Gustave Le Gray

Le Gray was a French Photographer who is very well known for his work in Photography and his technical innovations like the waxed paper negative, which he made to make photos look sharper and better. He is also known as “The most important French Photographer of the nineteenth century”.

“The Great Wave”

“The Great Wave” was one of his many famous photos, it features a shot taken in Sète, France, 1856 at a shoreline:

The photo appears very eerie in a sort of way, with the bright sky combined with the dark sea and black rocks, it creates a powerful contrast in the picture and it makes it feel more dramatic and extreme. You can see the choppy waves crashing on the sea wall which adds to the photos harshness in addition to the very opaque, black clouds in the sky. The darkness overall makes a very closed in and claustrophobic environment for the viewer, especially around the edges of the frame where it looks almost like a sort of faint vignette. This image is quite compelling given the points I just made and creates a unique feeling to the viewer which is why I like it.

I think this photo relates to Anthropocene quite well as it shows the sea wall, being a man-made structure, and the ocean clashing together which could be trying to visualize man intercepting with nature and nature trying to fight back. I think the weather may be important here along with the colour too. The colour palette in this photo doesn’t create a happy feeling, it’s more sad and depressing. The harsh weather in addition can relate to themes of anger and rage, all of these emotions could be symbolising God being angry at humans and what we are doing to the world he created.

Dafna Talmor

Dafna Talmor is another Photographer who takes landscape photos. He composed an album which consisted of all the photos he took that are under his Constructed Landscape Photography project:

The photos within would contain edits that would involve stitched and spliced methods to “remove the negatives of the image”. Almost to “fix” the image by replacing removed areas with the colour black:

Talmor has also taken other images and put them together. They have been labelled as “aims to transform a specific place initially loaded with personal meaning, memories and connotations – into a space of greater universality.”.

I like the mysterious nature behind these photos, it fractures the photo to alter reality and distorts our view on the world through the frame. It may be trying to tell us the fact that we have done so much damage to the planet for so long, that trying to fix the world at this point will not restore it to 100% and will be forever different, hence the black spaces in the photos that indicate gaps and breakages.

Another thing it could be attempting to show us is mostly based on the photos combined together. They could be trying to show us different parts of the planet as one, to show us how what we are doing is affecting everywhere else, even if we don’t think we are.