As a class, we went on a photography walk from Havre des Pas to La Collette – photographing the collaboration of the town and the seaside in the style of the new topographics. We used a shutter speed of 1/125 and an automatic ISO on the Tv setting to achieve a darker, less exposed look on the final images we took.

With each image, I tried to implement some form of natural formation with something visible manmade, to create a contrast between humans and nature, such as trees near a construction site, the beach and the pier itself, etc.

I also tried to feature some people in my images to give them a little more life – asking classmates to stand somewhere, taking candid photos of them, etc.

I then sorted through each photograph using the pick tool, rejecting images that were blurred, too close to someone, or ones that just didn’t have a very functional composition – too dark, too overexposed, etc.

After selecting the images I found the most interesting, I was left with 53 compositions that I could mess around with.

I then edited the photos that I liked the most and was left with these as the results – I mostly focused on the temperature of them, bringing out the blue and yellow hues.

My favourite images were these six, each having a good balance of colour range, texture, and lighting.

Rural landscape photography takes more focus on natural land, affected by humans, but in the less densely-populated areas, such as farmland or the countryside. Photographers such as Fay Godwin created pieces that capture a small piece of the sublime with humanity’s small additions to the natural landscape in these areas, like farmland, fenced-off pastures and meadows.

This works well with the concept of the new topographics, as it combines elements of nature with man-made structures – while still showing humanity’s impact on the natural world.

I could try to take a similar photoshoot, travelling to the more rural areas of the island, and taking photographs of farmland and fields to create a dramatic composition.

The new topographics aim to show humanity’s effect on the natural world, in a more-or-less neutral perspective, in a format that is up to the viewer to determine. First conceptualised during the mid-1970s, the exhibitions featured various photographers connecting man-made structures to the world it was before – making use of various visual elements to create a thought-provoking, ground-breaking composition that displays both beauty in the fine geometric shapes of our structures, and the destruction that comes with it.

The new topographics were spearheaded by photographers such as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel Jr., each artist creating 10 prints of their own.

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In my opinion, out of all of the images I took in Andalucía, these six came out the best after editing for this task, focusing more on the natural environment and the feeling of awe I felt while looking across these scenes myself, watching the combination between man-made structures and the vast landscapes they rested in.

With my monochrome photographs, I attempted to replicate Ansel Adams’ style with the dramatic dark tones, while still capturing the gorgeous vistas in front of me. The roads in these images however, act as leading lines in the same fashion that the rivers do within Adams’ work, building a stronger link between mine and his photos. I could’ve improved these by leaving the roads and climbing up a more natural trail, finding a spot almost completely untouched by civilisation, but I wanted to be cautious of the wildlife and of trespassing on someone else’s property, as I’ve learned over the years of visiting there that the locals don’t like uninvited guests on their land.

With this photo, I liked the way that the trees and foliage covered up the end of the bridge from where I was stood, as I feel it creates a sense of nature’s domination over mankind, despite our collaborative destruction of the environment as a species. Furthermore, the range of biodiversity present within the composition, evident in the range of colour within the colour palette, brings more life to the image itself, causing it to feel more 3-dimensional and eye-catching. I went more with my own instincts on this piece, as opposed to following the conventions of another artist, and I think the final product is better for it, as the exposure within the image is not low enough to create a similar piece to any of the photographers I have studied.

During our half-term break, I spent my week down in the Spanish region of Andalucía, photographing the gorgeous natural landscapes around the nearby towns I visited. I planned each day around where I could take photos for my landscape project, such as travelling to cities such as Torremolinos, travelling to rural towns including Guaro and central Coín, and just walking through the area.

I ended up with over 2,000 photographs by the end of my trip, varying from urban landscapes to features of typical romanticism, at different times of day and multiple angles.

I edited 20 images overall, a few in the dramatic, monochrome style of Ansel Adams, and the rest in a style that brings out the natural beauty of the photograph.

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When it came to making these images, I wanted to adapt Ansel Adams’ style into my work, but more loosely and modernised, especially with the issue of most of the local area being covered in roads, paths and more traces of civilisation, as opposed to Adams’ pristine natural landscapes, so I decided to replace his use of rivers to lead the viewer’s eyes across the image with the paths and roads I was walking across, creating a similar, but unique composition. When editing, I also had to make the decision of whether to desaturate the photographs into black and white, to mimic his style – to do this further I had to dehaze the image to imitate the dark, moody skies featured in his pieces thanks to the red lens filter he used. Although I did take a lot of photos at night, because of my inexperience with camera settings I wasn’t really able to get a good, clear image that wasn’t grainy, so I would need to improve on that for the future.

For this shoot, I could take many different routes in achieving a sublime landscape photo – I could take a page from Ansel Adams’ book and shoot in the style of his work, maybe going to the cliffs on the edge of the island and around devil’s hole.

I could take similar images of the rock formations around the bays across the island that I’m more familiar with, such as St Brelade. I think that I could achieve a close copy to the large photograph above from certain angles around devil’s hole, maybe with the use of drone shots if I could borrow a friend’s drone.

I would need to place more focus into creating a dramatic moody piece, which would be very dependent on the weather. Lightroom Classic would probably be a better tool to use to help me achieve this effect, as I can play with different levels of exposure and increase the darkness in certain hues.

Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist, renowned for his monochrome photographs of the American West. Adams was part of groups such as Group f/64, an community of photographers, that he helped create, advocating “pure” photography, favouring sharp focuses and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.

He and some other photographers also created their own “zonal system,” a system that helped to ensure all tonal values would be represented in a photo – consisting of 10 primary colour values from black to white.

Adams’ work includes several aspects of romantic views, and captured the essence of the sublime in a way it never had been before – creating dramatic, bold compositions of mountains, national parks, and other incredible natural landscapes – so much so that it was in competition with painters at the time.

He used red filters to add drama, darkening hues and widening the contrast between the blacks and whites. Adams grew fond of this technique throughout his career, using it primarily when creating his most iconic work.

So far, I’ve really enjoyed the Home project. I’ve learned a lot more about editing than I did at GCSE and I’ve experimented with many new types of compositions, such as the still life work, which I’m very proud of and I’m excited to hopefully revisit it in the future. I found still life to be a pretty versatile topic for creating photographs with, and especially with the available equipment in the studio, it gave me a chance to experiment with lighting and different tones that I didn’t have before.

I thought that the photomontage work we did with our final images worked quite well, and it’s definitely something I can see myself revisiting later in the course with new and stronger ideas.

I wasn’t too excited about the work we did with Mary Ellen Bartley and her ‘7 Things Again & Again’ series, but I also think it was quite a good introduction to basic photography and working with lighting and props in a composition.

I quite enjoyed the work with Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan, as I found it very engaging with my own life and the objects in my home. It was also a nice introduction to photomontage using photoshop, which is a technique I hope to use when relevant.

Romanticism is a classic theme within literature, a movement where the poets and artists were more concerned with the diversity and beauty within the natural world, as opposed to the new, ever-growing industrial revolution that was corrupting nature. Artists tend to focus more on their own emotions rather than rational thought and composure – justifying melodramatic, ridiculous actions with their own feelings.

“Civilisation is what makes you sick”

– Paul Gauguin

The theme of the sublime, however, is something a lot more extreme – the intense emotion of horror and insignificance, all the while in awe and admiration of ones surroundings. First truly defined in Edmund Burke’s 1757 novel ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’, the sublime is said to be an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling.

A photographer that uses these ideas in his work would be Ansel Adams, taking high-focus images of grandiose landscapes out in the old American West during the 1900s. He captured scenes of vistas large enough to make anyone feel insignificant in comparison – creating a sense of the sublime.

“Neue Sachlichkeit,” often known as the New Objectivity, is a photography movement that began during the 1920s, bearing an attitude that focused more on the raw reality of everyday objects mixed with the formal elements of photography, while rejecting sentimentalism and idealism.

Albert Renger-Patzsch also published a book, a novel concentrated particularly on specific subjects, such as wildlife, traditional craftsmen, mechanical equipment, landscapes, and architectural studies, displaying 100 of his photos based on his ideas of the New Objectivity, stating,

“There must be an increase in the joy one takes in an object, and the photographer should be fully conscious of the splendid fidelity of reproduction made possible by this technique”

Other photographers with similar interests in photography, particularly Objectivity photographers, such as Karl Blossfeldt, Helmar Lerski, and Edward Weston. Their work shows similar qualities with Albert Renger-Patzsch’s, such as the raw focus on the object and high detail.

Closer toward the modern day, Patzsch has now influenced many photographers, such as Martin Parr, William Eggleston, and Peter Fraser – all of their works tending to focus more on the reality of their subjects as opposed to something idealistic, but still managing to find the beauty in something totally ordinary.