My aim after my recent post was to instead take photos of one gas station, take multiple of different petrol stations around the island. This will create variety and an attempt to replicate Ruscha’s famous photography work through his ‘ Twenty six gasoline stations’. After he succeeded within his travel, he later finalized them by putting them into a book in a very simple and dull way. Conversely, to create difference within my project I will be putting them all in a typology edited in a vintage aesthetic to show the contrast and comparison within each image. My aim is to try take them from an a far outside perspective aiming straight on to get the full view of each station. My editing, I will try to replicate the old aesthetic however this may be challenging as technology as evolved and always looks modern.
Photoshoot 2
Contact sheet-
I flagged my best and preferred images green and starred them to what I thought suited each image. This will create accessibility for me to find them in a more time- efficient way.
This photoshoot is of bunkers from WW2 and the area around them. This was a small photoshoot as I was restricted to only one area. However, I think the few photographs that I took turned out well. I think the natural sunlight worked in my favour, highlighting the different colours and textures. Also, the angles I used made me able to capture different sides and view of the bunkers.
Some final images:
I think this one is the best one from the shoot as there are different bright colours surrounding the grey, mouldy bunker. I also like how the bunker is in the middle of the image drawing your attention to it.
What went well, what went bad or you wish you could’ve performed better?
What I think went well was the daylight lighting, light tone- it was a perfect pin point for each photo. The distance from the camera to the objects to the person was good as it gave off a warm/cold vibe on a 3d vibe I would say as there is lots of different shapes and colours. The place these photos were taken yo could say looks a little historian as there is rusty, old outgrown plants and objects therefore you could say it has been there years if not decade’s. The concept/art behind these images are that I am trying to capture the moment of element within these images because I wanted to get the colour and timing perfect, however I think I could’ve done a few such that would’ve improved my photography, such as making a couple images black and white this would have created a more sympathetic historical look by changing the colour to black and white it definitely would have drawn my eyes in. I also think I could have done better by choosing a more vast area with more rubbish and plastic to represent Keith Arnatt (1930–2008)more and get the higher idea about antropence but overall I am happy with my final images even though there could have been some improvements I am impressed with what I have managed to do.
For this photoshoot, I went up to Les Quennevais cycle track as it is surrounded by a forest area, in which, a lot of the trees and nature was ruined in the storm. These photos show the damage that is still there after all these months since the disaster happened. I managed to capture photos of fallen trees, trees that had been ripped out of the soil, fallen branches/trunks that have now been cut up.
These are a few of the outcomes from the photoshoot. I really liked how I was able to capture, in different ways, how the environment was left in such a devastating way. I think that the leaves and branches intertwined with themselves and other trees’ parts, portrays how much is going on in just one area secluded area.
This editing style is inspired by Guy Catling and Nick Frank both of whom use blocks of colour or pattern to add into photos, adding emphasise to the point and outlining/highlighting subjects.
Guy CatlingNick Frank
Both Catling and Frank have used bright cheerful colours and patterns to block out sections of photos I want to experiment a bit more with highlighting the subject of the photo. Using a variety of photos I took inspired by Edward Burtnsky and other Anthropocene photographers I will outline the unnatural areas in the natural landscapes.
Trial Photo Edit
The first thing I did was duplicate the background layer and lock the original allowing me to edit one layer while always having a backup clean layer.
The next step was to select the paint tool this means I can draw on the layer. I wanted to use a harsh edge brush with a bright red colour to add intensity to the part I was drawing around.
Following this I use the adjustments to make sure the brush was what I wanted, this being a hard edge, red line brush I can create geometric designs with.
The photo I selected to use was one where a house was being built in the middle of fields, on the sea front. Although this photo was effective anyway the lines added to the feeling of the unnatural shapes and colours from the human impact being disruptive in the environment. To get the breaks in the lines I used one click and then hold down on shift and then click again at another point to create a straight line of colour without having to freehand it. This also allowed me to get the breaks in the lines to show where nature is covering the man made structure or where the structure changes in shape.
Final Edits
Presenting Final Images
This trio of photos was taken using Edward Burtnsky’s style of high up, overviews of areas impacted by humans. While two are agriculture and one is a mix of agriculture and housing I think the photos connect nicely showing the expanses of which one coast line has been effected and changed by humans for different reasons from, potatoes growing to fisheries to housing and roads.
This trio of photos works well together, making the impact seem tiny in comparison to the natural world alternatively it shows the human impact sneaking up on us quicker than we realise. The middle shot pulls the three together showing that human impact isn’t a new thing in fact we just get more advanced. I like how the orange looks like a step up from the grey concrete and the car will have some advanced technology where as the bunker was created out of necessity but still is impact on the natural world. Although I think this photo looks great as it looks like the car is an extension of the bunker, joining the present and past together with the geometric style but keeping the wide differences apparent.
This photo I have used as a single shot as it is a complex image with many things to look at, from the sheer scale of the dam to the smaller unusual square constructions at the base of the photo. The red geometric patterns add to the already harsh lines in the photo showing all the different impacts humans have had on the natural world small like the fencing and large like the dam.
What?- I will use the high point to my advantage and photograph the whole bay and surrounding area. This will create an impact as the photos will capture huge parts of the environment rather than a small section or close up.
How?- I will use a wide angle lens 10-20mm mixing it with a 70-200mm lens to capture everything. The 70-200mm will be useful for getting some higher quality photos or zooming in on specific areas. I will also make sure I have a high shutter speed and lens hood to keep photos crisp and remove any excess glare from the sun.
Where?- Rte Des Landes- a road that winds up above the entire bay in St Ouen. This is a great location as it offers views of the entire bay as well as much of the surrounding parishes.
Why?- I feel this is a great place to make use of a wide angle lens to capture similar to Edward Burtnsky’s style of capture a huge amount of land in one photo. This is also a great area as it has many different types of human impact so this allows me to capture how we effect the land in many ways on such a small island.
Rte des Landes
Rte Des Landes is the location I picked for this shoot as it mimicked Edward Burtnsky’s style, a high vantage point overviewing a vast landscape dotted with human impact.
Contact Sheet
I used blue to mark photos I might use for editing and green I used to select good photos overall. I ended up mainly using my 70-200mm f4 lens as the place was so high above the bay and surrounding area my 10-20mm lens struggled to pick up detail in the shots, making them feel flat and confusing to look at.
Best Images
Quick Edits
For all of these edits I have reflected on previous work inspired by Ansel Adams. I wanted to see the photos edited in a simple cohesive style before I did my final edits to help select a few good photos and add another dimension to my creative process of editing these photos. I think the black and white helps the range of shots pull together and tell the bigger picture, helping to also highlight the difference in soil colour or texture in the contrast between natural and manmade.
For my first photoshoot I have taken a variety of shots at Val De La Mare, a reservoir. Specifically I looked at the dam, a huge manmade structure constructed to hold all the water the reservoir collects. I wanted to use this location as it is a great way of showing people how agriculture has impacted the land. Before the dam was built it would have been untouched land but as the population increased the need for water did so the dam was built to hold 938 megalitres of water. This is a huge volume of water with 1 megalitre being 10,000 litres and the dam itself is equally as impressive and vast, almost incomprehensible as you get closer to it.
Contact Sheet
For this shoot I took a variety of shots from different angles and building different compositions. I used red for photos I didn’t think were suitable for the editing style I will use, green for the photos I do like and yellow for photos I can use if they would be suitable more so than the ones already highlighted in green.
Best Shots Before Editing
I picked these as my best shots due to the composition I have used a wide angle lens at roughly 15mm to take these shots so it has been really effective in expressing the vastness of the dam and the impact it has on the overall land around it.
Editing
I will now go onto edit a mixture of these shots and my other photoshoots. I will go onto make a series of photos I edit, for my first editing experiments I will look into how to highlight the unnatural parts in the natural world.
For my virtual gallery, I took my final images from Anthropocene and placed them onto a virtual gallery.
For this photoshoot I wanted to capture nature at its best and how people are placing rubbish/objects and how this can affect the envoirment
Landscape
I chose these images because I like the way they look and how they are presented. The background and way the photo is styled is what makes the image stand out – with all the nature and how the photograph focuses on the nature rather than the background buildings.
For these images, I have laid them in a grid format to present them all together as I feel as though when presented next to each other, it it more eye-catching rather than one alone. This way, the bright colours also draw attention to themselves especially against the black background. When editing these images, I cropped them into a square to get a closer look and remove some negative space and then I adjusted the exposure and contrast to make sure the background was all dark and that only the individual pieces of litter were the focal points.
A closer composition:
Editing in the style of Vince Brun:
My closer compositions provided more of an abstract outcome which I am going to experiment with further. I intend to use the style of Vince Brun’s creative mirror images to inspire the development of my own photos:
For my first edit, I used a cropped close up image of the rope and extended the layer to be able to copy the image and duplicate it to then flip it horizontally and move beside the first one. Then I did the same thing but flipping it vertically and placed that underneath along with the final duplicate to complete the square. My first attempt:
My first attempt turned out well, however I found that there was too much negative space and wanted to try to enclose the area. So I then cropped the original photo even closer and then repeated the process.
I found that this worked a lot better as it is more abstract and appealing to the eye. Also, the lines and curves of the ropes all lead to the centre of the image For the future photos I them continue ensuring the cropped image didn’t have too much negative space to start off with.
For my experimentation I have decided to play around with Photoshop and Lightroom to create some funky edits with my images in which I have produced.
Edit Idea 1:
I have decided to play around with colour selection within my images and created some random edits to show my experimentation.
Experiment 1 and process
Step 1: duplicate original layer
Step 2: Click on the background layer and go to image, adjustments and then make the background black and white.
Step 3: Go onto the copied layer which is in colour and go to select, colour range.
Step 4: Once you have selected the areas in which you want the colour to show, you then go to select and inverse before deleting the background which is selected to create the final look.
Step 5: Here is the final edit, you can then experiment further with different colour ranges and adding more details to the edit however these are the basics of creating edits like these.
Final edit 1:
Within the edit I added a few more details such as a women who I made see-through and a bird into the top right corner almost to give the effect that the lady is watching the bird.
another colour edit
For this edit I chose to select one specific area of the image and I did colour selection, once I had completed the colour selection I then decided to copy that one area of colour selection and make a load of different sizes with some being full opacity and others having little opacity creating a cool contrast between the black and white image and the one area of colour being spread throughout .
