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.