In this photoshoot I took pictures in the style of Rosenthal. I used the black cardboard to place my objects on, this was to illuminate the colours of the plastics. I took pictures of empty plastics around my house, but also plastics that I personally use of a daily basis.

In this photoshoot I took images of plastics I collected over the weekend. In addition I toom images of plastic objects I use on a daily basis to show how much we rely on plastics.

I will also take another photoshoot to show more plastic objects so I can have more of a variety of images. I will pick out some plastic objects around my house.

FLAGGING MY IMAGES:

The images colour-coded in green I believe are my strongest images in my photoshoot. I think these will be the ones I use for my final outcome. This is because they are focused and have a high resolution. The image colour-coded in red I will not be using as it isn’t focused and it not the best it could be.

Gustave le Gray was born in 1820 in Val-d’Oise France and was a central figure in French photography know for his technical innovations in photography such as his improvement on paper negatives and the wet collodion method to create a print on a glass plate. his image “The Great Wave” is an example of ‘constructed seascape’ it has the sea taken from one photo and the sky from another melded together.

Dafna Talmor created seascapes by collaging and montaging colour negatives.

Both could be described as a landscape. What landscapes do they describe?

Gustave le Gray creates realistic landscapes that look as if they go together creating a sense of grandeur and have a more romantic approach. Whilst Dafna Talmor’s focuses more on the shape of the rift created to stick them back together, with plain and desolate landscapes in the background. Both photographers feature the sea in their work creating seascapes from multiple images.

What differences do you notice?

Dafna Talmor created defined lines where it is apparent that the photo has been altered leaving negative space between images to create abstract shapes and patterns where as Gustave le Gray used what he called Combination printing using one image of the sea and another of the sky and blending them seamlessly into one another. Gustave also took more classic landscape images whilst Talmor takes closer abstract images creating desolate looking landscapes.

What similarities do you notice?

Both photographers create new landscapes by splicing negatives together. The sea is a prominent feature in both photographers work.

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.

A link which shows the impact they are having on the environment.

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.

A link which shows the impact it is having on the environment.

Gustave Le Grays work

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.

What are they?

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.

My Experiments

I created these Kaleidoscopes by firstly increasing the canvas size in image.

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.

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.”

— Edward Burtynsky