To create altered landscape photographs for the Anthropocene project, I would need to explore various ways that I can do it to portray a message about the environment and modern society’s impact on it as well, through mediums such as photoshop or maybe other more traditional methods.
I started with two similar images, that had almost identical compositions – a path leading from the camera lens straight off into the distance, the horizon in view, a cable hanging from a pole, and a monochrome colour palette.
I then pasted one image on top of the other, and experimented with various blending modes, which matched the greyscale tones of the photographs.
I removed the bottom half of the background image so that you could more clearly see the top layer, and was left with this as the final product.
I think that this could be good for my exam piece but I don’t know how I could implement it yet.
Laurie Frankel collects a variety of different rubbish and turns them into vanitas style still life images. She takes something that we usually would find gross and turns it into a fascinating piece of art.
“I wanted to be inspired by something that was not inspiring,” Frankel says. “I decided to take something of no value, something that’s just so ordinary, and add something beautiful to it.”
Analysis:
In this image, for example, Frankel has used a range of dirty rubbish from the large Tropicana bottle, to the chopped carrots on the foreground of the image. The Tropicana bottle is the focal point of the image; this is because it’s the biggest and item, therefore it captures the viewers eye. The bright colours of yellow and orange coming from the plastic bag and the carrots contrasts the dark background colours of the soil, and the brown paper bag. Frankel has used a black background and some sort of black sheet where the rubbish is sitting on. She has done this to accentuate the colours and shapes of the items.
My Response:
Taking inspiration from Laurie Frankel and Thriza Schaap, I aim to photograph still life plastics and rubbish, I will take these photos in the studio and experiment with different lights, backgrounds and angles.
For this photoshoot I am planning On taking pictures of trash left on different streets and buildings. The pictures below are my inspiration.
Most Factories contaminate the air by blowing chemical vapours and smoke out through vents and smokestacks, and by burning waste in open dumps or incinerators. Exhaust from generators, diesel trucks, and buses also fill the air with dangerous gases. Factories alone are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the emissions to blame for global climate change.
Single-Use Plastic and waste Consumption Contributes to Climate Change When making plastics, the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels emits an annual estimate of 12.5 to 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas that causes global warming.
It takes thousand for a plastic bag to degrade in a and even then the bags don’t break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment. Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being.
My First idea for my photo-shoot is to go through areas where there are a lot of rubbish, areas like the dump are a good place because of the rubbish that they not only burn but keep there to be crushed and other purposes.
also areas like the middle of town is a perfect place to find rubbish, no matter where you go in town there will inevitably be at leas tone piece of rubbish
Common rubbish that I find almost everywhere is branded food like McDonalds, KFC, Big Jays and more. So an idea could be use these braded foods that I find lying round and make something of it.
It is a simple method that uses duplication, mirroring, and rotation to create a geometric pattern. A kaleidoscope pattern has a hypnotising quality to it. The pattern draws you into the centre of the image. This quality makes it great for background images, posters, or other designs.
I created these Kaleidoscopes by firstly increasing the canvas size in image.
I then converted the measurements to centimetres, and doubled one of the lengths of the original numbers.which left me with this.next, i selected the magic want tool and pressed on the green section and right clicked and pressed select inverse which will then select the image.then select layer via copy.i then flipped horizontally
For these edits I used images from the landscapes project and some images I found on the internet.
This first image was inspired by Edward Burtynsky and his images of plastic waste so using an image of my own and one I found of plastic pollution from the internet I used photoshop to edit them together showing the extreme cases of plastic waste in our oceans but displaying it on a local landscape to make the image more impactful.
This image below shows two images of industrial sites layered representing the change industrialisation has had on our environment and the black and white filter represents that in a sad and hopeless way.
In this image I added some factory chimneys into the sea to represent how natural landscapes are being imposed upon by industrialisation.
Dandora Landfill #3, Plastics Recycling, Nairobi, Kenya 2016
Edward Burtynsky is considered one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. He is known for his global industrial landscapes that represent over 40 years of dedication to witnessing the impact of human industry on the planet. His images are included in the collections of many museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.
“My earliest understanding of deep time and our relationship to the geological history of the planet came from my passion for being in nature.”
“We hope to bring our audience to an awareness of the normally unseen result of civilization’s cumulative impact upon the planet. This is what propels us to continue making the work. We feel that by describing the problem vividly, by being revelatory and not accusatory, we can help spur a broader conversation about viable solutions. We hope that, through our contribution, today’s generation will be inspired to carry the momentum of this discussion forward, so that succeeding generations may continue to experience the wonder and magic of what life, and living on Earth, has to offer.”
Constructed Landscapes are ones that are created with the imagery that the artist has in their mind with existing items/landscapes etc. This could be done by slicing or splitting two images which were taken of the same landscape but with different negatives. This method could also be used for 2 or more completely different landscapes that were combined together in order to make a new photograph.
A Constructed Landscape is a reflection of the artist mind therefore its negotiable to if the landscape is ‘real’ as it is of an existing landscape however it isn’t taken in a single photograph but by having adjustments done to it.
On the other hand in photography sometimes what a person sees is not always how a camera captures it. For example the image below is of the same landscape however back then it was hard to achieve what one saw through photography, mainly because of the exposure effecting different elements of the image.
The Great Wave … sunlight breaks through the clouds above the waves at Sète, France, 1856–59 Illustration: Gustave le Gray
What Gustave Le Gray did was take 2 pictures of the landscape but making the exposure correct to the area being photographed, so that he was left with both the sky and the sea to be as detailed and equal to each other. their values regarding brightness and darkness are balanced, this would be impossible to do then with a camera as the exposure when focused on a certain area would make the other overexposed or underexposed. This is why the start of a constructed landscape was revolutionary as then a photographer was able to create an image as close to the one they could see in real life.
This method was later used by many photographers, one of many was Yves Klein who created “leap into the void”, although it wasn’t exactly landscape based it was a very popular image in France. It was the early stage of photo montaging is well.
Yves Klein – Leap Into the Void, 1960, gelatin silver print, installation view
Another Photographer creating constructed landcaped, but in modern period is Dafna Talmor.
Dafna Talmor’s work is very interesting to me because of the abstract effect it has, she mixed two opposing categories together; realism and abstract, through photography. I find her work fascinating and definitely would like to experiment with her style of collaging and montaging colour negatives. I will consider to base my final outcomes on her work and study her style and photographs in more depth.
Her work consists of staged landscapes made of collaged and montaged colour negatives shot across different locations, then merged and transformed through the act of slicing and splicing. The resulting photographs are a conflation, ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary.
Dafna Talmor, Untitled (GI -19191919191919-1, 2019, C-type handprint made from 7 negatives Edition 1/5 + 1 AP, 60” × 27.4” (152.4 × 69.5 cm)‘Solar Effect in the Clouds – Ocean’ Photograph by Gustave Le Gray 1856 Albumen print from collodion on glass negative Museum no. E.1340-2000
Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe? To me both images are landscapes and classify as them. This is because they both include elements of landscapes. they may not be a straight photograph, meaning the photograph is not the same as the one the came took, but has been altered. This however doesn’t impact the category the photograph lands in to be different as the camera was pointed at a landscape and those images are a result of that. because they are altered, especially with Dafna Talmors work they would fall into more abstract landscapes as she uses different mediums to achieve her work.
What similarities do you notice about these two pictures? Both images contain areas of landscapes, where one is a pure landscape where the only thing noticeable is what the camera already captured, “The Great wave”. the pictures both represent seascape in their own way and both are constructed, meaning it isn’t a straight print but a mix of 2 or more, regarding both of the photographs. They also both created their constructed landscapes by manipulated coloured negatives.
What differences do you notice? The main difference is that Dafna’s work is more abstract and gives the intention of it being made up by her but Gustave’s is more realistic and not many would notice it’s an constructed landscape as the image makes sense on it’s own and doesn’t look changed.
What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes? To describe Defna’s landscapes I wold use the world mythical, as her images look more like how she sees the world, like they live in her head rather than in the real world, the almost feel like a tale or a nightmare, and her photographs encourage the viewer to feel them and intrigue them to look, luring them into the details of each of her photographs. To describe Gustave le Gray’s work is curious, I think this because of the fact his curiosity led him to discovering a new technique, which was quite revolutionary. due to this his landscapes are imposing and a little alarming. this is because of the dramatized tones and contrast between darks and whites.
In which of these landscapes would you prefer to live? I would prefer to live in Dafna’s landscapes simply because they look more fascinating, whereas Gustave’s work is more frightening to me because of the colour enhancement. Dafna’s choice of colour is more calming to me and if I were to live in her landscapes I would feel more adventurous and eager to explore.
Alice Wielinga is a photographer that takes photos in north Korea and edits in painting that is propaganda for north Korea so for example the picture under this shoes a farm with some cows and in the bottom left is the edited in with a strong cow carrying a lot of hay and woman with a rifle the next to this is the real photo where it looks like a small almost kind of weak cow next to man and there no crops and the landscape almost looks like a desert.
Alice wielinga was born in 1981 and lived in Netherlands she finished school as a documentary photographer her most notable work is with north Korea. where she takes photos of north Korean landscape and then adds north Korean propaganda on top of it, its sort of satire its showing what the country promises and then the reality next to it.
