This is Le Gray’s most dramatic of his seascape photos. It combines his technical skills with the incredible seascape and mysterious prison-like building. At the horizon, the clouds are cut off, this points out the join between two negatives.

Many photographer found it difficult to photograph good exposure for the sky and the sea in a photograph as it is often seen as over exposed. Le Gray merged these two photos one of the sea and one of the sky and combined them onto one sheet.

This incredible collage consists of staged landscapes made of colour negatives shot at different locations.

Questions

Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe?

The Dafna Talmor one appears to be more serene and beautiful. The collages allude to an imaginary place, which is an idealised view of the sea as there are many dangers and problems there

The Gustave Le Gray one looks like a cloudy and negative seascape. The building in the middle of the sea looks prison-like as it is surrounded by nothing but sea. This enforces negative views of the ocean as it looks violent and dangerous.

What similarities do you notice about these two pictures?

They are similar in the sense that they are both seascapes and show the seas incredible textures. Both images are more than one photo combined.

What differences do you notice?

I notice that the Dafna Talmor is more of a collage, it is obvious that the image she has put together is more than one at different times of day or different area of the sea. However with the other it looks like the same image, the weather seems very over exaggerated it almost looks burnt between images to distinguish between them.

Also, I notice that Le Gray’s photo is monochrome and Dafna Talmors is in vibrant colour.

What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes?

The Great Wave- dangerous, gloomy, lonely

Constructed Landscapes II- vibrant, serene, enticing