For my first photoshoot, I am going to take pictures of very built up areas (urban landscapes) in London like Oxford Street etc. I am going to focus on the vast amount of buildings seen in these places and how overpopulated it is. I will also try and capture large groups of people, showing how mankind has taken over Earth and expanded so much that it is ripping Earth of its natural landscapes and replacing it with buildings and homes in order to accommodate with the demands of the increasing population. With my images of different buildings, I am planning to recreate the work of Giacomo Costa and stack these together. This will highlight the idea of how mankind has polluted the Earth with buildings instead of embracing the natural beauty we already have.

For my second photoshoot, I am going to take images of Jersey’s natural landscape and its beauty without any pollution. By doing this, it will hopefully inspire the people who look at my work to try and make a difference on the environment so that we stop destroying the Earth with litter and instead bring out these potentially breath taking landscapes that are hidden by human kinds disregard for the environment. I will then take images of pollution eg litter on the beach and compare the two so people can see the contrast between what the world could be and what it is right now. I will also compare my images of Jersey’s natural beauty and London’s built up, overpopulated area to highlight the idea of what all those buildings are covering up. This may inspire people to leave the very minimal natural landscapes we have left as they are.

For my third photoshoot, I am going to take photographs of different zoo animals in their artificial habitats. This was inspired by Zed Nelson who does something similar to this. I am going to try and take pictures of animals who are in enclosures with unnatural things eg a painted wall of nature or a spotlight instead of natural light as they would have in the wild. This highlights to me how ironic we are as a society as we recreate these natural landscapes, that we could already have, if we didn’t destroy them in order to expand.

Anthropocene is humans impact on the earths environment.

The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans. The word combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time.  In simple terms, it describes the time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet.

A popular theory is that it began at the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, when human activity had a great impact on carbon and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Others think that the beginning of the Anthropocene should be 1945.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth until now. It affects Earth’s geology, landscape, limnology, ecosystems and climate. The effects of human activities on Earth can be seen for example in biodiversity loss and climate change.

Examples of Anthropocene include: pollution, destruction, storm damage, weathering, land reclamation, overpopulation, traffic congestion, waste disposal issues, recycling and fly tipping.

For this theme, I am going to be focusing on overpopulation, pollution and capturing how the Earth could look if we stop destroying it.

Keith Arnatt Artist Research

Keith Arnatt was a British conceptual artist. As well as conceptual art his work is sometimes discussed in relation to land art, minimalism, and photography. He lived and worked in London, Liverpool, Yorkshire and Monmouthshire. Apart from his conceptual works in 1960s and 70s Arnatt developed a set of images from a rubbish tip that developed from landscape based images to still-live of discarded objects

Keith Arnatt (1930–2008) emerged in the 1960s into the tumult of the London art scene to become a key figure in the history of British conceptual art and photography. In a self-reflexive practice that questions with a deadpan wit the status of both the art object and the role of the artist, Arnatt carefully examined and critiqued an increasing reliance of product over process and object over idea. Visually, his work embraced many of the tropes of international conceptualism and minimalism, yet by imbuing his work with an absurdist humour, Arnatt was able to develop a unique artistic language.

One of his photoshoots was called Pictures from a Rubbish Tip 1988–9. It was a series of five large coloured photographs taken by the British artist Keith Arnatt. It featured close-up shots of rubbish that has been dumped at a local tip. In each photograph, the lens focuses upon select pieces of discarded food – such as bread, chicken bones and vegetables – that lie on clear and pale-coloured plastic bags. These bags both reflect and diffuse the surrounding daylight, highlighting the varying hues of the rubbish so that the scenes appear brightly coloured and partly abstract. Although the types of rubbish shown and their exact position within the compositions varies slightly, each is presented at an apparently fixed distance from the camera and this, as well as the similar lighting effects used across the five works, creates a sense of cohesion in the series.

Another one of his photoshoots was called Miss Grace’s lane, 1986-87. In this set of photographs he incorporates imagery of the natural land tarnished with dumped rubbish. He highlights in his images how mankind’s problem with pollution and discarding of rubbish anywhere has lead to once beautiful landscapes to turn into ugly wastelands. I think that by him zooming up on specific areas with rubbish in, it makes it stand out more than if he would’ve used more of a wide angle and so the person looking at his images cannot ignore the vast amount of pollution seen in the images and is forced to face the reality of our situation. In some of his images, the main colour seen in it is brown. To me, this may be suggesting how dirty our Earth has become instead of being filled with vibrant green colours as would be seen without all the pollution causing our natural environment to die.

Keith Arnatt’s work has inspired me to go out and take images of rubbish that I find in my environment and take close up angles of it so that people’s attention will be solely on the rubbish rather than anything else. This will ensure that people have to see the consequences of littering instead of ignoring it and pretending its not there as most people do.

Zed Nelson Artist Research

Zed Nelson is an accomplished documentary photographer based in London, renowned for his work that tackles significant global social issues. His numerous projects have been exhibited worldwide, and he has received many awards for his contributions to photography.

This project examines humankind’s fractured relationship with the natural world, revealing not only a phenomenon of collective self-delusion.

In his latest project, ‘The Anthropocene Illusion,’ Nelson delves into the intricate relationship between humanity and nature. The project reflects on how we have become adept at curating and managing an artificial experience of nature while simultaneously causing irreparable damage to the natural world. The project, completed in 2024, took five years to complete fully. To me, his photographs highlight to me how ironic we are as a society as we are creating these artificial environments and placing these wild animals in, creating a false reality (which we could actually have if we didn’t destroy these natural environments and replace them with fake, unnatural ones).

Zed Nelson’s work has inspired me to take images of animals in artificial environments instead of their natural environment that they should be in and how humans have caused these animals to suffer by placing them in small areas and expect them to perform for people 24/7 in order for humans to be entertained. I am going to do this by visiting different zoos and taking pictures of various animals in artificial environments which are way too small for them.