Brief –

For my Images, I plan on photographing at the K2 bunker at Corbiere. Here I will create my images inspired by the lives of the German soldiers in the conflict and retell them in the style of photographers, August Sander and Paul M. Smith. Basing my work on Michiel Peters’ World War 2 visualisations, my inspiration is to retell a story within my images, similar to how peters’ does in his work.

‘2nd Armoured in Belgium’ – 2024, Michiel Peters.

Where my inspiration from Paul M. Smith comes in, will be through the use of myself as a subject within multiple characters in a scene, such as Smith does in his series, ‘Artist Rifles’. With the bunker I’m photographing in being manned by multiple crew members, finding enough actors and uniforms proves to be a struggle, by photographing myself this will make the shoot more achievable to the look I want.

‘Artist Rifles’ – 1997, Paul M. Smith

Images to recreate –

MG Battalion 16, 2nd Company – Training in the vicinity of La Moye.

Engelbert Hoppe – The 19-year old Commander of the M19 Corbiere complex.

Horst Herrmann – The young Berliner, who was stationed in the K2 bunker.

10.5cm Canon – Prior to its construction, the 10.5 was outdoors under a camouflaged netting.

Using existing photos of the men stationed in the Bunker, my photographs will aim to recreate them closely with similar uniforms and positioning. With photos of particular locations that I can access, I am able to recreate these well, for some outdoor and others that are similar to other locations, I can replicate these with ease too.

Photoshoot 1 –

In this first shoot I will aim to create the interior depictions of life under concrete. I will also try to mimic the photograph of the 10.5cm canon in the style of Paul M. Smith where I portray each operating role of the canon crew.

Types of scenarios will include:

• Sentry duty
• Weapon maintenance
• shaving
• Polishing boots
• reading
• cooking
• Weapon drills on the canon
• Ammunition inspection

Photoshoot 2 –

In the second shoot, I will aim to create the exterior depictions of their outdoor life’s. Here I will try to mimic Michiel Peters photographs in the open environment works, of realistic settings to where the Germans would’ve gone and what they would do outside of their fortresses. One photo I want to recreate is the photo of them on field training in the area of La Moye.

Types of scenarios will include:

• site-seeing
• Walks
• Combat training – Real photo I can base off.
• drill practice – real photo I can base off.
• Portraits – real photos – Engelbert and Horst – inspired by true photos and August Sanders work.
• outdoor sentry duty

Emilie Ristevski is an Australian photographer, visual storyteller and author. She often finds herself exploring far wide around the world to create and share slow and mindful wanderings within nature. Her work is about finding the beauty in our world and she is always looking to find ways to conserve and capture the things that often goes unseen. Over the years she has developed a strong focus on sharing meaningful content around sustainability and caring for the planet. She hopes her photographs have the ability to resonate with people in some way, that they can bring sense of nostalgia, a sense of wonder, that they will make you think something, anything at all. With pieces of her mind and heart scattered all over the globe, she felt the urge for her images to do and say more with the hope that she can encourage a greater awareness of the earths beauty and ever present fragility. It is through her storytelling that she hopes to inspire and educate her audience on the importance of our natural world. She truly loves being able to share the world through her lens and allowing others to see the magic of the natural world. Knowing she has encouraged others to see the world in a new light and reignite their connection with nature and our planet is something really special to her. Emilie’s work for photography started years ago when she discovered black and white film photography in a tiny dark room. Focusing on travel for her was never intentional and while studying design at university she always imagined herself somehow in the design world, however photography was also something she fell in love with the most when creating imagery.

What inspired you to start this journey? Would you say you’ve always been a creative & where do you think this has stemmed from in your upbringing? 

“I’ve always had an innate love of creativity. Growing up I experimenting with different art forms and mediums from painting, drawing, ceramics, anything where I could create and let my imagination become tangible. The combination of travel and photography helped to me create a strong sense of story, a way to create work which felt transportive and capture the untold wonders of our planet. Somewhere between the mountains and the ocean I have lived throughout several different regions along the east coast of Australia and in someway always surrounded by nature – This is where my love and connection to the natural world first began. Nature has always been a starting place for inspiration. The continual ebb and flow of being a creative and constantly being on the move forces you adapt and see things differently, a mindset which allows myself to appreciate the hidden beauty that can be found all around us.”

Emilie Ristevski describes her photography style as “storytelling, Escapism, Dreamscapes”

Forever Wandering

Forever Wandering is a book that Emilie Ristevski published. Forever Wandering is a labour of love of many years full of countless wanderings around the globe, she poured so much of herself into creating this book and never been so exited to offer a home for her photographs to be held in a tangible form. The process of creating her book was very surreal and overwhelming and became a leering curve for her in many ways. With so many uncertainties in the world right now, she hopes her photography is able to transport to peoples mind into the wildness of our world and help people discover a depth of wonder and awe of the planet. Forever Wandering is a visual insight into our natural world, telling a meaningful story of how we can find a deeper connection with the universe and ourselves. She just wants her photography to ins[ire people and re-light everyone’s connection with earth and see the beauty that is hidden with every corner or the planet and how its amazing sharing moments like exploring the world with people you love most.

“The camera is my tool of choice.”

Ashley Kaplan was born in San Francisco, California. She started Photography as an official business at the end of 2020, which wasn’t the best time to start a business. It took her a year to find out what type of photography she really wants to do but she is confidently to say that she is a love and empowerment photographer to book with and to take creative photoshoots of anyone’s story. When taking photoshoots of people she always tries to make everyone comfortable so she really tries hard with the posses and styling to highlight everyone’s natural beauty. She finds a lot of joy helping others out and that’s the biggest goal and value in life. She has been through a lot in both life and in this world of photography and she has learnt and grown through it.

Portfolio

Ashley says that photography is a hobby for her. She’s always treasured old family photographers and rich stories they carry with the, but it wasn’t until she become a mother that she got obsessed with the need to preserve and remember each phase and detail of her family life. She feels happier in the wild and beautiful places when taking pictures. She loves Capturing people, the wonders of this marvellous planet, and how we all fit into this awe-inspiring world makes her heart sing. Each stage of family and friends life is so fleeting to her. She knows he will never have enough time, and the years seem to pass too quickly, but there is a comfort in knowing her photography will continue to serve as a time machine transporting her back to preserve and remember.

French photographer Théo Gosselin was born in nearby of Le Havre in 1990. He currently lives and works in Amiens. He graduated in 2012 as a graphic designer in Amiens. He started photography around 2007, and it became his reason to live. He loves to capture the simple life, good and bad moments, and his adventures.

Théo Gosselin pictures are a true admiration to freedom, captured like a snapshot, credits to his film camera that he totally masters. His favourite themes are life, love, his generation, his adventures, and wide-open areas; he is, in simple terms, a young person yearning for independence and a different way of life where harmony with nature and human values are important. Théo Gosselin is the photographer of simple but heart-breaking pictures, which speak the language of feelings and true emotions. The young photographer delicately captures the connection that comes with maturity without using any false pretences or lies. Obsessed with music and cinema, he started to photograph as a way to celebrate love, beauty, friendship and freedom. With a style that is both raw and atmospheric, he captures the world around looking to really feel alive.

portfolio

Theo Gosselin’s photography is very simple: no sets, no staging, just allowing moments to happen. style which one would think would not be entirely beneficial to more commercial work. One of the good things about working for commercial photography is that Most of the time he is able to work with his own friends as models, producing moments that feel true to him and to the viewers. When working with professional models or actors, Gosselin prefers to meet them in advance, to ensure that same “organic” and familiar environment is maintained on set. As much as he tries to make these more product-minded shoots his own, the world of commercial photography remains a difficult one for him to feel at home in. “I hate when there are 30 people behind my back, looking at the pictures, drinking coffee,” he says. “When I shoot advertising or commercial, I try to work with a small team to preserve the intimacy of the pictures.” As he so bluntly states — “the clients can stay in the truck or in the tents—a model can’t be true in front of 30 people.”

Theo Gosselin quote when asked what did photography teach you over the years:

“I basically learned life through photography. This is how I met my wife, my friends and so many people. It’s been there in all the good and the bad moments in my life. It also makes me less shy and it’s been a bridge for me to connect with the entire world and live the life I’ve always wanted.”

Theo Gosselin was inspired by his friends and their lives not as a photographer but as a teenager who wants to capture the memories just like everyone else, Along the way, Gosselin took notes from the liberated ways of the American underground culture of the 20th Century.

I love the way Theo Gosselin presents his photoshoots. It shows exactly how teenage life is most of the time because in your teenage era that’s when you get to life your life a little and start new adventures.

MOODBOARD:

MINDMAP:

Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall is a Canadian photographer, who was born the 29th September 1946. He is artist best known for his large-scale back lit photographs and art history writing. He began drawing and painting at an early age and in the mid-1960s, and he studied art history at the University of British Columbia while continuing to make art, until 1970. Since the 1970’s he has problematized the relationship between photography, documentary and art in his dramatizations of apparently ordinary street scenes and social encounters. He pulled ideas, concepts and compositions from famous historical paintings (masters). He takes historical paintings and also puts a twist on them with his work, as he creates photographs with similar concepts, compositions and ideas to the paintings, but he creates a modern day version of the paintings. However, he is best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing.

His Work

Jeff Wall’s carefully composed tableaux depicts everyday social relations which are based on his knowledge of Classical paintings. For example here he has depicted what a scene of a picnic looks like in the 21^st century compared to Seurat’s depiction of the bourgeoisie by a lake in the 19^th century France.

He borrowed the idea and concept of a picnic, however he made a modern day version of this picnic in the 1800. He slightly changed the concept of his photograph, compared to the painting in order to do this, as in modern times families do not usually go out to a park with lots of other families to have a picnic, but this is what is was like in the 1800, as the painting presents. Instead, he has had this modern day family go out into their garden and he has staged this image by manipulating the composition, positioning etc. as his images are tableaux images. Although he has changed the concept slightly he has kept the composition quite similar, with the trees in the background, just like in the painting, and he has had the father sit slightly more in the foreground, mother in the middle ground and daughter in the background to present a similar composition to the painting. However, the composition is not the exact same, as he has much less people in his photograph, compared to the painting.

Jeff Wall recreated historical paintings such as this and made modern day photograph version, because by recreating episodes that he has witnessed from his own memory, he gives himself room to add his own narrative and aesthetic elements. Rather than accepting reality as it is, he distorts it and enhances it to his preferences.

Jeff Wall also pulled ideas from quite a few of Edouard Manet’s paintings, similarly to Justine Kurland, as seen above, because Wall’s earliest photographs of the late 1970s and 1980s, clear references are made to some of the most famous paintings in the history of art since the Renaissance. He admits that in nodding toward the titans of early modern painting, such as Delacroix and Manet, he was ‘trying to continue an idea of historically and theoretically informed production.‘ At the time, many contemporary artists were rejecting the presumed grandeur of fine art painting in materials, style, and subject matter. 

In this image above he has borrowed the composition of the women being in the foreground and the man being in the background, in the same way the women in he painting is in the foreground and her reflection is in the background. He has also used the rule of thirds in his photograph, just how the rule of thirds was used in the painting as well. I his photograph he has the women in the left hand third, the man in the the right hand third, and in the centre third is a camera, which is supposed to be the viewer. He has also used a mirror in his photograph, just like in the painting. However, Jeff Wall has positioned the women in the left side of the frame, whereas in the painting there is a centre balance, with the women in the centre of the frame and the line of the the bar going horizontally through the image, creating a sort of cross.

Examples of his compositions

Similarly to Justine Kurland he has taken inspiration from Edouard Manet, Le Dejeuner sur L’herbe 1863. He has created a tableaux image, where he has manipulated the positioning and location of the models and himself. He has also borrowed the composition in the same way that Justine Kurland has, by having the three people in the foreground on the left, the person on the right in the middle ground and the far people in the background. He has also pulled from the setting a little bit, as the setting is in field like area with trees on the left. However, he has made a more modern day version of this painting by including the bridge, which is a modern day structure in his photograph.

Similarities with Justine Kurland

Jeff Wall and Justine Kurland both take photographs, which they have pulled ideas, concepts and compositions from famous historical paintings. They both also take images of ordinary street scenes and social encounters.

When pulling ideas, concepts and compositions to create tableaux images, both Jeff Wall and Justine Kurland have created a photograph similar to the paintings they have taken inspiration from, but have made the concept of the photo applicable to modern day times.

How I am taking Inspiration from him

For my personal study I am going to take inspiration from Jeff Wall, as I am going to be pulling concepts, ideas and compositions from his work, just like he does with Historical paintings. I also want to pull ideas, concepts and compositions from historical paintings that he has taken inspiration from, like Edouard Manet, as well as other historical paintings. Some examples of historical paintings I want to take inspiration from are:

I want to take inspiration from Edouard Manet’s painting, because both Jeff Wall and Justine Kurland have taken inspiration from this photograph. I also want to take inspiration from Jeff Wall’s photograph, that he has pulled ideas, concepts and compositions from.

I want to take inspiration from these paintings, not only because they have a good composition, but because they also tell a story, which I could tell through my photographs, but make it applicable to modern times, and to the subject of identity and youth, because that is what I’m exploring.

I am also going to be taking photos of ordinary street scenes and social encounters, as I am going to be taking pictures of my friends and I doing activities in outdoor areas that I used to do in my youth.