These images do not relate to any of my chosen artists, but I spotted these things, while out on my photoshoot and thought they related very well to the theme of Anthropocene.

Contact Sheet

The images which are highlighted green are the images I have chosen to edit, because I think they display Anthropocene in the best way. They also do not relate to any of my artists, but I feel like they are a really important aspect of Anthropocene, because they are not looked at a lot, but cause massive negative effects to the earth. These images also have the best lighting and composition.

Fly Tipping

I took these images at a construction site near St John, as well as Trinity, near the Trinity Arms. Fly tipping relates to the theme of Anthropocene, because many of the most common items that are fly tipped have a high plastic content, so they are non-biodegradable. This means that they will remain there for hundreds of years. These parts of plastic will over time sink into the earth and pollute the soil.

The plastic from these items is also dangerous for animals, that may be living in this area, especially if they eat it.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, saturation and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the image would have greater exposure and be brighter. Also so the coke can was more prominent and the white drawer it was sat on was more of a true white colour, rather than a greyer white.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, saturation and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the image would have better lighting.

These next images were taken in Trinity near the Charity shop.

I edited these images by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, saturation and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so the images would have better lighting, as it was quite dark at this point.

I edited these images by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so the image would have more exposure, and therefore be brighter, as it had gotten really dark by the time me and Katie were taking these images.

These next images were taken at St Saviours abandoned hospital. These were things from the hospital that were left and abandoned along with the hospital.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the lighting was better.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the green tarp was more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the blue and yellow colours were more vibrant, as well as the greenery around them.

Top 9 Final Images

Greenhouses

I took these images at a construction site near St John and the hospice charity shop in Trinity. Greenhouses relate to the theme of Anthropocene, because derelict greenhouses around Jersey was used for tomato and potato farming around the island. However, due to mechanical and chemical-based farming, they are no longer in use as human development has leaned more towards using synthetic fertilizer. This is a technique that relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to boost yields and control pests, which can have negative impacts on the environment and human health but produces higher yields in the short-term due to greed. This leaves the greenhouses vacant to catch dirt and sit there, not allowing the environment to thrive, instead forcing it to decay. On the 20th of January 2023, the Chief Minister stated:

“When glasshouses are redundant to the horticultural industry or are derelict, they should be removed, and the land restored to agricultural use.”

The current Bridging Island Plan, which covers 2022 to 2025, has a distinct policy on derelict and redundant glasshouses, which states that their redevelopment for non-agricultural use will not be supported. This means that the construction of more properties will be denied in order to salvage these spaces if they are truly redundant derelict greenhouses.

I edited these images by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so that the lighting was better, so the sky was less white and bright, but also so the greenery was more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so that the lighting was better, so that the viewer can see the contents inside the greenhouse better.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so that the lighting was better, so the contents inside the greenhouse could be seen better, as well as making all the greenery more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so the dirt on these greenhouses could be seen better. I want the dirt on these glass walls to be seen better, to really stress how uncared for and used these greenhouses now are.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks, so the image would be brighter, as it had gotten very dark by the time these photos were taken. I also wanted the greenery surrounding this green house to be more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, to make the image more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so the image had more contrast and was more eye capturing.

I edited these images by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so the image had better lighting and more vibrancy.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so the lighting was better and the greens more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, so the greens were more vibrant, so it created more of a contrast between the greenery, green house walls, and the brown dead floor.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks, there was more contrast between the more vibrant greenery and the damaged white tarps that are blowing in the wind.

I prefer these last few images of greenhouses, because they really show how uncared for these green houses are and how they are no longer used. These greenhouses were extremely damaged and were not even used as greenhouses anymore, but used for storage instead, as can be seen below.

Top 8 Final Images

A minimalistic approach

For this approach I took pictures of smaller pieces of rubbish that people don’t usually think about, such as cigarette butts and bottle caps etc. but make a huge impact on our environment, because they build up a lot. These are also very harmful for animals, because these things are small enough for animals to eat, but they are not the right source of food for protein, and they are nearly impossible to digest.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the whites and blacks. I did this, so that the cigarette butts would stand out more against the dark mud and in the dark lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, vibrancy and whites, while decreasing the highlights. I did this, so that the cigarette butts and bottle cap would stand out more against the dark mud and in the dark lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the cigarette butts would stand out more and be more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the cigarette butts would stand out more and be more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the cigarette butts would stand out more and be more vibrant against the beige sand.

How Do these Images Relate to the Theme of Anthropocene?

These images relate to the theme of Anthropocene, because they show that even the smallest bits of rubbish, that rarely anyone thinks about does still make a massive different, especially cigarette butts, because so many people smoke them, so they are on such a large scale being littered.

Top 6 Final Images

For my virtual gallery’s, I used the website ArtStep. In the website, you can create walls or rooms to show off your pictures. For each topic, I picked my favourite images.

Typologies

Anthropocene

Urban industrial

Landscapes

Ai

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Why are Bernd and Hilla Becher important?

The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931–2007; 1934–2015) changed the course of late twentieth-century photography. Working as a rare artist couple, they focused on a single subject: the disappearing industrial architecture of Western Europe and North America that fuelled the modern era. They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married.

What did they photograph?

Industrial structures including water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories. Their work had a documentary style as their images were always taken in black and white. Their photographs never included people.

They exhibited their work in sets or typologies, grouping of several photographs of the same type of structure. The are well known for presenting their images in grid formations.

What were their key works?

Their first photobook Anonymous Sculptures was published in 1970 and is their most well-known body of work. The title is a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and indicates that the Becher’s referred to industrial buildings as found objects.

The book consisted of an encyclopaedic inventory of industrial structures including kilns, blast furnaces and gas-holders categorised into sections (the pot, the oven, the chimney, the winch, the pump, and the laboratory.

Bernd and Hilla Becher
Water Towers USA, 1988

Urban/ Industrial

Landscape/ Romanticism

Typologies

Anthropocene

AI Experimentation

My first editing in Adobe Lightroom:

After Editing my photos in Lightroom by just lowering the exposure mainly, I then moved them to Photoshop to add the real edits to make it more like my artist studies and creative idea.

These are most of my final edits, I completed them in photoshop using AI and cutting different parts of different images then sticking them onto other ones.

For this small photoshoot, I took many photos around town, focusing on the movement of people, giving my images another dimension, time. This links with my Anthropocene work as it shows the built up landscape, with nothing natural left. I think the movement of time in the photo could represent how fast the world is changing.

How I took the photoshoot:

I would hold the camera with my hands to add a blur to the image, then I would set the camera to a high exposure setting, allowing a ghosting effect for people walking by, giving a feeling of time. I took multiple images, each slightly changing the angle as I plan to overlay them in photoshop after.

First Attempt:

I did this photo exclusively in photoshop, I used a few of the image I took and used multi-exposure, by overlapping images, to show one person more that once in the image, giving a the effect that time is moving in the image. I increased the exposure as well.

Second Attempt:

For this one I used more photos to blend, I think this may be worse than my first attempt because there is too much going on in the photo. Jung also said that using more than 4 exposures can be hard to control the output of the image.

3rd attempt:

Here I only used one photo but had the shutter open for around 1 second. Then I moved my camera around to create the motion blur.

Other Attempts:

I walked around the jersey dump/ power station to find dramatic images that show how much produce humans use and waste. The whole area we walked around was added land built by people, which many people believe has effected the environment around it. For example, lots of sea weed now gets washed up on the beaches next to it. We found many interesting subjects, like a large pile of colourful glass, large mounds on cobble, concrete and other materials, lots of working requirement and more. I edited my photos with high saturation like an Edward Burtynsky photo, with the composition having many things inside so if I scale up my images like he does, there will be many focal points to look at.

Photo1:

Here you can see leading lines towards a broken down fire truck. This image has almost no new objects and people which adds to a wasteland feel.

Photo2:

Here you can see the view of the jersey power station, with large piles or rubbish and dirt in the foreground. The smoke (from diesel turbines) just started, likely because it was around peak energy usage in jersey. The destruction of the ground added with the smoke almost makes the image seem apocalyptic, notifying the viewer of a serious global warming problem.

Photo3:

Here, the whole image is covered in glass bottles, overwhelming the viewer with the worlds waste problems. I have increased the contrast to make each bottle easier to distinguish from one another.

Other Photos:

Creative Editing:

Here I only allowed red to be saturated, causing the rest of the image to be black and white.

Here I let gave colour to main subjects in the image, leaving the rest white and black. This helped the images noise as before there was too much going on in one photo, so by doing this the image has main parts the eyes can look at.

For my final pieces in the Anthropocene / Landscape project project I used these images:

Overall I think that these final pieces came out pretty well. My idea for these pieces were for the images which looked similar to be placed next to each other or with each other to create a theme.

What is it?

It is used to describe the time where human being simply had a real impact on our planet. Whether our planet is part of a “new geological age” or a “complex, global system”, the evidence is clear through just observation.

Some may think that it is a reaction due to the topic of “climate change”-regarding the warming of our atmosphere, air and oceans through the use of fossil fuels. The age of humans is about much more than this. Awareness of the current state and the effects of actions (ours especially) is a key factor in the “Anthropocene”.

Natural causes have been triggered e.g asteroids, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes etc. (Agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution have caused extraordinary changes on Earth) This can also be due to the “mass extinction events” in the planets history where the vast “swathes” have been wiped.

The “mass extinction events” have been happening frighteningly quickly as the species are happening at a significantly faster rate they they have for “millions of years before”.

Photographers are exploring this concept as it can rethink and overcome this “separation of humanity from the environment “as well as to “make us reflect on the climate urgency” and “generate awareness environment and responsibility with the planet that contains us and that we inhabit” (as mentioned before about awareness of this situation).

The photographs which are taken with this theme of “Anthropocene” are beautiful yet ugly at the same time, whether they are the stereotype fit for whether they are pretty or not, the photographs is very appealing to the eye as the photographs look very interesting and engaging for the viewer as they almost suck the viewer in the image as there is such much yet so little going on.

They aren’t solving any wide-world problems they are just making these situations aware to the public and spreading these outlooks widespread.

Photographers that focus on this theme are Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier. In terms of Edward Burtynsky, his work is the most favourable as they look very complex and present the right amount of awareness about the catastrophises that have raised. I like the photographs that he takes in terms of the rubbish and landfills especially as it really project the extensive amount wasted and thrown onto the piles and piles present in the world scale. The photograph only shows a smaller quantity of a larger and more prominent problem as well as scale.

In his photography expenditure Edward followed from “quarries in Portugal to rice fields in China to oil refineries in California”. Edward publish a book named “AFRICAN STUDIES” which “focuses on a region he calls globalism’s “final stop”: sub-Saharan Africa”. In his photoshoots he captures the impact of industrialisation on the landscapes of Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia and more from a higher point (birds eye perspective) such as e.g. aeroplanes, drones and helicopters etc.

His camera can document the “stunning detail” and “vibrant hues the toll of human intervention on our planet” from the salt and sapphire mining to plastic recycling and dams.