Lewis Baltz

Born in Newport Beach, California in 1945, Baltz grew up to be a photographer and educator. He rose to fame in the 1970s for his work in the New Topographics movement. Baltz father died when he was 11 but he continued onward attending collage and university, meaning by 1969 he held a Master of Fine Art degree and a BFA degree in Fine Arts. He first became interested in photography at 14 when he started working in a camera shop, however Blatz said from the start he never saw himself a photographer so much as an artist because ‘I never felt any allegiance to it’s history’ in fact he went onto say, ‘I made photographs because photography was the simplest, most direct way of recording something.’ Growing up just shy of WW11 Baltz saw for himself the toll American urbanisation was taking on the world around him and how quickly it was moving. As Baltz developed his career he went through many subject matters before becoming the photographer he is known as, during the 1980s he moved to Europe and started to create large coloured prints of his work. He continued to have a rich ever developing portfolio throughout his career, having many publications and books of his work published also becoming a professor of photography passing on his talent to the next generation. 

Work

Baltz’s work has always focused around the destruction of the world around us, particularly framing images in a monochromatic, deadpan manner highlighting the lack of detail and power humans have on the world stealing nature away to turn it into mass concrete structures. His work often comes across as simple, which you can’t deny it is, however it showcases the details or lack of details in the man made world instead the natural ruggedness destroyed for geometric beauty perfectly expressing the soullessness of the modernising world.

Photo Analysis

Common in Baltz work is the mid tones of Ansel Adam’s zone system, a geometric structure and a hint of nature. This picture perfectly showcases this, unlike many other photographers work there isn’t lots of context available about this photo as Baltz worked in an anti-style of sorts, creating a link between the majority of his work all aiming to project the same idea rather unlike modern day photographers who tend to change what they want to say each new shoot, however this is just a product of current society as was Baltz work. In this photo in particular there is great use of the geometric elements of the building, using the corner to center the photo and creating a unique angle to view the building from. This is then contained as the building is then cropped so the frame is nearly fully filled with the building and the areas that aren’t are blank space creating the deadpan feel to the photo. To break up the harshness of the photo Baltz has left four and a bit trees in frame, doing so creating a further divide between the natural world and the -at the time- current urbanisation of America. Overall it’s a simple but powerful photo highlighting the modern worlds take on rugged, natural places and creating geometric modern but soulless structures all done with a low angle of a corner of a building and monochromatic, high contrasted use of blank space and harsh lines. 

Artificial intelligence (AI), is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.

AI-powered tools can analyse photographs and calculate optimal exposure, correct colors, and adjust shadows, among other enhancements. They can also intelligently adapt your images, adding imaginary details that never actually existed. There is a question mark around the ethical nature of AI. However, there’s no doubt that it is a tool that can expand the world of experimental photography.

My AI Experimentation:

I used Photoshop’s ‘Generative Fill’ to manipulate some of my photographs to depict a natural world impacted by man.

Before Generative Fill:

After Generative Fill:

Before Generative Fill:

After Generative Fill:

Tania Volobueva:

I came across the photography by Tania Volobueva, titled ‘Trash’ – a visual depiction of plastic pollution.

The term plastic pollution is oftentimes used when referring to the accumulation of plastic in an environment. Throughout the years, the unrestricted accumulation of plastic products has negatively affected wildlife and humans – especially through single-use plastic. Single-use plastic is made from fossil-fuel based chemicals, and it is meant to be disposed of immediately after it’s first use – frequently used in straws, packaging, bottles, and bags.

With the topic surrounding the impact which plastic has on our environment being around for a while, countries are now just beginning to see the seriousness. Worldwide, 500 billion plastic bags are used a year, and the worlds beaches are polluted by 8.3 billion plastic straws. It is estimated that in 2020, more plastic will be found in the ocean than fish.

Through the photo series, “Trash”, Volobueva visually shares her worry about consumerism and the excessive use of plastic. The visual call-to-action should motivate the viewer to see the human’s impact on the environment through plastic pollution.

My AI experimentation inspired by Volobueva:

These are the photos from my Anthropocene project that I chose as my best photos:

Comparing and Contrasting

George Marazaki: ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’

My photographs relating to the Anthropocene:

Evaluation and Critique

For this photoshoot, I chose this location and took photos with inspiration from George Marazakis’ series called ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’. I decided to focus on man-made structures that are surrounded by nature that is predominant to the landscape or overgrown, for example, the radio tower at the top of the rocky cliff, the lighthouse atop the rocks out at sea, and the damaged, abandoned rock quarry surrounded by bushes, all showing the juxtaposition between nature and infrastructure.

I feel like my planning for this photoshoot helped me understand the overall composition and deadpan approach in Marazaki’s photographs, and I was able to take inspiration from those. In my photos, the natural light differed from each spot, which I paid attention to and adjusted my settings accordingly for the different locations. However, In my contact sheets, I noticed that some of my photos were underexposed, and I corrected them when editing by increasing the exposure or applying a mask on the darkest areas and increasing the exposure or brightness.

What if humans change there actions, and restore the environment?

I added wind mills to the landscape as Jersey has been planning to do off sure wind farms for a while. This is a clean, environmentally friendly energy source and would help jersey a lot if they can generate there own energy.

Artificial Intelligence or ‘AI’ is a technology which enables computers to learn and create. It has been designed to simulate a humans intelligence process which in recent years has been implemented into all sorts of areas such as the arts. AI generates images by scanning millions of pre-existing ones on the internet along with the texts associated with them and uses algorithms to to spot trends. This means that AI does not create new pieces, instead it stitches together pre-existing images into a what the machine guesses is ‘correct’. OpenAI’s ChatGPT was the turning point in modern AI for its accessibility and ease of application. ChatGPT can be used by everyday users by inputting prompts or by experienced software collaborators by implementing the software into gadgets and websites(Chat GPT was created with a foundation model meaning it can easily be exported and are highly adaptable). This variety has caused a widespread pickup of the tool.

Ethics & AI

Ethics are the examination of moral questions and judgements. AI has been the centre of discussion in terms of ethical dilemma ever since 1942 and literature has dramatized the topic through films such as the matrix and terminator. While all the older literature such terminator created ‘doomsday’ tales centring arround themes such as the singularity, Modern dilemmas instead revolve around data responsibility, privacy, transparency, accountability and technology misuse.

Businesses have been exploring the use of AI since the creation of the big data set. Companies created their own systems and implemented them in all areas without issue. Once they tried expanding however there were all sorts of unexpected outcomes. These faulty/biased outcomes have lead to new guidelines and ethical dilemmas. AI has been rapidly outpacing government regulations with recent developments which has caused worry, largely surrounding copyright infringement and artistic creativeity.

Tanja Deman

Tanja Deman uses collages of photographs and films to raise awareness of natural environment, ecology and climate crisis. She creates surreal pieces in two categories: showing urban cityscapes in dead, baron wastelands, and theatres of people judging and observing the natural world.

Tanja Deman creates black and white images for a dramatic, serious tone and also in ways to show the bleak future that we are headed towards. Stadium lighting beams down on the hill which guides the eye. The surrounding stadium is dark with high contrast to focus attention in one space. The angle is looking downwards from a high seat in the stadium so that the photograph is framed through the eyes of an audience member. This photograph combines two images; The first is a large stadium with a small number of people sitting in the foreground, the second is of a rural mountain scape. These have been combined mostly around the base of the viewing square. The environment has been captured and presented as a spectacle to these people. I think this is a commentary on how the work of themes such as Anthropocene is being viewed in a meta way to criticise the lack of urgency and appreciation of the viewer but also on how society treats the natural world.

The light drawing attention to the hill makes the viewer look at the hill same as the people in the stadium seats. The people are few in number in front of the camera. The lack of people shows a lack of interest from the general public. This is reminiscent of the reception environmentalists receive for their art – not taken overly seriously.

In Photoshop

Filters and Pre-sets

Ai can be used to change the mood of an image by adjusting filters. It will create a mask on top of the image to prevent changing or ‘damaging’ the original image. This mask sits on top of the entire layer stack. The ai has pre-sets with options and sliders to further adjust the image.

I tried two pre-sets. One used vibrant, unnatural colours and the other created a cooler tone.

Option 2

The second was under the filter option. The neural filters used more drastic ai.

It creates a drop down of ‘pre-sets’ which drastically adjust the image to create a totally different image. This option will add snow to hills and make them look like mountains for example.

I chose this option because it made the sea look tropical by using vibrant colours and adjusting the water texture. The ai also added and adjusted the clouds in the sky to make the sky look more similar to that in the summer.

Generative fill

To use generative fill, you use a selection tool and select the desired area. ( This only decides where as the ai will take the whole images’ context into account for direction etc.) A box will require a prompt which the ai uses to produce 3 different outcomes.

After experimenting with composition, I decided to generate something on the right side of the image. To contrast with the industrial ship, I wanted something organic. I decided to add two dolphins playing with a ball. The ball isn’t a natural occurrence which shows how the animals have had to learn to live with our waste. Additionally they are unaware of the boat and its lost crates which are slowly drifting over. The pink emitting from the boat is a clearly toxic gas which is being pumped out.

I tried both a faint, sunny day and a dull, stormy filter. Although it would make more sense for the stormy one since it reflects the trouble brought with human interference, I think the light one creates more of a contrast. The vibrant colours are more artificial which in my opinion reflects how manufactured the environment is becoming.

Spot Remove

The spot healing tool drop down has an option named remove tool. You outline the unwanted option and the software will remove and fill based on the surroundings.

I wanted to remove these sample boards so the walls would be completely plain for a virtual gallery.

To respond to Zed Nelson I went to Jersey zoo to take photos of the animals and their environments in order to show the theme of Anthropocene. I managed to take over 200 photos and I have flagged them according to whether they are good or not. I have flagged the good ones with a white flag and the bad ones with a black flag.

Best Photos:

I have selected these as my best photos and these are the ones which I would like to edit.

Edit One

These tools are what I used to fill in the blocks of colour. Starting by using the polygon lasso tool to select the outline of fields I then moved onto filling in the selected area with the bucket tool, switching between the colours at the base of the tool panel.

The photo above shows the layer blocked with colour, showing the shapes I made and selected using the polygon lasso tool.

This created the final image presented above. By blocking out parts of the field in black and white to match the photo it forces people to look at the image as it’s bold and intriguing.

Edit Two

This is a comparison between the original image and the black and white edited version. When editing the image I adjusted the highlights so the grey seemed duller, improving the visibility of the lighter sand patches and the sea wall. This helped me see the parts in the image I was going to cover while making the rest of the image a high quality black and white image.

For this photo I again, blocked out the fields/agricultural area in the photos showing just how much of the land is commercialised and effected by vital but often destructive human influence on the land.

Edit Three

For this photo I used the same process of changing the photo to black and white in light room before moving the image to photoshop to use the select and fill tools to map out the fields in the same style of the the other shots.

Final Images

This created a trio of photos edited in a similar style with the same emphasis on the environment. By using the fill tool to blank out sections of the agricultural landscape, it adds direction to the photos encouraging the viewer to look at the environment and how agriculture has effected it. By using black and white images with black and white blocks on top it has created a monotone effect adding harsh contrast and geometric shapes to help get the point of how much agriculture has effected out landscapes. Although it is essential the effect is still there.

These are images I took on a short walk along St John’s. This is the rubbish I came along on a 15 minute walk, this signifies the amount of plastics and waste that is discarded along the way. I found this photoshoot particularly meaningful because it established how much waste and litter is easily discarded throughout the world. And although the island is seen as predominantly tranquil and clean, such ease to find rubbish and discarded single use plastics

Allotments In Jersey.

Allotments are small parcels of land rented to grow fruits, vegetables and plants. These small areas are a cost effective way for families and citizens to produce fruit and vegetables for their household. these allotments, with the proper care, have the ability to produce enough fruit and veg throughout the whole year. Another use for these patches of land include beekeeping and the inhabitancy of rabbits and hens. However, when these allotments disappear or are removed, the wildlife loses their precious habitats, this poses as a threat for the wildlife. Although, many different forms of plants thrive in allotments, which creates a positive impact and creates a habitat to different species. Different waste materials also pollute the soil and can cause the contamination of the crop growing soil.

I think this photoshoot, shows the importance of humans’ contribution to the helping of the planet and positively benefiting the planet. To improve on this photoshoot, I could go into more detail and get closer to the components of each allotment in order to show the small efforts people are willing to go to.

• You can grow and eat your own food

• Allotments encourage exercise and benefit mental health

• Allotments create a sense of community

• Allotments improve the environment

• Allotments are beneficial to wildlife

I found this area specifically interesting because it displays humans attempting to make a difference and provide for themselves whilst being environmentally friendly and avoiding purchasing ground grown goods from supermarkets.

These photos are also a contribution to my Anthropocene project, these are templates for my AI images where I will create fake realities with the hills, beaches and seas filled with buildings, pollution and urbanisation. These were taken in St John and overlook the beaches below. These are currently very plain landscape which has been untouched by humans apart from aspects such as:

In my final photoshoot I focused on the abandoned St Saviours Hospital that went out of use in 2014 as I felt this property was extremely relevant to my work on the Anthropocene.

St Saviours hospital is the modernised name of the institution that used to be known as the Jersey Lunatic Asylum – its name being this for nearly 100 years. Its foundation stone was laid on Saturday the 29th of July, 1865 after a long 20 years of the States being criticised for acknowledging that people with learning disabilities and mental health issues needed care in 1847, as this was a period of time where mental health was stigmatised and stereotyped into being clinically insane. Due to this, there was a large reluctance to building this property as a purpose-built asylum however the plans eventually came into play. Within this asylum, levels of care differed in copious amounts. For example, the less ‘severe’ patients would recieve the relatively highest amount of care that could be offered in this undeveloped medical period whilst those who suffered with greater mental health issues were ‘treated like animals’, kept in outhouses on the perimeter in appalling and inhumane conditions. Those who did not reside on the premises were sent to asylums off island in France or England, however others were kept within the General Hospital of which practiced as a poor house and hospital at the time.

Once the institution had been built, Dr John James Jackson was appointed as the Medical Superintendent in 1868, March 27th. This was when the first 12 patients become admitted from the General Hospital on the following months to come. Each year ‘inmates’ (as named by the press at the time) were taken out around the island to hold an annual picnic, an event that came across somewhat stiff and a rather militaristic affair, with the patients called back to their vehicles with a bugle call, at the sound of which they would all fall in.

Its name was changed to the Jersey Mental Hospital in 1952 and then again to St Saviour’s Hospital in 1963, however in 2014 its closure occurred due to a new premises being built with two wards consisting of 28 acute assessment and treatment beds. Here, patients finally became treated in a more caring and conscious way in comparison to its neighbours past.

The site now remains here desolate with its blank exterior sticking up out of the overgrown vegetation abandoned for decades, with several proposals for redevelopment of the site worth approximately £15 million.

MY PHOTOSHOOT:

I really wanted to photograph this site as I feel as if it shows a lighter side to the Anthropocene. What I mean by this is that the growth of this greenery over the eerily abandoned asylum shows that something beautiful can come from something that carries so much pain. Alongside this, I feel this is extremely representative of how these deserted properties and structures cause the natural landscape to move in an unruly manner, climbing over it due to it restricting the natures free and usual pattern of growth and forcing it to twist and turn in artificial ways due to this neglecting. I also think that it shows how humanity’s own ignorance prevails and projects into the plants, absorbing this neglecting and portraying this through their wild patterns.

I think the context behind this structure really adds a diffrent perspective towards the Anthropocene. Alongside this, as it was built in the 1800s, there is a clear difference in terms of aesthetics in comparison to neighbouring properties due to modernisation. For example, this was built using a brown and cream colour scheme, using granite bricks to build it. As well as this, the outhouses found have a similar enigmatic tone to them.

THE OUTHOUSES:

For my second photoshoot, I went to as many petrol stations as possible in attempt to improve and recreate my previous photoshoot. This is because in my first shoot I mainly focused on one petrol station, which does not emphasise the problem of air pollution, so I believe it will look more successful by including multiple different stations compared to just one. In addition to this, this technique is similar to Ruscha’s “26 gasoline station” project, which will hopefully make it cleae to the viewer what my aim and intention is.

To improve, I changed the angle of my photos so it resembles Ed Ruscha’s whereas in my previous shoot I kept the angle and position of the camera very close up to my subject. I prefer the angle of my new photoshoot because there is a lot more features included in the frame, which ultimately I find important because it allows the viewer to see how many people use the petrol stations. By doing this I am able to portray my view of the issue, by showing the viewer how normalised it is. Overall I am much more pleased with my second photoshoot because it has better similarities to my inspired artist, as well as included more of the area around it which I believe looks more more interesting.

Contact Sheets:

After I imported my photoshoot into Lightroom, I flagged my best image from each shoot. This will help me in my project to choose my best images to use, while also speeding up the process.