For my final outcomes, I decided to present them as diptychs made on Photoshop.

Fay Godwin was an artist that I have looked at previously for my romanticism project earlier in this landscape module, but this time I looked a little closer. After doing further research, I have discovered that her dislike of being named as a ‘Romantic Artist’ is not just due to personal disagreement but because of the intention behind her work being of the documentary nature.

As an amateur to the medium, Godwin found herself attaching to the landscape genre through her love of walking in the English countryside, often collaborating with writers ‘to produce in depth surveys of particular rural topics or regions.‘.

The activism aspect in her work stems from her personal enjoyment of walking, with her presidency of the Rambler’s Association from 1987-1990 being evidence of this. Most particularly, she focused her career on supporting the establishment of legislation that allowed walkers more roaming rights with less restrictions from private landowners. The introduction of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act in 2000 is a testament to the work she did as president of the association.

Through her images, Godwin demonstrates the juxtaposition and relationship between uncultivated land and the human marks on it. This is done through her framing of fencing and signage as symbols of land ownership and enclosure in the countryside.

This essay explains Godwin’s personal connection to her cause, as well as her inspirations.

‘The old question about whether photography is an art is a silly question. I’ve been called a Romantic photographer and I hate it. It sounds slushy and my work is not slushy. I’m a documentary photographer, my work is about reality, but that shouldn’t mean it can’t be creative.’

– Godwin (quoted in Fowles 1985: xii)

I think that, in my idea for this Anthropocene inspired project, I want to echo her ideas slightly with my work. Being in Jersey, there is a lot of evidence and many examples of where land has been enclosed by wealthy landowners – there is not much of the island which actually remains public – and this is quite unfortunate for those who want to explore what Jersey’s wildlife has to offer. Despite the fact that there are many protected areas of beauty that are available to the public, much of Jersey’s land is used for agriculture and energy resources. This is already quite closely linked with my own idea for this project, as her showcase of the tension between man and nature in a single image is similar to what I wanted to produce with more than one image.

I have chosen these because of their contrast to each other and I believe that through some editing I can really showcase this to create my final prints. Whilst only 2 of these photos were taken specifically for this project, I think that the others are suitable anyhow and they do show the kind of contrast that I wanted to demonstrate. This makes up for the somewhat lack of good weather and time to take images due to the early sunsets of this time of year.

Here are some images I took in the L’Etacq area. Unfortunately there was a hail and rain shower whilst I was out and this has affected the lens in many of these which does render them quite useless. However I am happy with the way that the sky looks in these images because it is exactly what I wanted to represent over the fields to create the ominous effect.

These are the images I took for the more natural aspect of my project – at Greve de Lecq woodland. The weather was exactly what I was looking for, fortunately, with high visibility and cold sunshine. Additionally, due to the time of day and height of the sun in the sky, the images have the effect of being near to darkness – as though there is still sun, yes, but it will soon be gone. This therefore makes these images very effective symbolically for their purpose. I am happy with quite a few of these images but I think any of them that include evidence of a path will not be suitable as they do not represent the kind of untouched landscape I wanted to photograph. I think for the majority of my natural images I am going to use older ones as I was not able to make it to many locations during this short spell of clear weather.

My favourite photos from these two shoots are shown below;

I wanted more time to take these images as well as more light but unfortunately it is very difficult to do this as it gets dark so soon. Therefore a lot of these images are limited in terms of light and resolution. I hope to take more as this was a very rushed process and I need to photograph a few more locations. Here I managed to go to Val de la Mare reservoir dam as well as some fields nearby it but unfortunately these are not exactly the fields that I wanted to photograph, so I will still need to do that.

The unedited images that I think are the strongest and that I may end up using are below.

Using Photoshop, I edited the three images below that I already had and believe fit the Anthropocene brief.

Firstly, I took each image’s dimensions and then created a canvas that had double these dimensions.

I then added the image onto the new canvas using Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, and then Ctrl-V onto the canvas. Then Ctrl-T to move the image to the top right corner. I then pasted the image again so there were two copies and placed the second one under the first as shown below. I then right-clicked the image and pressed ‘Flip Vertical’ to reverse the image upside down. I then repeated this process but with the difference of flipping horizontally instead and placing the new image next to the first one.

To add the final image and complete the edit, I had to paste it in again and then place it in the final quarter, before flipping it both horizontally and vertically. The final product is below.

This process can be repeated with different choices of placement which can create lots of alternative images. Here are my final images.

Where: Multiple locations in Jersey

(on different occasions as there are quite a few locations including Val de la Mare reservoir, Les Mielles nature reserve and L’etacq fields.)

When: Afternoon/evening

(If possible, I want to go out when the weather is stormy, which is quite likely this week, to respond to my plan)

What: For the more human landscapes, focusing on the industrial aspects; for the more natural landscapes, focusing on the beauty of fairly untouched wildlife

How: Using Aperture priority setting and possibly the flash if needed

(to ensure the entire photo/focal points are in focus)

Why: In order to get images responding to the brief of Anthropocene

Using the work of Andreas Gursky and Fay Godwin as an inspiration, I want to create a series of images that show the stark difference between the bleak and ominous shapes of man-altered landscapes and the beautifully fruitful natural landscape.

To emphasise this contrast, if possible, I want to use images of dark and stormy skies over the former and more sunny and bright weather over the latter. This should be quite achievable given the imminent forecast.

This links to the infamous and ever-increasing occurrence of extreme weather systems being experienced in our temperate European climate due to the effects of climate change. See this article by Greenpeace UK, where they illustrate just how the effects of climate change can lead to the emergence of common heatwaves, floods, wildfires and more.

However, I do think that this project will be a blend of both abstraction and landscape, as I plan to use the effects of both shape and texture to my advantage. An example could include the difference between indomitable man made reservoirs and the beautiful valleys that they (some may argue unfortunately) inhabit.

Alternatively, I could photograph wild areas of land like the dunes or forest areas and juxtapose them with the starkness of the fields adapted for agriculture. Perhaps, if I can find a subject, I would also like to show some images of a man-made structure being reclaimed by nature. This would result in a series of diptychs/triptychs that I could present as separate comparisons.

I may end up using some images from my Romanticism project as well, as these areas of raw and emotional natural beauty are the kind of ones I want to document in my work, as these are the ones that will create the most stark contrast.

Some locations I could think about photographing for the first section may include the industrial areas in Jersey like La Collette recycling centre, the fields around L’etacq which are farmed all year round and reservoirs such as Val de la Mare and Queen’s Valley.

For the second section, I could go to the Les Mielles nature reserve for views of the sand dunes/marram grass or alternatively the countryside surrounding Beauport bay and cliffs or Greve de Lecq woods for the forestry.

For the final section, I only really know of one place that could respond to this which is a seemingly abandoned house in St Ouen, but I will look out for similar examples of this.