, I would like to mainly aim to capture the setting of Germany, especially the portion that is Berlin. Berlin is known for containing a vast selection of historical architecture and structures that link towards its relationship with wars, especially WWII. The Berlin Wall was a main historical monument that was included within the city itself and played a vital role within the division of areas within Germany.

Contact sheets:

Here I have the entirety of my Berlin photoshoot. I have flagged and rejected all my images so that I can categorise them into ones I would like to use and ones I don’t want to use. I rejected the ones I don’t like by pressing X in lightroom and flagged the ones I would like to use by pressing P in lightroom.

I wanted to make sure I was making a strict choice with which I wanted to use and to reject as I wanted the photographs to fit the theme of “complex” nicely.

Colour coded and star rated:

Here I have a range of flagged photographs which I then categorised into green, yellow and red. Green being ones I wanted to definitely use, yellow being ones I was unsure of using, and red being ones I definitely don’t want to use. After colour coding my images, I then went in by adding a star rating to each out of 5. 5 and 4 being definites, 3 being ones that I might be using and 2-1 being ones I won’t be using for this project.

Green:

Yellow:

Red:

Images before editing

— Editing —

Below I have a few examples of images that I have edited after selecting my best images out of the range I have taken during my photoshoot. I particularly like these images as I feel they express the theme of Germany’s history and the aftermath of massive events that occurred during the time of WWII. I especially like the first edited image which is of the Berlin Wall, I believe this to be a very significant image as it display the very monument that separate Berlin as to keep so-called Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state.

I really like how these images turned out as I believe they fit within the theme of complex. They display momentous structures that are full of complex meanings and also portray a complex exterior to themselves as well.

I thought it would be a good plan for me to enhance the exposure of the above image due to it being difficult to see at first glance. I wanted both the ceiling light and the figure to be the main focal points of the image so I edited it so that both aspects were highlighted more obviously. After enhancing the exposure and other aspects such as contrast, highlights and shadows, I went about changing the colour to black and white to really enhance the brightness of the lighting and make the statue more obvious.

Final Images

Analysis and Critique

I feel as if the images above work well together as they both provide quite complex-looking imagery, with the many tram wires in the first one to the solid and intricate blocks within the second image. The second image displays Jewish victims in the form of an art form which is an almost never ending maze. It was used to impact the public as you walk through the labyrinth alone, just to showcase how many deaths had occurred during these dark times.

I particularly like this image above as well as I feel it displays one of the complex structures within Germany. In colour it showcases that the building itself is incredibly old due to the deterioration in colour. The roof has gone from a copper to a somewhat greenish colour due to the metal oxidising. Even though the colours from the monument are indeed intrancing in itself, I still preferred the aesthetic it gave off whilst in black and white as I feel it highlights the details of the building and creates a looming and ominous sense to it.

Katrin Koenning

Photobook – Astres Noirs

I decided to chose this artist as an extra artist reference as I really enjoy the aesthetic that the imagery portrays. I especially like the image of the silhouette emerging from within the water in the lake. I really enjoy how scintillating the whites are within the image as they almost give off quite a euphoric, heavenly sense to the world. I would like to edit one of my photographs that includes people so that I can make an edit similar to the first image by Koenning

Michael Wolf

Photobook – Some More Hong Kong Seating Arrangements

I chose these images from one of Michael Wolf’s photobooks as I really liked the way these were presented. They are laid out in a little photobook with the images all being narrowed down to one simple topic. This one was instance is about all the chairs and seating arrangements that are present within Hong Kong, it’s quite a simple approach but produces some very effective images in the end within the photobook.

Photobook – Tokyo Compression

I really like the overall aesthetic with this photobook. I like the way the keyrings are present through the wet and blurry glass, creating a very simple yet intricate image. I enjoy the overall aesthetic of the photobook, however I don’t think it fits in with the main inspiration for my photography. It may have represented youth within Germany is I was planning to do a photoshoot on youth, but unfortunately they are all based on urban and some rural landscape photography.

Monika Orpik is an artist from Poland, based in Warsaw. Through the medium of photography and experimental processes in the darkroom, she tries to explore the subject of trauma of post-conflict communities and question the influence of art on the process of reconciliation.

Photobook – Stepping Out Into This Almost Empty Road

Stepping Out Into This Almost Empty Road looks at the moment of change when the most idyllic scenario becomes a horror of a political regime. From picking apples in the orchard to tear gas on the street. The book combines photographic material and texts that revolve around the permanent in-between state that is inseparable from the notion of migration. Despite being focused on stories of a specific community, the book makes visible what is universal in the context of transition.

Orpik captures the ripples of change across the region surrounding the border between Poland and Belarus in the wake of Belarus’ 2020 presidential election and subsequent anti-government protests, and the ongoing refugee crisis. She is interested in the pivotal moment when “the most idyllic scenario becomes a horror of a political regime”, “from picking apples in the orchard to tear gas in the street.” 

Orpik choses to work on the basis of invitation and collaboration rather than stepping into something one doesn’t belong to. For her encounter itself was more important than its outcome. The community was portrayed in the way they decided for leaving their traces only in text or photographed objects and landscapes that surround them on a daily basis. The process of ‘Stepping Out Into This Almost Empty Road’ became a reflection on what constitutes neighbourhood, the experience of migration and how the values of diversity can bring people together.

 

Image analysis

With this image here, I decided to chose this image as it displays what I think to be a strong image for the theme of complex as it goes down the route of displaying a vast range of plants such as the ones right in front of the camera and also the ones within the greenhouse. I like the choice of making the image black and white as it displays a much more intense approach to the theme of complex and showcases more texture and patterns within the piece.

I would somewhat argue that it does fall into the category of simple due to the concept of the image just being of a lady in a greenhouse checking her plants. It’s not an overly complicated photography concept so I would say that this image also displays senses of simplicity.

Photoshoot 1

For my first photoshoot, I plan to take photos of the landscapes and environment during my trip to Berlin. I plan to base my subjects mainly regarding the wars and the overall impact that it had on the areas within the city itself. I would like to base my photoshoot on the works of Michael Schmidt and his interpretations of the aftermath of war within Berlin. I want to show the progress that Berlin has made throughout the times of the war and the aftermath of what it did to the city overall. I want to present the youth of the city and its buildings to capture how far it’s moved since the war ended.

Photoshoot 2

For my second photoshoot, I plan to take photos within my trip to Krakow. I would mainly like to include photos from the location of Auschwitz as it was a German occupied concentration camp. The link to the topic of war is still the main factor within the photography I would like to capture and I find this to be a very impactful image choice. Auschwitz was a very heartbreaking and incredible dark moment during the German occupation so I wanted to capture a real sense of how devastating the event was and the location it was held at.

Photoshoot 3

For my second photoshoot, I plan to take the route of photographing places in Jersey. I would like to still follow down a similar route to that of my first photoshoot, including possible war related subjects such as bunkers and castles. I will be exploring Jersey for a variety of bunkers, especially ones with graffiti on them, just to have that similar sense to that of Berlin wall and bunker images within the city of Berlin.

What you want to explore?

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.

Raymond Meeks (Ohio, 1963) has been recognized for his photographs and photo books centered on family and place. Meeks is an American photographer and it was stated that “Much of his work focuses on memory and place, and captures daily life with his family.” He has published a number of books including Pretty Girls Wander (2011) which “chronicles his daughter’s journey from adolescence to adulthood”; and Ciprian Honey Cathedral (2020), which contains symbolic, figurative photographs taken in and around a new house, and of his partner just before waking from sleep.

Meeks stated once that “I’ll work for a while making pictures, most often within walking distance of my backyard—observations and occurrences that make up the fabric of daily life, so that I make work where I find myself wanting to spend time with a person or a subject, oftentimes dictated by the type of experiences that I want to have in the world.”

He shoots in color and black-and-white, working primarily with a film-based camera, hand printing from negatives in his own darkroom, and often binding his prints together into handcrafted books.

Photobook – Halfstory Halflife

Within Meeks photobook, he observed the energy and atmosphere over the course of three years coming from the presence of a group of kids jumping from a cliff into a waterfall below; the spectacle of the wait, the anticipation of the climb and the final leap into darkness, where time comes to a standstill as bodies are frozen in motion. These everyday experiences and rituals, simple and carefree in their nature, gain a weight and significance through the lens, as the bodies fall somewhere beyond the threshold of youth and into adulthood.

In a presentation from Chose Commune, they make the statement of “Meeks ventured the few miles from his rural home in the Catskill Mountain region of New York, to a single-lane bridge spanning the tributaries of Bowery and Catskill Creeks. Beneath the bridge, a waterfall drops sixty-feet over moss-covered limestone toward a forbidding pond.”

“The local youth have come here from time immemorial, congregating near outcroppings and around a concrete altar – a remnant of an earlier stone bridge. Most allow themselves a brief running start before launching their pale bodies into the void, where tentative suggestions of flight mark the response to gravity. Taken collectively, their gestures allude to ritual, a prayerful response to the exigencies of budding sexuality and a future rife with uncertainty.”

“Halfstory Halflife is a distillation of the photographs made in the shadows of these falls, marked each summer by the emergence of young adults perched at a precipice both in space and in their lives.”

In an interview with Raymond Meeks and Sophie Wright, Meeks highlights the story behind the book and how he was able to take these photos produced within it.

Meeks stated about his book: “The more I got to know the kids there, the more they wanted to give me something and perform. What I ended up deferring to was less engagement. I would do just enough to let them know this is who I am, this is what I’m doing and then offering prints in exchange. A lot of the kids would do stunts. I knew that’s what they wanted to do, so I would photograph them, go home, make a digital print, and give them the prints of it. Then I would just have to tell them, “Thank you for that. That’s not what I wanted. Do what you do.”

Meeks went on to make a statement about his experience with allowing the photos to distill: “It was ritual. I was raised Catholic, so these rock outcroppings to me were like altars. These bodies leaping into the dark void almost became like this sacrament. I feel like each generation has to pay for the sins of the previous generation. They were almost offering up their bodies and it’s the process of evolving by way of ritual—that process of coming of age, something that’s been going on at this specific place for as long as people can remember.”

Image analysis

I have decided to analyse this image as I particularly enjoy the aesthetic it is portraying and just the overall layout to the image itself. I like how complex the image looks with the several varieties of plants that are scattered all over the photograph as they provide different patterns that create a complicated yet eye-catching image. The contrast between rural and urban areas really was what intrigued me as the two don’t mix as one is natural and one is man made. The two contrasting areas of both rural and urban photography together, creates a good juxtaposition for the image.

I believe that this image fits mainly within the theme of complex due to so much going on with the vast variety of plants and objects. There are many different textures and details that are expressed through the huge array of greenery that is displayed within the photograph. I also believe that by the image being in black and white, it is able to showcase the textures more prominently as they’re dramatically enhanced rather than colliding with each other with colour.

Michael Schmidt was a German photographer and his subjects of interest were Berlin and “the weight of German identity in modern history.” Schmidt began photographing the streets, buildings and people of West Berlin in a semi-documentary approach. He went on to make a series of “ambitious projects” there, all in black and white and becoming more impressionistic, until his death in 2014.

Five months after the German surrender ended World War II in Europe. His family crossed to West Berlin before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. He began photographing in 1965 when he was 20 years old.

Berlin-Wedding (1976–78), Berlin nach 1945 (Berlin after 1945) (1980), Waffenruhe (Ceasefire) (1985–87), and Ein-heit (U-ni-ty) (1991–94), demonstrate not only his sustained interest in Berlin as a subject but also his engagement with the weight of German identity in modern history. Ein-heit, his most ambitious project, was made in response to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of East and West Germany. It comprises 163 images: some were taken by Schmidt in a factual, descriptive style, and others he re-photographed from newspapers, propaganda journals, history books, and other communication and mass media sources. He combined contemporary and archival pictures of mass demonstrations, historic sites, emblems, monuments, and both anonymous and notorious people into a poignant study of German society in the aftermath of World War II. 

Waffenruhe – Photobook

Here is one of Michael Schmidt’s photobooks called “Waffenruhe”. It focuses on areas within Berlin and showcases a variety of images that link to the before and after effects of the country and its monuments, especially presenting the Berlin Wall after effects.

“In contrast to the consciously sober – but far from clinical images of his earlier series, Schmidt uses atmosphere-laden details with high-contrast black-and-white images of cityscapes, details in nature, and portraits in Waffenruhe to create a subjective, leaden picture of a still-divided city.” – Walther Koenig

“He no longer deploys the techniques of pure documentation, but brings together surprising combinations of images to express a generationʼs dystopian sense of life shortly before the fall of the Wall. Schmidt evokes a world of ruptures and absences that eschews a confident, comprehensive point of view.”

Berlin Wedding – Photobook

Another one of Michael Schmidt’s photo books that I particularly like for my area of study is one that’s named “Berlin Wedding”.

Michael Schmidt devoted his project “Wedding” to the West Berlin district of that name, portraying grey urban landscapes where public space is a stage for projecting memories. His perspective on the urban fabric shows how the old and the new meet – ruins as identifiable traces of the war alongside new concrete structures as hostile human habitats.

Inside of the photobook:

Image analysis

Here is an image I have chosen to analyse from Michael Schmidt’s photobook “Berlin Wedding”. I particularly like this image as it is able to capture the urban landscape of the city way after the events of WWII. It is able to capture a nice simplistic yet quite complex photograph as there are quite a few objects within the image, displaying the slight sense of complexity due to there being so much to look at. Although it’s quite complex looking due to there being so much going on, it also has quite a simple basis to it due to everything having quite a clean shape such as squares and triangles and not overly complicated patterns or arrangements. The placement of everything as well can come off as being quite neatly placed which may fall under the theme of simplicity.

I particularly like this image as I feel it fits within the theme of simple and complex rather than one of the other. It displays characters from both themes and I overall think it is a particularly aesthetically pleasing image to look at.

Here is a moodboard combining both simple and complex aspects for the overall project. I wanted to take the approach of combining both landscape and portrait photography together, also combining aspects of the topic on war to the project.

Moodboard for the topic of ‘simple’:

Here I have my moodboard for ideas that I thought applied to the theme of ‘simple’. For my area of study, I would like to go down the path of applying aspects of the city of Berlin. Within the topic of ‘simple’, I thought it would be a good approach to highlight the approach of the urban landscape and the society within the city itself. I wanted to take this approach so that I could display the normality of the people that live around the area itself, rather than take a deeper approach.

Moodboard for the topic of ‘complex’:

Here I have my moodboard for ideas that I thought applied to the theme of ‘complex’. For this area of study, I thought it would be an interesting concept to follow the idea of war-related subjects and displaying the deeper picture behind Berlin’s background. The city was known for containing the Berlin wall and many other aspects of war that have built up what the city looks like today. Graffiti in the city also plays as very important role in the city’s story and it’s a massive part of the community and the landscapes visible.

Mindmap:

Above here I have my mindmap which contains a few areas that I was considering to study for my overall topic. I mainly liked the idea of containing historical aspects behind my photography, so I thought about taking photos within Berlin and comparing those that of Jersey. Berlin and Jersey both contain graffiti within the locations and also contain war-related monuments and figures such as bunkers and memorials. I believe that I will be able to make a good comparison between the two areas with linking mainly to history and landscape, both mainly being within the urban area.