The images below are the initial edits that I then inputted to photoshop and created my final outcomes.
The best images in my opinion show a mixture of both the beauty of the natural landscape but mixed with the devastating effect that we, as humans, have had on it. They all show different experiments that I have done, the majority being in response to the works of Mandy Barker and Dafna Talmor
Mandy Barker’s images all comment on the effect that pollution has had on the world – therefore I have compiled these photographic montages to perform a similar task. I went on a beach clean to La Rocque and Gronez and collected pieces of plastic and photographed them where they were found as well.
The idea of Anthropocene first led me to think about Jersey’s geological heritage and how that has changed and been effected by the human race. However, after researching artists like Mandy Barker and Dafna Talmor, I decided to think more along the path of humanity’s effect on the earth in general. I thought about the pollution added by the small island that we live on, and how much that devastates the way that we live and how Jersey has changed from a beautiful rural landscape, to a tourism and financial urban landscape.
Taking together the works of Mandy Barker and Dafna Talmor, there seems to be zero connections between any of the images; however, the plastic that Barker has collected from all of her photographic expeditions has been taken from beaches. The images produced by Talmor are of clear seascapes that she has then dismantled and reconfigured. This sparked my idea of combining the themes of these to photographers to show how plastic and pollution has physically changed the world we live in. Therefore, with my photoshoots I want to capture a range of images that can then be put together to show the different ways that humans are the single most damaging aspect to the serenity of our home. Using photoshop, I want to use images of plastic debris collected from beaches around the island and combine them with beautiful seascapes (perhaps including elements of the sublime).
On Saturday 14th January, I will move around the island to different beaches, collecting plastic found and litter that will only ruin the earth. I will then photograph them where I found them and then bring them back to the studio where I will imitate some of the images created by Mandy Barker with a jet black background that allows the different plastics to stand out in some kind of collage or shape that resembles the ocean.
“…where late Cubist works attempted to remove all references to three-dimensional space, Talmor plays with our predisposition to see such space where it doesn’t necessarily exist, creating environments that appear familiar at first glance, but that become increasingly alien and strange the closer you look.”
Dafna Talmor’s work consists of “collaged and montaged colour negatives shot across different locations, merged and transformed through the act of slicing and splicing”.* The resulting photographs are ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary. This conflation aims to transform a specific place into a space of greater universality. ‘Constructed Landscapes’ references early Pictorialist processes of combination printing as well as Modernist experiments with film. The work also engages with contemporary discourses on manipulation, the analogue/digital divide and the effects these have on photography’s status. Through this work, Talmor creates a space that defies the specifics, and metaphorically blurs place, memory and time.
* Talmor’s creative process involves deconstructing her own landscape photographs, cutting up and recombining multiple negatives to create new hybrid compositions.
Talmor’s constructed landscapes show an interesting side to how we view seascapes. With each image being completely unique, it allows us to see multiple seascapes at the same time. I personally feel that the image provides me to see the perfect beach, an impossible feat as no beach is perfect. But to me that is what makes a seascape amazing, the imperfections are what make it perfect and lovely to see. It provides the chaos and tranquillity displayed in the average person’s life.
This image shows a range of exposures and colours, primarily different shades of blues and greens. The images used to put together this piece show different scenes in a strangely formed puzzle – either completely connected or with an empty black space between them, perhaps to show any connections there might be between some of the photographs. The lines separating them are smooth and abstract with different widths and lengths, perhaps to indicate the chaotic waves that aren’t clearly shown within the picture. The way each photo has been cut up and pieced together with other images creates a rough texture that almost turn the 2D seascapes into 3D displays, whilst remaining in the flat format of a typical photograph. The image is made up of 7 different C-type negatives each cut and repositioned to form a montage of seascapes that reflect Talmor’s life experiences. To me, it seems that the image tells its own story of how the sea is never what we think it is, it always changing and moving, we will never sea the exact same body of water again.
“I was always disappointed with the images – they weren’t really doing anything very interesting in themselves. But I kept taking pictures.” – Dafna Talmor
“The aim of my work is to engage with and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction along with the subsequent message of awareness.” – Mandy Barker
Mandy Barker is an international award-winning photographic artist whose work has received global recognition for the horrors it shows – the plastic pollution of the world. Her pieces have been published in over 50 different countries, including: The Guardian, Smithsonian, UNESCO, and VOGUE. She states that “the research process is a vital part of my development as the images I make are based on scientific fact, essential to the integrity of my work.” All here final works show some kind of effect that the human race has had on the world, mostly the plastic pollution of exotic islands the different oceans across the globe.
This morbid and striking image of a Flesh-Footed Shearwater found at Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean, was taken by Mandy Barker in 2019. The image shows the shearwater in the form of a teardrop (inverted); representing water, the very place where shearwaters need to be in order to survive. TEARDROP – noun – a single tear. “Shaped of a thin liquid with a ‘globe’ like shape at the bottom, tapering to a point at the top.” – Mandy Barker’s sketchbook. The ‘globe’ metaphor resembles the world; and the point at the top sparks the question, ‘What is the point?’ In the image, it is simply where the birds feet and wings join together, but what about the point of destroying our home? What is the point of ruining the lives of other species, when we can just live alongside them? The teardrop in the image is inverted, perhaps showing an upside-down world where man craves consumption over nature; and where the material of the world is caught up in material values. “A tear roles down my face.”
The above images are taken from Barker’s exhibition, ‘Hong Kong Soup: 1826’. Hong Kong over 1,826 tonnes of municipal plastic waste goes into landfills every day. The images show a selection of child’s toys and lighters arranged as if they were in a universe of their own. To me, it feels like they are showing that the damages to them resemble that of the world today. From these images, I came up with the idea that different battered and ruined plastic objects are no use to people and ultimately damage and ruin the environment we live in.
“I hope your work does its job in raising an awareness of the cause we both care so much about.
With renewed wonder and best wishes” – Sir David Attenborough
The dictionary describes ‘Anthropocene‘ as:
Artists that I would like to review:
A Gallery of all my final images (the first image shows my interpretation of Anthropocene inspired by the works of Dafna Talmor and Mandy Barker / the second shows my images of rural and urban landscapes in jersey, exploring the colourful side of nature versus the monochromatic rigidness of human society and buildings)
The edits shown are all monochrome images inspired by the works of Group f/64 members, a group well-known for their black and white images showing the relationships between urban and natural landscapes found across the world.
This image of the entirety of Havre des Pas is framed to show the buildings in the area from the cover of an old seating area. I believe this monochrome effect that utilises the dark grey clouds in the sky creates this sense of viewing from safe place. In the past, the area was an old ship yard and was the home of many factories and dry docks for building the shipping that kept Jersey alive. I therefore used two images, the base being of the area and the second being of a large funnel situated on the opposite side of the hill (behind the photographer). I used photoshop to revert this residential area back to the industrial landscape that it once was. The physical lines of each of the fences and the shapes of the houses add to this historical landscape and coupled with the monochrome colour palette strengthens this idea.
The typology that I have chosen to photograph is bunkers from the Nazi Occupation of Jersey. I plan to walk the bays of St Ouen and St Aubin taking photos of the fortifications created by the Nazis as I go along. I have chosen to do this on Thursday 29th December. the weather is forecast to be overcast with short spells of rain, therefore I believe that this will be the perfect conditions to photograph this huge aspect of history. I plan to walk the length of St Ouen’s bay starting at L’Etacq and finishing at La Pulente. Inspired by the images taken by Bernd and Hilla Becher, I wish to take the images in monochrome, imitating the style shown in their images.
When taking these images, I imitated the techniques used by Bernd and Hiller Becher. Each image was taken in monochrome with a dead-pan approach with an overcast background in an attempt to keep all images as similar as possible. When it came to editing the images, I changed as little as possible (mainly adapting the exposure and contrast elements of the images). As they did not have any modern editing software, the Becher’s would have had to make do with the images that they had captured. Therefore, I did very little editing with the images I had taken and mainly used the bracketing technique to ensure I had at least one correctly exposed image. The monochrome palette shown also allows me to use inspiration from Ansel Adams and the New Topographics by using their zonal systems to ensure that my images had a dynamic range of light and shade. This is more prominent in my first, fifth and sixth images and could probably have been better utilised within the rest.
“The question ‘is this a work of art or not?’ is not very interesting for us.”
~ Bernd and Hilla Becher
These German artists changed the course of late 20th Century photography. They explored the disappearing industrial infrastructure that shaped the modern world, describing their photographic approach as ‘typologies’. By photographing each structure in the same way (same camera settings, same lighting conditions, same angles) they established an interesting way of comparing these images when presented together.
The outcomes that the couple create often focus around abandoned industrial structures but the series that appealed to me was the one shown below titled ‘Framework House’. The shapes created within the walls are interesting and almost create a pattern that connects each image of a different house with the way that they were built.
Upon first sight, the lines within the image are a series of horizontal, vertical and diagonal beams that produce the framework of the house. There is a clear use of depth of field that blurs the areas behind the house but brings the house itself and what is in the foreground into focus; making the house the main part of the image and the first thing that the audience sees. The image displays a very monochrome colour palette but using fairly light tones so that the plain background is only separated from the house by the deeply contrasting beams framing the building. The building is centred in the image and the natural lighting used allows the dulling of the final outcome in post production.
Like I said earlier, the image has some historical importance and makes me imagine the complexity that it possibly took to build. These traditional buildings are scattered across Germany and are not as common as the used to be, allowing a beautiful contrast when looking upon a landscape. it is for this reasoning that I believe the Becher’s created this typology study of this type of building. An aspect of history that has not yet been lost and so they surely wanted to preserve these monuments to the past in their photographic images.