The original image I took of this wall is very dark and boring. I took thus photo as I thought the rust on the wall was very interesting and with some editing and tempering with the image, I could make the colours of the rust really pop.
editing:
outcome:
The outcome of this image is very abstract. Its simple in the fact that it is straight up an image of a rusty wall, however after I edited the colours, textures, exposure and highlights, it becomes a much more interesting image with intriguing colours.
I like this image as it is a photo of a rusty wall. Rust is often displayed as dirty, disgusting thing that usually appears in brown, orange and copper colours. In this case, I’ve turned something that’s overlooked and not liked into a colourful photo.
I took around 160 photos during this photoshoot, however, lots were blurry and the lighting on the day was very dim so this affected the brightness. I had to experiment a lot with the ISO as it was gradually becoming darker whilst I was outside. Also, it depended a lot on what I was photographing; for example, when photographing the drains on the wall the lighting was not as bright as the landscape photos of the sea, therefore I had to turn up the ISO.
contact sheet:
The outcome of the images I chose to edit in Lightroom:
In my opinion, I personally think that the first two diptychs are far stronger than the third, which I regrettably do not particularly like.
However I don’t think this is because of both images, but just because of this one;
I think the reason that this image does not really compliment my others is because it is just a little more cluttered than them – the composition is just less simplistically successful which has unfortunately resulted in a less professional looking image. I also think that it doesn’t at all relate to any of my artist studies.
This being said, I do think that my other images are all really strong and I am happy with my editing choices. I think that all of the images that I put together do compliment and contrast each other in a productive manner.
It was quite frustrating to not have been able to take as many strong and varied images as I would have liked; and I think maybe a more clear framework in my head would have perhaps made this a little easier. Knowing exactly what I wanted before I went out to take photos might have made this simpler. However, I do still feel that the weather was quite difficult during the week and this did invalidate a lot of my images that I actually took for the project.
I think I did use the camera to the best of my abilities, but there is definitely more I could learn and utilise within the settings to take more interesting images.
Altogether, I would like to have put more thought into creating images that really did resemble the work of my artists, specifically Andreas Gursky. I feel that this was not completely taken into account when I went out to take photos, but more importantly in my planning. By not choosing subjects that would suit his style, I was limiting my chances of replicating his photos. I am happy with my outcomes for Fay Godwin however, and I think this might be due to my personal preference toward her style and her photos over those of Gursky.
Gursky’s digital manipulation of his work is something that I feel I was not educated on enough to fully understand and be able to replicate. I was not fully aware of the amount of manipulation that actually went into his images, and I would most likely have not had time to do this to my own.
In conclusion, I enjoyed this project. Taking the time to research the different aspects of Anthropocene and its effects was really interesting and I feel that I have learnt a lot through doing so. I am proud of my outcomes, despite feeling that my idea was not as strong as it could have been, and I am aware that there is room for improvement in all areas of this kind of task for my future reference.
These images are taken from Ronez Quarry, influenced by David Maisel’s Mining Project. There was a fence and overgrown hedges so it was quite hard to get a clear image of the quarry. If I had access to the quarry or a drone then the images would have come out better. However, considering I had limited access I think there are some images that I could select and edit.
I have chosen to focus on air pollution and its effects.
Some Effects of Air pollution
Respiratory and Heart Problems.
Child Health Problems.
Global Warming
Acid Rain
Eutrophication
Harmful To Wildlife
Depletion of the Ozone Layer
Types of air pollution:
Visible air pollution is pollution that can be seen. For example the smog you see over a city and smoke are forms of visible pollution.
Invisible air pollutants are less noticeable, but they can be more deadly. Examples of invisible air pollutants include sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
Air pollution affects all things. Focusing on the impacts to the environment it reduces visibility and blocks sunlight, creating acid rain, and harming forests, wildlife, and agriculture. Greenhouse gas pollution, the cause of climate change, affects the entire planet.
Not all air pollution is visible so i photographed things such as cars that we know produce large amounts of harmful emissions into our environment.
I also photographed visible air pollution such as smoke from chimneys and people smoking as these are very common causes of air pollution that is visible enabling it to be photographed – These are examples of visible pollution.
Vapes – Scientists measured the air pollution produced by e-cigarettes, they found that e-cigarettes/vapes pollute the air with nicotine and fine particles this smoke contains nicotine, ultrafine particles and low levels of toxins. Vapes in general are accelerating the climate crisis by contributing to deforestation, carbon emissions, plastic pollution, water use and waterway contamination.
Cigarettes – Tobacco smoke is what is an aerosol, which is a mixture of 90% gas and 10% particles the smoke contributes thousands of metric tons of chemicals, other toxins, and greenhouse gases into our environment. Pollutants in tobacco smoke come from the high-temperature tobacco combustion. Particles in additives and paper such as (tar, nicotine, heavy metals, etc.) are found in the smoke emitted from the cigarette.
George Marazakis born in 1976 in Creta Island Greece where he lives with his wife and their son. He studied Mechanical Engineering and works for the Greek Ministry of Justice.
He takes the Anthropocene as both concept and title for a series that looks at a landscapes engendered by the greed of mankind.
“An external observer could describe it as an autoimmune disease attacking its own body”
My favourite images are his ones of the emissions coming out of factories such as the one above, as it is a ‘straight to the point’ display of the damage and the amount of air pollution we are creating. I think this makes it a powerful image as the viewer cannot avoid the photographers intensions for the image as it is a clear demonstration of the damages caused by humans.
The lighting is dim to create a somber feeling ensuring the viewer shares the same feeling of despondency as George Marazakis does towards this particular subject.
The long road running through the middle of the image for a distance symbolises the event of climate change getting closer and the effects increasing as humans continue to pollute and disregard the health of our planet and its ecosystems despite being educated on the outcome.
The factory is located in the middle of the image making sure it is the focal point of the image in contrast to the the nature around it to show where he believes our focal point should be further stating his desire for change and a focus on protecting nature.
I like how my first two edits above turned out as I think that the pattern makes the viewer interested in my images as it is very unique and different from others. I chose to create this edit as I think it shows how people don’t always think about pollution or climate change etc and how they look at it with a cover thinking that it isn’t as bad as people say it is. I think it shows that we don’t look directly at it and don’t do much to help make a change. If I were to do these two edits again it would swap the colours and the images as I think the dark image would look better with the white pattern and the lighter image would look better with the black pattern, however I think they still contrast nicely with the lighting.
For my second edit I chose to create this circular pattern with the image show the viewers how pollution and climate change, damaging the earth, is a reoccurring pattern and at the moment is never ending. I think that this edit turned out well as it is simple but effective and is engaging as it isn’t just a plain image.
For my third edit I have slightly moved sections of the image upwards and sections downwards alternating. I think that edit shows how Anthropocene isn’t as straight forwards as some people think and even by helping out in little ways it can help massively. I like how the edit isn’t as visible as some of my other ones and how you have too look closely to see what I have done with the image, similarly to how pollutions etc isn’t very visible to the human eye. If I were to do it again I would make it slightly more obvious.
Finally, for my forth edit I have tried to show how in this day some people etc try to forget/ cover up how we are damaging the planet by cutting out squares and moving them attempting to cover the industrial towers, however because the squared are parts of the buildings it shows how we cannot cover it up or leave it for other day. I like how the image is quite dark as it sets the mood for the theme of the image as it isn’t a happy topic.
When I first began thinking of ideas for this project, I felt that there was a slight lack of accessibility to any ideas that I could choose with complete passion behind them. This due to our general limited resources in Jersey, but also due to personal limitations. By this I mean not having much time outside of school to take images, limits put in place by the weather and any kind of fear felt when it comes to choosing a slightly more unorthodox idea. If I had had the courage, time and subjects to do so, I would have liked to have done a portrait project, as this is my favourite genre and I generally feel more proud after producing a portraiture based project. Unfortunately I felt rather limited on this front due to time restraints and so I looked to landscape, being my second favourite genre. Having just done a landscape project, I had a lot of images available to me as well as the fortunate position of living in St Ouen. I was very interested in the idea of enhancing imagery of Jersey’s natural areas as I personally enjoy these places often in my own time. I think I must have wanted to raise awareness of these places of beauty as it is pretty fair to say that not many people who are residents in Jersey really take the time to appreciate the amazing sights we have on our island, and to me this is quite unfortunate.
How did I plan?
My house is surrounded by the effects of agriculture, yet the area also has some of the most naturally beautiful scenery on the island. The locations of Greve de Lecq woodland, Val de la Mare Reservoir, L’Etacq and Les Mielles nature reserve are all within a very short distance of my house and so this made them easy choices of sites for me to photograph. This is clear in the fact that I was not able to actually get to La Collette (due to its location) in the end and so I did not get any images of the recycling centre. I also regrettably did not make it to Les Mielles just due to general timing restraints as I only had after school to take these images and it would not have been possible to get there before darkness. Luckily, the weather in the week that I had to take images actually offered all the weather that I wanted to capture. Earlier in the week there were stormy days but this was contrasted by the clear sunshine at the end of the week.
These images all represent and link to Anthropocene as they all show changes being made to the environment and places being polluted by things like plastic. Also land being altered by things like construction workings to make more places for people to live, work and also travel on a daily basis. A couple of the images also show how poorly people live and how bad of conditions they live in. How sea levels are rising because of global warming and how people are having to travel in boats because of the water levels.
