Why did I choose rural landscapes for Anthropocene?

I chose to do landscapes as its my favourite way to photograph, i prefer having a bigger picture of the scenery, rather than photographing specific objects up close. I also didn’t want to limit myself to a certain topic such as plastics. Whilst doing research on artists who base some of their work off Anthropocene I became inspired by Axel Braun who had photographed rural landscapes and also urban structures such as electric towers (within rural areas).

How did i plan?

Initially, I planned to do three photoshoots: Land erosion, Reservoirs and electric towers. I ended up completing two and also taking a variation of any other scenery whilst i was out photographing. I picked days when it wasn’t raining and more of a clear sky, also going out just before/ after the sun had set to create a darker more relaxing lighting. Since it had been raining consecutively for the previous few days there was a few land slides on edges of banks and also found flooding on a filed which had shown the bank eroding into it. Id say I definitely attempted to thoroughly go by my plan but as always ended up changing things last minute due to the weather and amount of time I had. For example I planned to go to Val De La Mar but the busses were too long and sun would’ve already set and i only had week days after school/ evenings to carry my photoshoots out.

Photoshoot – experimenting with editing

Whilst carrying out my photoshoots i was mainly on the north coast, ensuring there was no rain and a clear view to enhance my images and make them more clear, having a dim lighting helped give my images more character rather than broad daylight. However, it was very muddy and difficult to get to certain places but especially for one of my final images where im capturing land erosion i had to walk quite far and try get to the location which was quite steep and difficult. My shutter speed was on the wrong setting which therefore created my images to come out more blurry than i expected, this was frustrating as all the other images were fine and i couldn’t properly look back to check (land erosion images). After uploading all my images to the media drive i began editing them in Lightroom and photoshop, keeping in mind i didn’t need to edit them dramatically as Axel Braun’s landscapes were very simplistic. Although, with one image i took from underneath an electric tower i experimented with editing and i like the outcome which is why i have put it into my print folder and final images. Other than that i enhanced the exposure, contrast and texture on my landscapes.

What could’ve gone better/ went wrong?

Firstly, not completing all three of my photoshoots was frustrating as i specifically wanted to do reservoirs to compare with Axel Braun’s images, if I had more time I would’ve been able to do this. I also hoped my images would come out in better focus and more detail, the reasoning they didn’t would be due the camera settings most likely which i couldn’t really work out what the problem was; it was also quite windy effecting the cameras accuracy and how still i was holding the camera. Overall, i need to improve on trying to get images which resemble my artist references style as much as possible to make it obvious what I’m attempting to recreate.

Overall evaluation on Anthropocene:

I enjoyed doing this project but wish I had more time to complete my photoshoots to my best ability, I am pleased with my final outcomes however I do think they are limited and that i could do much better and more on task outcomes.