When it comes to thinking about my overall satisfaction with my finished products, I think that I did quite well. I believe that I’m satisfied with some of my final work.
With reference to editing my photographs, I think that I was able to use my editing skills to edit my photos like Ansel’s work. I was able to show the different tones in my pictures just like Ansel did. The textured and evident clouds Ansel had in his pictures was something I really liked and focused on. In two of my pictures, it is apparent that I edited the picture so that it would peak the dark shadows.
I’d say that I was able to clearly show my understanding towards Ansel’s work and how powerfully I was able to make my pictures reflect his work. I also made sure that most of my pictures were in black and white because the period Ansel produced his pictures was a time when colored pictures were just being introduced, so all of them were black and white.
However, I admit that some of my pictures need improvement. In some of my pictures I don’t show that texture that Ansel’s work had. It was something that I didn’t realize when I was editing so I wasn’t able to focus on that and apply that technique on my pictures which is something that I will have to keep in mind in my future projects.
I experimented with Lightroom and used specifically three photos that I wanted to bracket in the specific locations.
I imported these test images taken of buildings and nature/greenery.
In the image above it is presented that the the merge went ahead and the level can be adjusted, the medium/highest level seems the best appearance when looked at the image.
The image above presents the photograph in it’s best selection and the merge which does not look to dark yet too bright. This middle selection works best with all the elements presented as the darker features of the building contrasting to the sky which contrasts in terms of the grassy areas in the centre-lower area of the photographs.
I decided to merge another photograph in a similar environment taking in the same process I did in the previous photograph. As well as choosing the medium level as it suited it the best with the different tonalities.
The image above presents the merge between the three different shadowed photographs. I believe the merge in HDR bracketing is a god option when choosing the right scale for the landscape and nature like photographs as it suits it well.
For this picture, I pressed on develop and increased vibrancy by +100 and decreased saturation by -100. Then at the top bar I pressed on an icon that looks like a paint brush that looks like this,
In this icon, I increased clarity by 16,dehaze by 55 and sharpness by 43
Image 2:
Editing process:
For this picture, I pressed on develop and increased temperature by +23 and tint by +25. Then at the top bar I pressed on a icon that looks like a paint brush and increased the dehaze by 33 and brushed the whole image making sure no spot is missed. This was all I did, in terms of editing, for this picture.
Image 3:
Editing process:
For this picture, I pressed on develop and increased vibrancy by +100 and decreased saturation by -100. Then at the top bar I pressed on an icon that looks like a paint brush and increased contrast by 23, shadows by 38,clarity by 16, dehaze by 45 and sharpness by 43. With these adjustments, I bushed the brush icon only on the clouds in the image, nothing else. This was all the editing I did in this image.
Image 4:
Editing process:
For this picture, I pressed on develop and increased vibrancy by +100 and decreased saturation by -100. Then at the top bar I pressed on a icon that looks like a paint brush and decreased the blacks by -21 and increased dehaze by 38 and then brushed the whole image, head to toe.
Image 5:
Editing process:
For this image, I pressed on develop and increased shadows by +53,texture by +42 and contrast by +5. Then I decreased exposure by -0.79. This was all I did in terms of editing.
Image 6:
Editing process:
For this image, I pressed on develop and increased vibrancy by +100 and decreased saturation by -100. Then at the top bar I pressed on an icon that looks like a paint brush and increased dehaze by 60 and only brushed the top part of the image (the sky).
I had decided to take a photoshoot of my old neighbourhood and surrounding areas that have been affected during the storm. I tried to focus on both urban and semi rural places to show all the damage the storm had created.
Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) is useful for capturing scenes with a high amount of contrast. When AEB is selected, the camera automatically takes three or more auto-bracketed shots each at a different exposure. Many digital cameras have an AEB option.
The most common method of using Auto Exposure Bracketing is to adjust the exposure to what appears best for the photo, and it will take three or more photos either side of the exposure you think is best, one slightly darker and one slightly lighter. Once combining the photos taken with different exposures, it creates a HDR photo, which is rich in detail in the parts of a photo that would be underexposed or overexposed by using the single exposure instead.
Below are examples of photos taken with Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) and merged to become High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos, allowing the details from every bracketed exposure shot to be seen:
Ansel Adams, born February 20, 1902 to April 22, 1984, was the most important American landscape photographer and environmentalist who created famous black and white photographs mostly based in the American West. He was the grandson of a wealthy timber baron and grew up in a house set amid the sand dunes of the Golden Gate. At age 4, there was an aftershock of the earthquake and fire of 1906 which threw Adams onto the ground where he sustained a bad nose break. This distinctly marked him for life. His high level of intelligence, shyness and permanently injured nose caused Adams to struggle with fitting in at school. it became clear to him later on in his life that he may have been hyperactive. As well as this, it was highly likely that he also suffered with dyslexia. he was taken out of school and tutored by his father and his aunt. His childhood of a limited amount of friends or socialising lead him to be immersed in nature where he’d been commonly found taking walks and hikes in the still-wild reaches of the Golden Gate. At about age 12, Adams became a gifted and ambitious pianist. After he received his first camera in 1916, Adams also proved to be a talented photographer. He devoted his dedication to being inspired by the forgotten and unspoiled wilderness of America’s national parks and other protected conservation areas in the West.
He was the one to found the group of photographers called Group f/64. This group consisted of people who shared the same interest in photography characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly American Western viewpoint. Group f/64 were Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, Henry Swift, John Paul Edwards, Brett Weston, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Levenson, Sonya Noskowiak, and Preston Holder.
The Zone System
He and a man called Freud Archer developed a system of image-making called the Zone System. The Zone system assigns numbers from 0 through 10 to different brightness values, with 0 representing black, 5 middle grey, and 10 pure white. Thought they were a group, each person had their own interests/specialities that all came together to show a range of photograph from different places or things. For example, Adams’s images of Yosemite National Park, Edward Weston’s close-up, high-detail photographs of fruits and vegetables and of sand dunes, and Cunningham’s studies of calla lilies.
Ansel Adams and Romanticism
apart from the contrast of colour uses, these photos are very similar to each other. One main characteristic of romanticism is emotion, and in both photos, I can receive the emotion of calmness. the use of the two rivers represent piece and tranquillity. both images focus on one natural landscape of a mountain/hill. this can also be linked with romanticism since it tends to focus on natural things rather than manmade. in the romanticism photo, another thing that relates to this point about natural is the use of the animals. Another emotion, which contrasts with calmness, could also be a sense of fear and negativity and this could be represented with the sky. Ansel’s image looks much more dramatic in terms of an approaching storm as you can see that, in terms of his Zone System, the clouds start to approach a 3 or 4. Though the romanticism isn’t as dramatic, the weather is still a similarity. As stated before, there is an obvious contrast of colours since Ansel’s photos are all in black and white and focus mostly on the darkness/lightness of the shades whereas the romanticism photo is filled with warming tones.
Influence on others
Ansel Adams main influence has been to awaken people to the beauty of nature. Each of his photos focus on natural landscapes where it captures different aspects of the world (in this case, American west) and the beauty of them within a photograph. Ansel Adams biggest development was the Zone System, a technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, which has clearly had a huge impact of the photography world. His invention has helped many photographers with the control of image values, ensuring that light and dark values are rendered as desired and just improving their images over all.
Image Analysis
This was one of Ansel’s photos called ‘Fern Springs, Dusk’
It is clear that Ansel has only used natural daylight with no artificial as it is a natural scene where he wouldn’t have the equipment properly set up in a place like this for artificial light. The use of him using natural light clearly shows the patients he has to be able to wait for the correct moment of light to pass through the water as well as his exposure time on his box camera. Though the image is black and white, I think it stills gives off a cool tone due to the overuse of bright white. as well as this, the brightness of the water drips also closely resemble ice crystals. Adams has managed to use space well, he has zoomed close up to the natural landscape so that is leaves no empty spaces and its all filled with the natural aspects. I think Adams choice of photographing a waterfall is very effective with the theme of naturalistic landscapes as water is a very obvious natural element.
My Response -> Ansel Adams
This is one of the landscape photos that I had taken while I was in France. I liked this image because of how it matched Ansel Adams photo of the mountain and snow. I took this image in colour where the sun was hitting the top of the mountain. I edited this image on photoshop by going to adjustments and then black & white. from there, I was able to adjust the different colours with the scale. this meant that I could make some parts of the photo look darker and some look lighter
Originally from the Dutch word “landschap“, the name given to paintings of the countryside, landscape is part of Earth’s surface that can be viewed at one time from one place.
When did Landscape emerge as a genre in western culture?
Although the genre can be traced back to 4th-century-ce China, landscape as an independent genre did not emerge in the Western tradition until the Renaissance in the 16th century. However, paintings from the earliest ancient and Classical periods also included natural scenic elements.
When did classical landscapes emerge as a genre?
In the 17th century the classical landscape was created. These landscapes were influenced by classical antiquity and were created to illustrate an ideal landscape recalling Arcadia, which was a legendary place in ancient Greece and was popularly known for its quiet and peaceful beauty.
What prompted the ride of Landscape Art during the late 18th/19th century?
Landscape painting eventually gained more popularity towards the late 18th century with the rise of Romanticism, it often continued to carry a religious significance. Therefore, it became a useful method of self-expression, where the emotions of the painter were combined with their appreciation of nature which could be demonstrated in the painting.
When did landscape photography originate?
1826 and 1827.
According to records, the earliest known evidence of a landscape photograph was taken between the years of 1826 and 1827. It was an urban landscape photo taken by a French inventor by the name of Nicephore Niepce.
Methods and Techniques of landscape–
Modern Landscape Photography.
Landscape photography used to be predominantly about capturing the sublime and uncharted territory. However, there is decreasing amounts of untouched by human land, however, photography can be use to reflect this. Due to the modernisation of technology, photography and beautiful pictures of absolutely everything, can be accessed within a click of a button. Due to the fact there is around 2.5 trillion photos taken a year, and the average person takes around 20 photos per day, the true meaning, appreciation and dedication to quality photography has been taken away more and more as the technology world broadens.
New Topographics.
The term ‘New Topographic’ was created by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers:
Robert Adams
Lewis Baltz
Frank Gohlke
Nicholas Nixon
Stephen Shore
And Bernd and Hilla Becher
whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.
Edward Burtynsky.
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian artist and photographer who mainly takes large format photos of industrial landscapes around the world. What I like about Burtynsky’s work is how his images include mostly the breath-taking views that are ‘altered‘ and ‘modernised‘ by factories, humans and industries. Burtynsky has shared that his work is not to portray his subjects in a judgmental way but to instead create multi- purpose images “which reconnect viewers to the aspects of manufacturing and technological production that are usually ignored or at least rarely considered“. Some of his preferred areas to photograph include:
Mine tailings
Quarries
Scrap piles
His amazing images are shown the connection and compromise between the magnificent and colourful natural views and the polluting, industrialised damage that affect the environment. He uses a a field camera with a large format to create his photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes. Edward has travelled top places such as China, in order to photograph the country’s contribution to one of the largest engineering projects in the world called the ‘Three Gorges Dam’.
In this image, the viewers are able to see huge the social and environmental impact of the Three Gorge project that is hugely affecting inhabitants and animals across China. The project comes at a huge expense of $180 billion dollars and has been created to supposedly stop seasonal flooding of China’s largest river, the Yangtze, which will also help to provide hydro-electric power for the immense and powerful manufacturing industries which need lots of power to generate.
He photographed a place called Wan Zhou which is a small city along the Yangtze that is affected by the project. Burtynsky chose to take a photo of a few people picking through the rubble of buildings near the riverbank. The buildings are shown to have been demolished and the residents of these homes have been relocated before the rising waters would eventually cover this part of the city. I think that the people’s clothing is particularly meaningful as it provides the only colour in the dull and dark scene. The rubble and the morbid looking river blends together, which shows the truly large scale of the project.
He is mostly inspired by:
Ansel Adams
Edward Weston
Eadweard Muybridge,
Carleton Watkins
I think this ties in very well to my research on Storm Ciaran as it shows how expenses, human activity, industrialisation and pollution are contributing to these weather patterns creating deadly effects to the Island. I would like to take inspiration to Edward Burtynsky and his work on the damage to the environment that is taking place in Jersey.
a field camera with a large format His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes
Oil spills and fading glaciers: a beautiful world in peril – in pictures
Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” by William Jenkins.
New Topographic was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers, it is also known as landscapes changing over time and how it used to be viewed by as nature and now its viewed as urban, where the photos are based around buildings. Most of the time the aesthetic of landscape photography that shows nature is mostly based around Ansel Adams work. Throughout the years landscape photography has grown to a much wider detailed subject. Many photographers study new topographic such as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd And Hilla Becher, frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon and Stephen Shore. These photographers all studied an approach on landscapes in America often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. There photographs are often devoid of human presence. William Jenkins made the new topographic: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape”, this was known as an exhibitionof contemporary landscape photography. Jenkins Invited these photographers to become familiar with the concept of landscapes changing over time and They first exhibited them in series, as “typologies”, often shown in grids, under the title of “Anonymous Sculptures.” They were soon adopted by the conceptual art movement. Topographic was a reaction to stark, beautifully printed images, topographic was presented as 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.
Topography is the studyof the features and forms of land surfaces, the origin of the word topography comes from the words “graphia” and “topo”. “Graphia” means writing and “topo” means place. However there is a similar word, Topographical which means that Topographical maps are special types of maps that show the different land features. New topography represents the physical appearance of the natural features of an area of land, especially the shape of its surface. For example the photos shown under this, they are similar buildings all in the same perspective, the artist didn’t get any different angles which makes the photos look very similar even if they are different building, it shows the concept that photos look similar if you position then in the same place, each of these photos have a bright white background and have a similar structure therefore it gives the impression that its the same building. That is a representation of what typography is, how things are structured in your photo.
William Jenkins
Williams Jenkins work created the new rules for landscape photography. He created an exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography (Rochester, New York) from October 1975 to February 1976.’The New Topographics photos are about “A man-made wilderness”, the American myths of the West, suburban expansion, and the exploitation and destruction of natural resources. Landscapes have traditionally been produced in order to evoke contemplation on beauty, they were intended to be morally instructive or edifying.’
The Turin Papyrus Map
The Turin Papyrus Map is an ancient Egyptian map, generally considered the oldest surviving map of topographical interest from the ancient world. ‘Besides being a topographic map of surprisingly modern aspect, the Turin Papyrus is also a geological map (the earliest known) because it accurately shows the local distribution of different rock types (with black and pink hills), the lithologically diverse wadi gravels (with brown, green and white dots)’
Above is some of the damage that people witnessed the Morning after the storm.
photoshoot:
For this photoshoot I went around St.Catharines woods in Jersey, as there where still lots of debris (e.g. fallen over trees) which I could capture. However, Its very difficult to get wide shots as the wood is in a valley, making close up shots the only option here. To capture the sublime I went around, looking for scenery that was very destroyed, yet still beautiful, showing how even a huge, dangerous storm can be beautiful.
Here are the photos I picked out and edited:
1st image:
Here, me and my family just entered the forest where we believed we could find some damage still left after storm cereal. The rain just happened to have stopped and the sun came out, allowing the path to ‘glow’, creating a warm and divine feel. I only bumped up the contrast slightly, allowing the road to glow more.
2nd image:
I found a broken tree, with 2 wide stretching branches growing outwards. The photo itself is not that interesting but with some editing (e.g. using the zone system in the style of Ansel Adams), I can bring this image to life and create depth in the complex textures of the trees and the stubble on the ground.
Here was the first edit I tried using light room, However, I wanted more control over the highlights and shadows is areas where the intensity is lost (especially in the Brocken tree). So I imported the image into photoshop so I can select areas where I don’t want shadows.
I edited the tree stump with the dodge and burn tool, to bring out the detail but reduce the exposure slightly. I also went into the B&W settings and reduced the amount of blue colour to make the sky more dramatic:
3rd image:
I dont think these are my strongest photos however, so to represent the sublime and romanticism, I will be retaking photos of cliffs sides around Jersey.
The term Landscape actually came from the Dutch word landschap. Which meant “region, tract of land” however the definition started to change in the 1500’s to “a picture depicting scenery on land”
16th Century
Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538)
In the 16th century landscape started being recognised as a genre. There was a growing interest in natural world due to the Renaissance. During this time, Albrecht Altdorfer was one of the more prominent artists. He was said to be one of the first Europeans to produce pure landscape art. He took a lot of inspiration/included a lot of religious aspects which was a key aspect of Renaissance art. However, although Landscape was starting to be recognised as it’s own genre, t was still not a “popular” style of art.
Renaissance art
Renaissance art took a lot of inspiration from biblical texts or religious stories. Most of the art includes one of the following some of the classic styles (especially the human form); naturalism styles and individualism which was gaining popularity at the time. However a key part of renaissance art is they would focus on idealisation and perfection whereas romanticism which is similar was the one to mainly focus on self expression and emotion.
Some of the most famous and successful renaissance artists Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.
17th Century
Nicolas Poussin – Landscape with Saint John on Patmos
Nicolas Poussin was also quite a popular landscape artist he mainly started during the 17th century where it was still very slowly rising in popularity. He was most known for his incredible paintings where he would take inspiration from Roman countryside. He is known for elevating the whole genre of landscapes.
Classical landscapes were gaining a lot of attention around this time. Classical landscapes aim to capture and illustrate the idea of recalling Arcadia. Which is this legendary place in ancient Greece which is known for its beauty.
Its said classical landscapes were heavily influenced by classical antiquity which focused on Greek culture from around 8th century BCE to the 5th century CE.
In classical landscapes during the 17th century they would have these idyllic aspects to them so they wold appear to be very tranquil, happy and blissful this cold be due to the fact arcadia is a mythical place so people would usually describe in this idealized way.
Add more here about the rise of Classical Landscape art in the 17th Century. There is a link here with more info: LINK
Add more about 18th / 19th Century Art…
Landscape Photography
Landscape photography didn’t actually start/gain popularity until 1826 and 1827 where Nicéphore Niepce took some of what’s now considered ” oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene” the most famous and the oldest being “View from the Window at Le Gras”. He was able to get these photos because he was actually an incredible inventor and pioneer so he was able to develop heliography so that when he went exploring he was able to capture the world. He was famous for being the first person to make a permanent photographic image.
