Examples of Guy Catling’s Work

Guy Catling

Guy Catling is a modern designer/photographer who works with a mixture of photos, often old war photos. His style is unique and comes from a unique inspiration source. He graduated as a graphic designer in 2014 in the UK continuing to go into a career in graphic design; he often also calls himself an artist for much of the work he does is considered art rather than photography as such. He is best know for his works of adding patterns and colour onto old war photos but he continues to use collage as a main medium, although unlike the classic sense of cutting and sticking magazines together he tends to use photoshop and inspiration drawn from graveyards. Believing collage can ‘create beautiful visual contrasts and can also give old material new life.’ has led Catling down many paths of sharing his work and ideas quickly leading to inspiring many other creators out there, from photographers to artists.

Why does Catling work in this style?

Catling uses patterned fabrics to collage onto black and white photographs. Consequently, adding these vibrant textures softens their dull moods and raises them to a more uplifting tone. The same way flowers add happiness, colour and love to a field full of grief that is grave yards.

Guy Catling’s Eye-Catching Collages Tackle Conflict Imagery

Photo Analysis

He is best known for the floral work that he has done, which was inspired by him visiting a graveyard and experiencing the juxtaposition between life and death. After this, Catling responded by adding patterned fabrics over the top of dull images to give them a new lease of life. Catling focuses on giving photographs an entire new feeling. By using collage and graphic design, Catling creates bright contrasting compositions that have been inspired from what surrounds him. The photo above is a great example of Catling’s style, using photos shop to add sharp lines and colourful patterns completely contrasting the softer, older photos. This gives old photos a new lease of life creating stark contrast between. This photo splits into sections of dark, high contrast foreground, colourful, bright mountain in the middle and softer, brown toned background with the patterned area reflecting this being a brown rather than a bright colour. I love how the photo has been broken up and made into something completely new, merging new technology of photoshop with ancient landscape and collaging as a technique which is between the two on a timeline, pulling all the elements of the photo together while keeping the photo relevant to modern time. However through this Catling hasn’t taken away from the stunning completely natural landscape. Catling’s style as reflected in the photo above shows the beauty and vastness of nature but also how easily we, as humans, can alter it.

CONTACT SHEET:

For this photoshoot, I decided to stick with using plastic and rubbish to represent Anthropocene as I think Plastic pollution is a huge factor to Anthropocene and the damage to the earth. I used AI on all images to add plastic and texture to the image, so it reinforces this idea around pollution.

Edit 1:

Edit 2:

Edit 3:

Final outcomes:

These edits were my personal favourite because they are 4 different photos of the same person, portraying different kinds of emotions. I made sure the model was not looking directly in the camera, therefore we find the emotions are represented through her facial expressions.

All four photos are in black and white, with increased highlights, to show the texture of the plastic cling film. I also increased the brightness to emphasise the light reflecting on the plastic. Finally, I chose to present them in a grid layout, so that it’s clear they all link together.

Editing experimentation

I increased the contrast on this photo to enhance the colours in the sunset and make them brighter and stand out more but by increasing the contrast in this photo it also made the buildings in the foreground of the image stand out more. I also increased the whites in the image to make the string of lights become brighter which act as leading lines as they guide your eye to the photo.

In this image I increased the highlights in the photo to make the area around the focal point of all the lights darker in shadow and all the lights in the centre of the image brighter so that the lights stand out and look stronger.

Further Experimentation – AI

For this image I added clouds to the sky in my photo and the clouds took the colour from the sunset.

With this image I added to plant pots with flowers in them and made sure to put them at the bottom of the image to make sure the plant pots created the shadow from the fence.

With this image I added a Hotel to the background of the photo to make show what could happen to the landscape over time.

I then added a Flag and a flag pole to the top of the hill, to give the image a more historical look.

I then added seagulls to the sky which contrasts against the white clouds in the sky giving more definition to the image.

After that I added a man walking dogs along the beach to complete the image. The new generated image has more old and historic buildings than the image before I generated new things on to the image.

For this image I added lots of tall buildings to the background of the photo to make the area look more built up and busy and then I added the road to the right side of the image and then put the street lamp to the side of the road.

After I added a brick wall in front of the buildings and hotels and then I added some smoke to the top of the building in the middle, to make the image look like its a busy place. The smoke coming from the building contrasts against the solid blue sky which makes the smoke stand out more against the background of the image.

Here is the photoshoot, I am going to be editing some of the photos. Here are some of my favourites from the 3 shoots

evaluation – Anthropocene has been considered a geological period of high risk due to the indiscriminate use of natural resources and the lifestyle taken by the world population, to the detriment of ecosystem conservation. I think my pictures turned out good, with analysing different points of the world and how humans can destroy and how there are ethical issues even within photography. I think my images turned out well because there’s loads of different images and angles and I like the fact they look “rusty” however I also think I could’ve taken a bit more photos of rubbish and damage that humans have caused.

Andy Hughes was born in 1966 in Castleford, Yorkshire, he developed an interest in the seascape and landscape after learning to surf whilst at Art College in Wales. He obtained a First Class Degree in Fine Art at Cardiff University and an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London.

Andy Hughes’ photographic work explores the littoral zone and the politics of waste. In 2013 he travelled to Alaska, invited as part of an international team of artists and scientists to work on the project Gyre: The Plastic Ocean. This project was a world first and unique project that explored the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic and human waste in the marine and coastal environment. He was the first Artist in Residence at Tate Gallery St. Ives and short-listed reserve residency artist for the Arts Council England Antarctic Fellowship. His previous work explores human scale waste products such as plastic and other discarded items washed ashore across various beaches in the USA and Europe. For over two decades he has worked consistently on this theme. In 2013 he travelled to Alaska, invited as part of an international team of artists and scientists [Pam Longobardi, Mark Dion, Alexis Rockman, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Carl Safina] to work on the project GYRE: The Plastic Ocean. 

Some of Andy Hughes work:

I like how he represents Anthropocene through the use of plastic on a beach. People littering is a world wide problem, 12 million tonnes of plastic finds its way into the ocean every single year. 9.5 million tonnes of this enters the ocean from the land with 1.75 tonnes being chucked into the sea directly from the fishing a shipping industry. There are approximately 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons.

With all these photoshoots I have been through and selected the best of ones I think will be good to use parts of for all my final pieces

Photoshoot 1:

My first photoshoot wasn’t very exciting, all I did was go around town to take photos litter, I probably wont use the full photos I might just cut and edit the actual litter into other images.

Photoshoot 2:

This is my second photoshoot where I went to portlet to take photos of the beach and rocks, and also some photos of modern house around nature, these images I will keep the same or edit with inspiration from Dafna Talmar, and Michael Martin.

Photoshoot 3:

This photoshoot was at St Brelades/way nay, and similar to the photoshoot above in another location.

Photoshoot 4:

This photoshoot was taken in the studio. These Photos will be mainly inspired by Keith Arnette, and my own idea to add creativity into this topic.