Daniel Beltrá captures the profound beauty and vulnerability of the natural world in his photographs of natural landscapes and wildlife. Primarily a landscape photographer, Beltrá combines painterly abstraction with the haunting details of an earthly paradise in peril. His sweeping aerial images invite us to soar over majestic fields of ice, water and earth, to experience the natural wonders of our planet, and to bear witness to the scars, and shocking scale, of environmental degradation.

Beltras oil spill work

Daniel Beltra takes an abstract approach when photographing the oil spills from a high up POV. The bright colors of the oil massively contrasts against the deep dark tones of the ocean; this catches the viewers eye.

His images always have lots of texture due to the swirling of the oil, he makes these natural disasters look pretty.

Spill- Daniel Beltra (2011)

It was the world’s worst offshore oil spill: 5m barrels spewing from the BP-run Deepwater Horizon rig into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people, marine life and devastating hundreds of miles of coastline. From a Cessna float plane 3000 foot above the Louisiana coastline, photographer Daniel Beltrá captured the carnage. It was only from this height, he said, that the magnitude of the spill – and the futility of the clean-up operation – became apparent. “It was like trying to clean an Olympic pool full of oil while sitting on the side using Q-tips.”

My respone:

I aim to photograph signs of oil in our seas, inspired by the work of Beltra. i want to take an abstract approach to my work by photographing the multi-colors of the oil in the sea. I will find this mainly in the harbors, as oil spills from the boats. To compliment this, i might also take photos of boats in the harbor as they are the cause of the oil spills.

Juha Tanhua

In this collection of cosmic photographs, comets, nebulas, and galaxies stretch before the human eye, showering the sky in glittering scenes that ought to be from a telescope. But instead of looking upward into the night, Finnish photographer Juha Tanhua points his camera to the ground. He documents his “oil paintings” in broad daylight, shooting gasoline and oil spills usually found in car parks. “I don’t look up, but down,” he tells Colossal. “It’s not space above us; it’s space under our feet. You can find subjects to photograph even in dull places like parking lots. Expect nothing, get everything.”

The photographer first got his idea for the gasoline puddles when noticing an oil spill next to his car. “It looked a little bit like the northern lights,” he says.

My response:

As well as capturing the oil spills in the sea, i can also focus on where oil also spills from, cars. Using this idea, i aim to approach it in the same abstract way as the oil spills in the sea, capturing the colors of the oil on the ground. Inspired by Juha Tanhua.

Thirza Schaap is a photographer exploring new art forms through her Plastic Ocean project. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Cape Town, South Africa.

• “Plastic Ocean is an art project, which I started to create awareness around pollution to try and prevent (or at least reduce) the use of plastic.”

The images show a clash between worlds, offering minimal and aesthetically pleasing compositions which, on closer inspection, in-still a sense of ecological grief.  Plastic Ocean questions consumption, idolatry and what it is we value in our lives today. The effect is a quirky, playful and pop art paradox. 

At a first glance, the debris do not disgust us. On the contrary. Their dainty look almost seems to gloss over the ugliness of all the plastic pollution on our beaches. But only for an instant. Our initial attraction, soon fades.

Plastic Ocean provides a kind of Vanitas for the 21st century. Traditional icons of mortality, ephemerality and wealth have been traded out for bottles, baskets and bowls: single-use items which are used and discarded, now only existing as empty vessels of destruction.

Our beaches are covered in plastic confetti and there really is nothing to celebrate.

In my response:

In one of my photo shoots, i aim to create a still- life, vanitas inspired shoot. Using objects such a plastic, nets, bottles, bottle lids, wrappers and anything that pollutes our oceans. I set up a photo shoot at home, and use the studio at school; i aim to experiment with different background, lighting, and angles.

Mind Map 1

LOCATIONS:

st aubins long beach

SUBJECTS:

big drains on the beach, water and other substances off the fields, small drains on the wall

Mood Board 1

Mind Map 2

LOCATIONS:

Home photoshoots, school photography studio

SUBJECTS:

plastic bottles, wrappers, net from the sea, sea glass, any rubbish from beach/ found on beach.

Mood Board 2

Plastic Bags Landscape:

Vilde Rolfsen is a photographer from Norway, Oslo who studied in Kensington University. While living in London she realised the impact we were having on the environment especially the use of plastic bags. In her project ‘Plastic Bags Landscape’ she addresses the detrimental effects of using plastic bags as they pollute our land and oceans. Rolfsen didn’t want her project to be too in-your-face so, she decided by doing a more abstract project as it will have a more aesthetically pleasing feel and look and won’t scare the audience away. Vilde Rolfsen took inspiration from where she grew up, in Oslo, as she wanted the bags too give a look of the mountains and glaciers from back home.

Analysis:

This is a digital image of a plastic bag, the mis-en-scene presents a clear plastic bag that has lights around it to create the different colours seen in the image. There are different tones within the image with the darker tones being around the centre of the image, being the focal point, with the lighter tones on the outskirts of the image. The use of light is artificial to create the different colours, most of the image is in focus suggesting the image was taken with a f/8. Rolfsen has clearly used the rule of thirds, with each third having a different colour wave/tone.

Photoshoot Plan: