Why did I choose to focus on the impact of the fishing industry, and re-create Mandy Barker’s work?

My first thoughts were to shoot the pollution by La Collette as it is a clear example of Anthropocene. However I had already taken photos there and found the final outcomes not very interesting. My next thought was to re-create Mandy Barker’s work. At first I thought it was a boring idea as it could be seen as copying her style, but I decided I really liked her images, and I didn’t have to completely copy them. Photographing fishing waste wasn’t planned, but when I went to collect rubbish for my shoot I saw how much waste there was. I took photos as I collected plastic, and I am happy that I did as the photos add to my project.

How did I do the shoot?

I used my digital camera to photograph both shoots. For my studio shoot, I used a Copy Stand to create the overhead shot angle. I organised the waste quite roughly to begin with, then collected the smaller pieces to put together a group of pieces to look like Barker’s work. I wasn’t completely happy with the results of those images because I didn’t collect enough pieces and the images weren’t as compact as hers.

Overall:

In the end I am happy with my basic edits, but I prefer the edits I did in photoshop because I think they’re more interesting. I think the photos I took on the beach aren’t as well composed as they could have been. I also think I could have improved my studio shoot by using more pieces, and trying a black background to emphasise the vibrancy and tones in the waste.

My favourite edit is my re-creation of Barker’s photo in photoshop. What went wrong with this edit? I think I can improve it if I add more to add density like her images. I also don’t have a background that has different light ranges in it. Although her photos have this, I am not worried about not including it.

I went back into photoshop and chose an image of micro plastics off the internet. I filled the background in black, and dragged the layer onto my edit. I erased around my parts, and filled in the background. Although the new pieces of plastic aren’t my image, I am happier with the outcome as the overall edit is more compact and interesting.

I think I did a pretty good job to sum up my entire Anthropocene project. Overall, the quality of the photos is great but quantity is unfortunately slightly lacking. With the Estate photos being very good as a whole, it only featured mainly two areas and I could have improved by going out further to capture other buildings.

The Jung photos also look good but are both lacking in quantity and, slightly, the editing. Because some of the photos didn’t have dramatic enough blurring which I think I could have improved on significantly by taking more building photos and adding more layers to distort the images more.

These photos have been some of my best ones I’ve ever taken and I’ve enjoyed this entire project. I loved taking these photos as much as I did editing them and I hope I get the opportunity to take photos like these again.

Stephanie Jung:

My Work:

Jung’s Work:

Very similar themes here and I think mine are just as good as hers, although you can definitely tell who made what as Jung’s pictures have a much stronger blur and probably involved a different camera technique. Some of mine don’t have a lot of visual blurring and I made my ones from the same single photo. Something else is that Jung’s photos have better views of cities and streets and mine are single objects where not much is going on nearby. I wish I had ventured more into town to take pictures of the streets along with the many more buildings. I also wish that when I was editing mine, I had one of Jung’s photos open so I could quickly compare them for the best accuracy. All together these photos aren’t actually that bad, but compared to Stephanie’s ones they are quite weak.

Robert Clayton:

My Work:

Clayton’s Work:

I don’t think, compared to Robert, that my pictures are that bad. I think they might even be better on a scale of colours and sharpness. When I said I was going to mimic Clayton’s work I instantly knew I was going to go down to Le Marais and take pictures of the tall buildings and they turned out just how I expected them to. Nothing I don’t think I could have improved on in these photos, but I should have gone to other areas to take pictures of different buildings. That would have most likely improved the variation and made the photos more interesting.

I took a handful of some of the best photos from my Anthropocene photoshoot and edited them. I did all sorts of edits to these photos to make them look more interesting and better and I like the finished products.

Stephanie Jung:

I edited some of my photos to mimic Stephanie Jung’s editing style. I took one image and lowered the opacity, then I duplicated the layer multiple times and moved each one slightly to make the distorted effect. Each edited photo will be compared to the original.

Method used:

Results:

Kaleidoscope:

I decided to play with the mirroring function on Photoshop and made a weird but interesting amalgamation of a single photo, I think they look pretty cool.

Method Used:

Results:

Black and White:

I turned some of the photos black and white and they look pretty nice.

Random Edits:

As the title implies, I was editing these images with no exact plan in my head and I was just making things up, and some of these actually turned out alright.

Dumps:

I went to the dump at La Collette and took pictures of the big metal bins filled with all kinds of rubbish. Along with the huge mountains of rubbish that have been there for years now.

I like the bin shots as they look very full and crowded, showing us that we produce and throw away too many things. And the mountains show us where it goes, it just gets dumped here because we don’t know what to do with it. I like the weather seen in the background in some of these too, the clouds are very dark and sad which I’d like to think reflect the feelings of the world currently because of what we are doing to it.

Seawalls:

I visited a few places near the sea that had seawalls preventing the water from going any further into the land.

Once again, very happy with these shots as they show mankind intercepting with the ocean. Especially so with the pictures that include the Waterfront as that area is on top of reclaimed land and landfill. I like that the photos also show the side perspectives, showing the seawalls stretch all the way out.

Estates:

I went to Le Marais and other areas nearby to take pictures of some of the buildings that people live in. Some of these turned out great. These photos are also my Robert Clayton photoshoot.

VERY proud of these images, I enjoyed taking these images and knew they were going to look great in my blog post, I love the perspectives of some of these, from vertical shots down a street between adjacent buildings to wide angle views showing houses in the foreground and tall buildings in the background standing high. I think these relate to Anthropocene very well as, for example, the pictures involving the small patch of grass in the middle of the surrounding man-made environment, I think it can show nature sort of being trapped and compressed by us with no way out. Another example could be the pictures with the tall building and the lamp post in the frame, it could be showing us how long we have been damaging the planet as the lamp post looks kind of old and classic and the building is more new. Indicating we have been around for quite a long time.

My process:

At the start of this project I decided to focus on plastics and un-used items as well as the industrial side of Anthropocene. I think these two things play a big part in how we are damaging our planet and think it is important to make sure people are aware of it. I went to various locations such as Bellozane and power stations and took images of the industrial structures which I thought fit in with the theme. I also went to some beaches and mainly collected different old bottle caps before taking them back home and photographing them laid out on a sheet of black card. I also used some old pencil colours and played them out on the black card as well. For the bottle caps and pencils I was specifically inspired by one artist in reticular. Barry Rosenthal used collected plastics from beaches and photographer them to show viewers his discoveries, I think he is a powerful photographer and uses his work as a way of connecting to people about Anthropocene.

Once I had all of my images I then used Lightroom classic and photoshop to adjust and edit them. Firstly, I used Lightroom to adjust the lighting and exposure making sure that the images were clear. On photoshop, for the inspired images I then filled the background in with black to make the objects stand out more and engage the viewers with my images, as well as crop the images to make sure that the objects were in the centre of the frame to make them as similar to Rosenthal’s as I could. I then used the industrial images for create some edits holding value about Anthropocene. I used a few different ideas, techniques, and tools as can be seen on a previous blog below. I tried to link my edits to Anthropocene as well as my images hoping they carry a meaningful message behind them.

What went well:

Within my project I think there were a few main things that went well for me Firstly, I think that my inspired image connecting to Barry Rosenthal’s came out well. I like how they are very simple and give things that people don’t usually think of such as bottle caps a new purpose as well as it being easy for others to recreate.I think my images look very similar to Rosenthal’s but still have a different showing that they are mine. Secondly, I think that my edits were effective as they each had a different style, whilst still linking to Anthropocene. I like how they are effective and engage the viewer allowing them to see the detail and depth in the images.

Possible improvements:

As a whole I am please with my project however, there is always things that could be improved. Mainly I think that I could have produced more images as I was very limited with what I had came up with. I think that I could have tried to recreate a few more of Rosenthal’s images as the one I did came out effective, as well as more industrial images. I think that I could have visited a few more different locations from my mind map, on a previous blog, to give myself a wider range of images to work with. I also think that an improvement could have been made with my edits Whilst I had a range of techniques with different meanings behind them I think I could have made some with more detail in them that more obviously relate to the theme of Anthropocene.

FINAL IMAGES

WHY DID I CHOSE THIS IDEA?

The reason I want to focus on this area (overpopulation/overcrowding) is because I believe it is a real problem for Jersey. Not only is this negatively affecting the environment but the limited space and housing crisis is detrimental for the people living on the Island.

I think these style of photographs shows just how Anthropocene is effecting us without it being obvious or boring. I love the use of repition in Michael Wolfes work, it suggests that humans are only repeating what they are already doing instead of fixing the problem they have caused. Whereas Stephanie Jung’s work how the busy lives of the city and crowded areas while it still being creative and effective.

WHAT DID I DO?

I started by walking around the busiest areas of St. Helier to try photograph big crowds after work hours before then focusing on buildings and architecture. I wanted a variety of different types of buildings in various places, time, angles, etc. as I think this was a great way of showing off exactly what Jersey has to offer while still linking it to Anthropocene and my area of overcrowding/overpopulation. To link back to Stephanie Jung for some of my photos, I messed around and lowered the f/ stop to create movement which I think adds to the depth and the message of the images. This works best with cars moving as the lights create a path to follow.

WHAT COULD’VE BEEN BETTER?

To make my work better, I could’ve done another photoshoot to create better images and spent more time on making a series of images to layer on top of each other – inspired by Stephanie Jung. In the extra photoshoot I could’ve also focused more on apartment blocks and offices as this would link to Michael Wolf and his repition of buildings. I think having more images to work from would elevate my work even more and not limit to quite similar pictures like I have.

OVERALL ANALYSIS OF PROJECT

Overall, I am really proud of how this project came out but I do think I could’ve made it a lot better if I had spent more time on them. I think I was able to find a mix between Stephanie Jung and Michael Wolfs work while it still being original and different.

The type of lighting used in the image is artificial lighting from studio lights, coming from straight above the image. The light creates a contrast of colours and lights in the dark areas of the photograph. By using the colour tools in photoshop I changed the colours of the bags to create a more interesting response to her work. The visual elements of the image such as colour creates leading lines and for your eyes to flow around the image. The material of the bag makes the image feel like a jelly fish under the sea which represents the project of Rolsfen, she explored collecting single use plastic bags and re using them to create art work. The form is created by the positioning the bag in a certain way making it look like its 3D. The repetition of the creases and folds in the bag helps to create this 3D effect.

Why did I choose Abstract for my Anthropocene?

I chose to have an abstract response to this project as the images can have many meanings and interpreted in different ways. After doing research on abstract artists such as Mandy Barker I learnt more about the problems with single use plastic and how it effects the environment. This helped me to explore my ideas with plastic and experiment with different aspects of it.

How did I plan?

I started by exploring abstract artists and gathering ideas. I really like the idea of plastics, not just the composition of it but the meanings behind it. For example, how it is affecting our Earth every day and every minute. I decided to collected plastic bags, bottle lids and other single use plastic which are thrown out. I used the studio at school and also shoots at my home. After viewing my images I wanted to then develop them further by changing colours in photoshop and Lightroom.

Overall Evaluation

Overall, i am happy with how my final outcomes turned out. The three images work very well together as a trip ticks. I really like the colours of the images together how the purple flows through the images.