As a class we went and took photographs of Havre De Pas through to La Colette, our photographs were based off of rural landscapes and New Topography; inspired by photographers such as, John Constable and Robert Adams.
contact sheet
I flagged the images i want to work with, this isn’t many as the lighting when doing the shoot was very flat.
This image is inspired by new topography, this is shown through the banal aesthetic it gives off. This image is formal and I’ve put it in black and white to make it more sinister.
In this image, i increased the hue and saturation of the primary colour, green to add depth to my image.. Similarly, adding color is a way to bring your photo closer into reality. However, when color is too adjusted and edited you can begin to alter the feeling of reality either enhancing, narrowing, or even into surrealism.
This image is a split image. The plain wall with the seahorse in contrasts the geometrical detail of the houses on the left of the image therefore creating the illusion that it is two separate images.
This image is inspired by Lewis Baltz as his work is often of places that humans have taken over such as industrial sites.
In this image i increased the clarity and texture to make the rusting stand out more.
Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature.
His goal:
“to face facts but to find a basis for hope. To try for alchemy.”
Colorado springs, Colorado, 1968
In these images, Adams `displays the melancholy and sombre vibe of the outskirts of Colorado at that time. In most of these images he has a main focal point, for example: the silhouette of a woman in the window, or the abandoned looking barn.
The top middle image shows the deserted country side with a few isolated houses, due to the post war America struggles. Vast distances, road networks and mobility was also a big post was America struggle; this is what Robert Adams bases his work off a lot of the time.
Mobile homes,Jefferson county, Colorado
This image splits the Colorado environment into two. On the bottom Adams captures the harsh edges of mobile homes blasted with sunlight; whereas, on the top of the image he presents an ominous mountain- skape with moody clouds.
The two parts juxtapose each other, representing how manhood has gradually taken over nature. The contrast between the angular shapes of the homes and the smooth mountain side creates an obvious conflict between humans and nature.
As a whole the piece works to recognize the American West as a landscape scattered with human development rather than an untouched natural environment.
“I think if you placed me almost anywhere and gave me a camera you could return the next day to find me photographing. It helps me, more than anything I know, to find home.”
New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape
New topographics was a turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signaled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape.
What was the new topographics a reaction to
The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.
Post War America struggled with:
-inflation and labour rest. The country’s main economic concern in the immediate post-war years was inflation.
-The baby boom and suburbia. Making up for lost time, millions of returning veterans soon married and started families
-isolation and splitting of the family unit, pharmaceuticals and mental health problems
-Vast distances, road networks and mobility
What was the new topographics inspired by?
Many of the photographers associated with new topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made, selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape.
Bracketing is a technique where a photographer takes shots of the same image using different camera settings. This gives the photographer multiple variations of the same image to choose from or combine to ensure that they get the perfect shot.
When should you use exposure bracketing?
The purpose of this is to cover more of the dynamic range. Bracketed photos are used later to create an HDR (high dynamic range) photo. Some other bracketing techniques include white balance bracketing or focus bracketing.
We experimented with the exposure bracketing inside the school, testing the different settings on the camera. Trying light and dark images by playing with the exposure, but changing the numbers on the ‘M’ setting. Changing the numbers lower e.g -2 the darker the image will be, if the image was +2 it would make the image over exposed.
This controls the exposure compensation, as well as the bracketed shots
John Constable was born in Suffolk, England, and is mainly known for revolutionising the genre of landscape paintings and Romanticism and the Sublime.
John was never financially stable throughout his life, even though now his paintings are considered some of the most popular and expensive in British art. He attended the Royal Academy of arts at the age of 52, then further went on to sell most of his art work in Franc where his art was most embraced.
Most of John Constables paintings were based around where he live/grew up.
The Hay Wain
John Constable, The Hay Wain. 1821
This painting depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex.
A hay wain is A large open vehicle, drawn by horses, used to carry loads of hay; a haywagon.
Constable’s father owned 90 acres of land surrounding this painting, this further shows how John was privileged and from a upper class family. Yet his paintings include people from a working class background which seem to be working hard to gain an income
why did john constable paint the hay wain?
Constable’s decision to paint these scenes was an emotional reaction to a crisis beyond his control, and probably understanding. He painted images that he saw in his mind, drawn from his happy childhood days. His attachment to such images of the nature of the countryside never ceased in his life.
His images were often monochrome highlighting the beauty in the formations of the landscapes rather than just focusing on the colours present, it adds a dramatic and powerful tone to the images potentially portraying the power of mother nature and the sublime drawing attention to the beauty of the environment around us.
Image Comparisons:
Ansel Adams, part of his ‘in our time’ project
‘This is an old image I took, however, I think it resembles Adams’ work. I edited my image in the same way Adams does his work, changed it to black and white and experimented with the contrast and exposure to make this dramatic image
Ansel Adams in an an American photographer and environmentalist, who was the most important landscape photographer of the 20th century
His images were often monochrome highlighting the beauty in the formations of the landscapes rather than just focusing on the colours present, it adds a dramatic and powerful tone to the images potentially portraying the power of mother nature and the sublime drawing attention to the beauty of the environment around us.
He came up with a technique he referred to as the zone system, the 11 zones were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tones you can see in a black and white, with zone 5 being in the middle as grey, zone 0 being pure black, and zone 10 being pure white.
GROUP F/64
He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph…even creating a Zonal System to ensure that all tonal values are represented in the images. Ansel Adams was an advocate of environmental protection, national parks and creating an enduring legacy of responses to the power of nature and sublime conditions…Other members in Group f/64 included Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham among other female photographers who has been overlooked in the history or photography.
One of the most important legacies of Adams is the way in which his photographs contributed to the American conservation movement. His technical expertise and the undeniable beauty of his work paved the way for photography to be exhibited beside traditional painting and portraiture in national galleries.
The face of half dome
When speaking of Ansel Adams’ photography, the most famous is Monolith, the Face of Half Dome. This was Adams’ first photograph that gathered the attention of the public and the art world. Using his Korona camera, Adams captured his iconic photo of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park after a difficult hike.
visualisation
Photographic visualization is the confluence of imagination and technique. It is the ability to picture the essence of the final print in your mind before releasing the shutter.
Adams believed strongly in the notion of ‘visualisation’, though today you’ll likely hear it referred to as ‘previsualisation’. This involves a photographer standing in front of a scene and seeing the final image in their mind (right down the post-processing) before even pressing the shutter.
His black and white nature photography was known for being a rejection of the Pictorialism movement that came before – a heavily manipulated style of photography that aimed to enhance the beauty of the subject matter instead of documenting reality. Instead, Ansel Adams wanted to capture exactly what he saw.
Rural= in, relating to, or characteristic of the countryside rather than the town.
Rural landscape photography refers to “photography in the countryside” and covers the rural environment. While rural landscapes often contain architecture – much the same as urban landscapes – rural landscape photography is more about capturing the life and elements found in the countryside.
It is also the diverse portion of the nation’s land area that is not densely populated or intensively developed, and not set aside for preservation in a natural state.
Michael Kenner
Michael Kenna is a photographer who was born in Widnes, England, and is best known for his photographs of black-and-white landscapes
He is drawn to certain times of day and night, preferring to photograph in the mist, rain and snow clear blue sky and sunshine simply do not seem to inspire him. He only photographs his work in black and white, as he believes that, “Black and white is immediately more mysterious because we see in colour all the time.
To photograph like Michael Kenna, use long exposures with the camera on a tripod to get movement in clouds and water. Make sure you’re using a solid tripod, as even the slightest movement on the camera during a 30-second exposure can ruin an image.
