I started with this photo because I really like how it looks and matches with Nicholas’ style.

Now that I have done both parts for one photo, I will blend them together to create Nich’s style.

That was my first attempt trying to blend the two photos into one, and I will do more attempts to blend them using my different photos and styles. But I started by adding the main edited photo on the left in full frame with the other objects in the background. Then for the right side, I cut out the circular metallic object put it centre on a black canvas like Nicholas Gallery does, but I also noticed he blends the outside into the background so I added a light 10% black brush around the outside and went over it again until I liked the blend/eyeball look.

Nicholas used a nice style by having a photo full framed on the left and then on the right, cut out in a circular shape. Also, he will use a photo of a lighter for example on one side, showcasing the evil and what’s killing us and then on the other side something that is helping and saving us like an inhaler.

I really like this concept and I will be trying to take and edit some photos like his with the side by side effect meaning good and bad and also just cropped into a circle. But I will also add my own touch onto my photos by changing the shape of the cut out or maybe opposite colours on each side to showcase opposites.

For this photoshoot, we went to Halve Des Pas to take pictures of the natural and industrial landscapes. We used natural lighting as we were outside and made sure that our shutter speed and the aperture to get the best outcome.

I really like this image because you can see a traditional Jersey building on the left, a newly built building on the right and the high rise flats behind. This relates to topographical photography as it shows the revolution of the buildings through the years. It shows the comparison of the different styles of the buildings and how over time aesthetics change.

This picture that Stephan Shore took shows the difference of man made and natural settings. In this photograph, there are lots of bright colours, red, white and blue. These colours symbol the American flag and shows that the picture is all about America. This picture has also got several petrol stations which could resemble the amount of cars used in the country. This is significant as during the industrial revolution which spread from Britain to America in the late 19th century, cars became extremely popular. This was a major thing across the world because it was such an extortionary thing to be made. However, in this day cars are what are destroying our planet and people try to use different transport instead of cars because of the pollution. Stephan Shore tried to express the idea that in the industrial part of the photograph is what is destroying the natural land in the background of the photograph.

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Anthropocene

The proposed current geological epoch, in which humans are the primary cause of permanent planetary change.

The word “Anthropocene” was coined by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen about a decade ago. One day Crutzen, who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds, was sitting at a scientific conference. The conference chairman kept referring to the Holocene, the epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, 11,500 years ago, and that—officially, at least-continues to this day.

The word ‘Anthropocene’ itself breaks down as ‘Anthropo’ meaning human and ‘cene’ beginning a new period of time, together meaning the period of time we are currently in following on from the Holocene, the term was coined in the 1980s but didn’t become commonly used till the early 2000s. The Anthropocene is the time period in which we look at just how greatly we, as humans, have impacted and damaged the natural environment around us for out benefit alone. To name a few impacts we have had on the planet, decrease in biodiversity, pollution increase, climate change, misuse of natural resources and many many more. Anthropocene began in the 1950s however wasn’t labelled as starting till 2016 when radioactive waste, we had caused, were found in soil samples. It was labelled as starting in the 1950s as there was a dramatic increase in human impact that year and we truly started to see the impact it was leaving/creating on the planet we so dearly love. As we started to introduce the invention of plastic into everyday life the problem quickly spiralled out of control, leaving us in the idea that life was improving thanks to the new everyday use of the material plastic. However very quickly we became careless with the quick growing population, thanks to the benefits of plastic from being able to store food better, more hygienically to the use of different medical treatments to the consumption rates at which we were using plastic for everything we do sky rocketing. As humans we have become the single most impactful species on the world around us in a very short space of time, we effect everything from the mass amounts of plastic pollution we create to the water and it’s life we threaten from melting the ice caps with climate change to killing biodiversity with eutrophication.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-the-anthropocene.html

Consumerism and the impact of it on the Anthropocene

Consumerism is the over consumption of goods. From making a huge amount of pollution, it makes us as people always want more because there is always a better or newer thing. This is ever present throughout our lives from fast fashion to trends in every part of our lives. A simple statistic that explains this is that is that the average American spends $1,497 a month on non essential items. This doesn’t change that much throughout the world where most places that have a stable economy follow suit with similar statistics. This is hugely highlighted in the fast fashion industry, this has a huge impact on the world as the trends increase as social media becomes more advanced this means the ‘need’ for more fast fashion. Fast fashion in itself has doubled the clothing produced while the use time of a garment has massively decreased. Not only is the fast fashion industry incredibly harmful and unethical using extremely poor pay and working conditions to make huge profits. The impact it has on the world is irreversible. With all the flights and marine transport fast fashion still comes out on top for creation of CO2 which in turn speeds up climate change at a rapid pace. It truly is the second largest polluter when it comes to different industries, the only one outweighing it is the use of fossil fuels which is a huge part of everything in our lives. Over consumption isn’t limited to just the fashion industry we do it in everything we own, from buying the new water bottle everyone is talking about when our old one is perfectly fine to needing multiple of something just because it comes in a different design for example. In general over consumption hasn’t only caused mass amounts of non revisable damage to our planet but it has made us as the human species incredibly unaware of how much we have and enjoy the smaller things in life.

The Holocene

The Holocene is the only state in which we know humanity can thrive with anything like the 7.5 billion humans being supported today. It began at the last major glacial epoch, which was the ice age 11,700 years ago now. It had another name which meant the age of man, this being Anthropogene, similar to the newly coined Anthropocene, however this can be misleading as in fact humans existed before the ice age but around this time was when we started to see the recorded history and now it’s history from ice age to modern day in the development of humans and the impact they left in their wake. The climate changes during the Holocene were more stable than the Ice Age period, however there were still changes for example when a large ice sheets collapsed the oceans oscillations dramatically changed thought he time period. However the Holocene was considered to be an an atypical interglacial that has not experienced significant cooling over its course ‘an atypical interglacial that has not experienced significant cooling over its course’. Was this a warning for the drastic increase in sea temperature increase in modern day, the Anthropocene? We have now left the Holocene and are in the transition to the Anthropocene. This new geological epoch was named to acknowledge human influence on the state of the planet. 

Causes of Anthropocene

Urbanisation –

The increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities.

Urbanisation has a huge impact on the planet around us from improving things for humans with more housing etc which improves our lives directly with providing us safe, good places to live. However this comes at great cost to the planet as not only does it mean the ever increasing population will likely continue to increase, but it also then creates more and more over crowded, polluted city space but this then takes more and more of the natural land. So not only does this decrease the natural Earth that is best left untouched but it continues to decrease the area of our planet that can still be saved. As we increase in the urban scape the pollution will continue to increase and just add to the un reversible damage we have already done to this planet.

Agriculture –

Agriculture, an essential part of daily life that people hesitate to think about or consider how greatly we cannot exist without it. Simply over half of the worlds inhabitable land is used in agriculture and 26% of all the worlds greenhouse emissions comes from food and the production of it. However not only do we not consider how much we reliable on the agriculture industry, we forget how much it impacts the planet. Unlike other industries agriculture impacts many areas of the eco system from polluting the water with the run off of fertilisers causing eutrophication, to the general increase on green house gas emissions from the rearing and looking after animals to the transporting of out of season produce across the world to more scientific developments as in looking at genetic modification on certain foods aiming to produce bigger and better qualities while being quicker and less laborious. However we cannot blame this on the sole providers of our food as in fact a lot of time we are to blame. The rise of the human population, rising as quickly as it is means we will be needing even more food in less time so again the rates of damage agriculture is enforcing on the planet will be doubled before we know it.

Industrialisation –

This is the development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale. As the population continues to increase the rate of industrialisation has also increased, taking up more natural land than ever to the demand for supplies being on the rise. This actually dates back further than some of the bigger issues now as while a lot of hand powered agriculture machinery was used and a lot less of the things we have now like private jets and commercial oil rigs. This became significant in the industrial revolution which was 1790-1840 and not only began significant new development in the world around us and increase in pollution but also caused a depletion of natural sources. This also started a large and incredibly harmful trend of using fossil fuels that we still use to this day but will one day not too far away be depleted leaving only nasty after effects.

I took these photos while in the Pyrenees during spring. I went down into the valley to hopefully find some construction work, destroyed landscapes, ext that would link to the Anthropocene project. I found a half abandoned power station that was the main focus for this photo shoot of around 200 photos. I took the same photo with different exposure levels to get a higher dynamic range for more dramatic and detailed photos. I set my camera to aperture priority, with a low ISO level as it was a sunny day and I wanted to get as much detail as possible. my f-stop was mostly high (around 20f) to get more of the image in focus. Below is a panoramic view (using Lightroom) of the power station/industrial estate I went to:

My Strongest photos:

These photos were taken in the power station (half abandoned), down in the valley. The geometric shapes of the power station contrasts the natural shapes formed by the mountains in front. I edited the photos with high saturation to replicate most of Edward Burtynsky photos. I also increase the contrast to give a more dramatic image. A lot of these images, especially the on with the bus, shows nature overpowering human structures, with the weeds and plants growing through the rundown little French power station. This gives some of the images a pleasant look as nature is beginning to take back the land it use to have.

However, the photo on the top left is very different as the powerplant looks fairly new, with its clean, geometric building and wiring. This makes the image less pleasant to look at as the powerplant does not match the environment its in (also because no consideration for the aesthetics has been used). The mountain behind dominates the power plant in the foreground which can give the viewer hope that our planet is still not fully destroyed yet.

Creative editing:

Here I added motion blur to the background, allowing the viewers eyes to focus more on the industrial pipes dominating the foreground. I also bumped up the contrast only on the foreground image to really make it stand out, as an Anthropocene is about humans effect on the earth, and this large industrial pipe is a clear example of humans impacting the earth negatively. I was inspired by Stephanie Jung to edit the background as being blurred.

Here I again took inspiration from Stephanie Jung set these 4 images above into multi-exposure. This creates a very abstract photo, which gives a similar effect to motion blur.

Contact sheet

What Is Meant By An Urban Landscape?

An urban landscape means a dense accumulation of building structures with a rich stylistic variety of shapes, sizes and proportions located over a fairly extensive territory. Urban photography is a genre of photography concerned with capturing scenes from urban spaces, such as towns and other ecological spaces. It has become more popular over the years as the world has become more urbanised.  Urban landscapes refer to the physical environment of cities or urban areas. It includes buildings (residential or commercial), infrastructure (roads, bridges), public spaces (parks), transportation systems (subways), and other elements that shape urban living. In simpler words, man made things that overtook the area.

In Order To Take A Good Urban Landscape Image You Should Consider:

1. Using a wide-angle lens
2. Photographing with a narrow aperture
3. Taking advantage of golden-hour light
4. Shooting street photos in context
5. Photographs from above
6. Having fun with long exposures
7. Shooting urban landscapes at night
8. Featuring interesting architecture

My Photoshoots:

Final Three Images:

I have used lighting within this image to create a mirror concept, you can see that the sun is setting in front of the car due to it being reflected within the car. By using this lighting it creates a new concept, not just like a normal shadow but instead an entirely new concept. It creates a light and dark tone, and a 3D element which creates a texture element. Its a form of space, you can see that the car is 3D due to what is reflected within. The context of this image in relation to an urban landscape in my eyes is that it is a physical environment, a public space. The idea of using a public car park came across to me when I was researching anthropocene, noticing just how many cars are on the island and how much they are actually polluting our earth. I wanted to create the concept of our beautiful planet and mother nature (the sunset), contrasted with what’s harming it (the car).

I wanted to take an image where the sun was high, not setting nor rising but just shining high, as if it was just the middle of the day. I have decided to use a model within this image so that I can portray the urban area of the skatepark to its fullest. I have used a skatepark too show how not all man made things are bad and harming the environment, this skate park is filled with humans burning calories and using up all their energy, providing more to the planet rather than damaging it all over again.

This isn’t one of my favorite photos, I do not like how blurry it is or how rough the lighting of the petrol station is being portrayed, but I love the idea of it. The idea of just casually using petrol and harming the planet when there are so many other options out there, like electric cars that’ll help the planet rather than damage it, but some people just cannot change in there stubborn ways.

Joel Sternfeld began taking photos in 1969 and started taking colour photos in 1978 with a large format camera. Reflecting the current times, as in the 70s colour photography was starting to become common.

1987 Joel published his first set of work called American prospects which features mainly landscapes but also people and buildings from trips around North America he went on. This ended up becoming his most known work.

Joel Sternfeld + Anthropocene

Joel Sternfeld’s approach to his photography work is a documentary style, documenting what is going on with the land and people in North America. He said “The surface of the earth and what we do with it tells us an awful lot about ourselves” This relates to anthropocene as he is talking about the human impact on the world and how we have a large effect on it.

His work

I really like his photos and I feel like they have a good connection with landscape, the new topographics and anthropocene. I also feel the photos are interesting to look at, this could be because of the way they are composed or it could be the difference in the landscape compared to Jersey.

I chose Joel Sternfield as an artist reference because I like his work and approach to photography, such as his photos of overlooked areas such as industrial areas and the way his photos depict Anthropocene which is similar to the way I want my photos of anthropocene to be like.

Image analysis

This photo was taken of the high line in New York City which was an abandoned over ground train line which has now been turned into a park with the first section of the park opening in 2009. The Image has the abandoned overgrown trainline as the subject in the photo, with it being centred in the middle of the photo.

The old train tracks are used as leading lines to lead the viewer into the distance/horizon, also highlighting the length of the tracks. The railings on the edge also are implied leading lines which are used to create distance but also provide a contrast between the overgrown, abandoned trainline and the urban city.

The Lighting in the photo is natural soft light due to the clouds diffusing all the light, this means there is virtually no shadows due to the soft light and not a strong contrast in the photo between the light and shadows. The clouds also give the image a colder white balance as it makes the sky a white/grey colour.

There is also a contrast between texture as the overgrown grass gives the abandoned tracks a soft texture, especially towards the middle of the photo. However the urban buildings contrast with this and the dark red brick creates a rough texture, this may be to further show the contrast between the abandoned trainline and the urbanisation in New York.

That is Anthropocene?

The word Anthropocene, derived from Greek, means “the recent age of man”.

Anthropocene is the largest epidemic to happen in the natural world. The effects of our human advances taking a destructive tole on the nature that has be admired and studied by many. With our plastic being eaten by birds and fish and our roads crushing hedgehogs and toads. The photographers who create work to fight for more fitting environments for our co-inhabitants, producing pieces that shock many to the heart. The planet is not our to destroy and many would be shocked to discover how much their new t-shirt would have contributed to this destruction. These artists are exploring the way in which Anthropocene has affected this world and are creating ways of warning others that their actions have consequences.

Causes of Anthropocene

There are four main causes of Anthropocene. these are: Agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution.

Agriculture:

The agricultural industry has left its mark on the planet though it may not be apparent at first. The machines that harvest the wheat for your bread release off fumes and the over farm salmon from the shop containing that much fat that it is worse for you than a big mac. Animals are over feed and pumped full of chemicals to make them more appealing to eat.

Urbanisation:

With every growing populations comes the need for more housing, clothing and food. Fields are being built on that were full of life and cramp streets and roads are making it hard for wild life to rehome themselves when they are eventually removed from their home.

Deforestation:

Wood being a vital part of our life from pencils to tables and supports in structures, including your real Christmas tree, It is every where however this wood has to come from somewhere. unfortunately that means cutting down a entire forest just to supply enough for everyone.

Pollution:

With human advancement comes the never faulting threat of pollution. Whether that be CO2 or chemicals released in to rivers and oceans and the light produced by the street light and busy road full of glowing cars blocking our gorgeous stars.

Consequences of Anthropocene

Anthropocene ultimately has major draw back and unwanted effects on us. The pollution in the air making hard to breath, filling our lungs with chemical and slowly rotting them from the inside out. The animals we eat containing antibiotics and things that were not meant for human consumption. The places we live becoming run down and abandoned or removed to build something modern and disrupting the landscape.