This is a reflection of my favourite topics that I have studied throughout my A level photography course. I have really enjoyed exploring all of these different topics and artists, and I feel that I am a much greater photographer for doing so. These projects have really helped me in developing my ideas, and understanding what a photograph really needs to be.

Landscapes and Romanticism

With romanticism, we started by looking at its origin in landscape paintings from the early 1800s, and their relation to the sublime – a combination of extreme beauty and overwhelming scale that evokes a strong emotional reaction. I was very inspired by Edwin Deakin and his paintings of the beautiful Yosemite Valley.

In the rise of the industrial revolution, I related heavily to these artists who escaped to the natural world and found freedom through their art in spite of the realists and rationality that plagued their homes at the time. Later, through the work of Ansel Adams and his own attachment to the Yosemite Valley, I found my own deep fascination with the natural landscapes of my own home, Jersey.

Here are two of Ansel Adams’ photos that I attempted to recreate at Plemont beach near my home. Plemont has always been a place for me to walk to and explore. It has these tall cliffs and deep caves, with jagged rocks scattered everywhere, as well as this huge tidal range that engulfs the entire beach at high tide.

(high tide photos)

Further on in the landscape module, we were asked to produce a new topographics photoshoot. I was inspired by the works of Joe Deal, a photographer who is known for his sky view photographs. In order to do this, I would need to stand at a high vantage point and take photos looking down at the scenery.

This is one of the photos I came up with in comparison to Joe Deal’s work. This technique is like a ‘birds eye view’ of the world, and offers an interesting perspective on the exponential increasing of distance as you look further up through the photo. Further on in the same photoshoot I focused more on Ansel Adams, and portraying Jersey’s various natural landscapes. From this, I produced my favourite set of photos from throughout this course.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and Saint Malo

Later on in the course, we studied Henri Cartier-Bresson and the decisive moment. The decisive moment is the moment in time, from that exact perspective, where everything aligns perfectly. A perfect example of this is Cartier-Bresson’s infamous image named ‘Derriere la Gare Saint-Lazare’.

When studying him, I was fascinated with his method of taking photos, by simply allowing the world to move in front of his camera and waiting for the perfect moment to take the photo. When we visited Saint Malo for a street photoshoot, this was my exact mindset. Ultimately, I found myself wondering alone through the streets of Saint Malo, looking for these decisive moments.

These were the first photos that I was very happy with during the photoshoot. To me, they are related to each other as two opposing sides, an admiration of photography, and the taking of a photograph. I felt that these both related to me in a way, as the photographer of both of these photos and also an admirer of both of these photos.

This is my favourite photo from the photoshoot.

What was the involvement of Jersey mariners in the Canadian cod-fisheries and the Transatlantic carrying trade?

Since the beginning of the construction of Jersey’s harbour in the early 1700s, it has been a vital part in creating many of the industries that Jersey thrives on today, including the large finance and agriculture industries. Being an island surrounded by miles of water, the harbour was unimaginably beneficial for creating wealth in the island.

Most of this wealth was originally created by merchants who had collectively formed networks of markets across both coasts of the Atlantic ocean, from European countries such as England or Russia, all the way to countries in the newly found Americas, such as Honduras or Canada.

Canada’s fishing industry had been thriving since the discovery of the Americas, especially in the aptly named ‘Newfoundland’ on the east coast. This is because of the large cod that was abundant in the region, which soon became a commodity for the Europeans after its discovery in the 1500s.

By 1530, there was evidence to suggest that Jerseymen had been to Newfoundland, and in 1582 there was a reference to people from Jersey opening fish markets and selling fish in Newfoundland. In the year 1600, Sir Walter Raleigh obtained a Grant of Application in Newfoundland for a colony, and persuaded seamen from Jersey to set up fisheries there, which would later trade deeper into the Americas, all the way down to the Caribbean Islands. A quote from official letters at the time state, “He certainly encouraged the trade nascent between Jersey and Newfoundland”. A few Jersey families from this trading group were later named ‘master traders’, which hints at Jersey becoming a significant trader during this time. These families supposedly brought back cod fish, skins, furs, sugar and tobacco (among other items) to Jersey, which would have provided these families with a large amount of wealth.

Which ports did Jersey ships sail to and trade with?

Over the next 100 years, the industry continued to grow and more Jersey merchant families and fishermen travelled to the American coast to fish and trade. Jersey began building ships in the late 18th century thanks to the completion of South Pier in 1765, with the requirement that the ships would be build larger than fishing boats. This was so that Jerseymen could travel across the Atlantic and join the Transatlantic trade. Below is a demonstration of the trade that Jersey merchants created soon after.

This diagram provides us with a lot of information, not just about what was traded and where, but how Jersey became a hub for trade along the European coast once it had a functioning harbour. A number of significant Jersey cod merchants began trading during this time, including Charles Robin, who founded the most successful trade firm on the Gaspé coast in 1766. The diagram above is roughly what this trade looked like at its height.

What type of goods did Jersey merchants exchange for cod-fish?

Essentially, how this ‘Merchant Triangle’ worked was: the fish caught in Canada were traded with the Europeans, as well as manufactured goods and other items that were from Canada also. Merchants would then trade wine and fruits with Portugal, Spain and Italy, and various grains with countries in central Europe, such as Denmark. With the wealth that this created, the desire for luxury furniture in the island grew also, and mahogany wood from Honduras was brought over to Jersey, which was then used to create household items such as wardrobes and stair railings.

To what extent, has the island of Jersey benefitted from its constitutional relationship with Britain and the legacies of colonialism based on a slave plantation economy during the first Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)?

For my project, I would like to explore my love of cars. Specifically, I want to investigate why I love cars and where that love comes from, by displaying the soul of my own car, the Ferrariesta, and other Fords that relate either directly to it, or that relate to me in where I have found my love of cars as I have grown up. I want to show where a car’s soul actually is, outside of the badge, the status symbol and the price. I want to show what I see in these cars where others simply see a metal box on wheels. I want to display how a car’s soul is fundamentally a reflection of its driver, through all of the intricacies that connect a person to a car, and ultimately question the true value of every car, by showing you what the Ferrariesta means to me.

Every photograph has an implication. Whether it is to express an emotion, or to demonstrate a beautiful landscape, a photo is taken by a photographer with the intention of showing people something. However, according to John Szarkowski, what the photographer shows is one of two things; a reflection of the photographer “reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it”, or an exploration of the exterior world. Even the world’s first experimental daguerreotype photographs from the early 1800s fall under this distinction.

A daguerreotype is essentially an ionized copper plate coated in silver that is sensitive to light. This makes it possible to create an image on the plate using a camera obscura, an effect which uses a pinhole in a dark box to create an inverted reflection of the world outside of the pinhole, the same effect that our eyes use to see. The plate is then fumed with mercury vapour to freeze the resulting image after the plate is exposed to light for a long enough time. The result is the image above. This photo was taken by Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerreotype, in Paris. What we are actually seeing is a window into the past, a message speaking to us from nearly 200 years ago, and the first ever image of a human being. Through a window into the past, the mirror of a human reflects back at us, a testament to John Szarkowski’s belief that “the two creative motives that have been contrasted here are not discrete”, but ultimately can overlap each other and coexist in a single photo.

Here is an extract from Szarkowski’s book, a piece named “20 minutes in April” by Gary Beydler. Although a mirror is involved in this piece, in my opinion each photo is a window into the randomness of entropy, a snapshot in time that can never be replicated. This piece is rooted in the notion of realism, a demonstration of Gary Beydler’s love for the beauty of this chaotic world. John Szarkowski describes this as a “pursuit of beauty: that formal integrity which pays homage to the dream of meaningful life”, a romantic view of how a photographer can find meaning through the unpredictable nature of the world. However, an alternative realist view is provided by Jed Pearl in his review of Szarkowski’s book. Jed Pearl describes the photos in the book as “predictable images that tell us nothing of life”, demonstrating the realists acceptance of fact; that there exists no deeper meaning to the randomness of clouds, and that any meaning that is found is overruled by logic. In my opinion, I believe that the meaning of one’s life is subjective to their beliefs, and it evolves and changes through time as they develop a greater understanding of the world around them. “20 minutes in April” simply provides an insight into the chaotic and beautiful nature of clouds, however the meaning of this is not directly provided by the creator, Gary Beydler, instead it is meant to be inferred by the viewer to aid them in finding their own meaning to their own life. To state that this piece ‘tells us nothing of life’ is ignorant of this fact, but ultimately it is up to the viewer whether to find meaning or not.

Here is another extract from Szarkowski’s ‘Mirrors and Windows’, a photomontage named ‘A Special Place’ by Joseph Bellanca. The piece consists of two contrasting images, an outdoor photo that depicts a lone woman lying on the woodland floor, and an indoor photo of a bright chandelier hanging from a chain, cut out similar to the shape of a head. In my opinion, this piece is a mirror of human consciousness, an attempt at expressing how it feels to be human; trapped within the boundaries of our physical and mental limitations, lost somewhere in the expanse of a limitless world. To me, the image portrays the feeling of dreaming; when the imagination lights up inside the brain and creates an artificial world that perceptually mimics reality. This is something that is impossible to photograph physically, therefore the only approach to express one’s own subjective reality in photographic form is to stage it, or to make it artificially, like the way Joseph Bellanca does perfectly here as well as the many other photographers featured in ‘Mirrors and Windows’. “Much of the work included in this show is meant to strike us with its surprising imagery”, Jed Pearl states in his review, “yet few of the photographs are closely, richly detailed enough, or surprising enough, to be separated from the mediums past characterized as new – as a vision dredged up from the depths of consciousness”. This quote describes the majority of the photos in ‘Mirrors and Windows’ as boring and emulative of the works from the ‘Romantic vs Realist’ debate of the 19th century, rather than contributing a new perspective of photo analysis to the modern world. However, John Szarkowski argues that dulling a photo down to right or left, romantic or realist, merely describes a singular intention in a photo, hidden within the photographers whole conscious intent, whether they even know it or not, “One can draw many sections through a house that will help one better comprehend the structure of the whole. It must be understood, however, that these section views are merely analytical devices, and therefore, by definition, describe less than the whole”.

Essay plan

Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review which either supports of opposes Szarkowski’s original point of view. Make sure you comment to advance argumentation in providing a critical perspective.

Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise Szarkowski’s theory and Pearl’s review of his thesis. Describe differences and similarities between the two images above and their opposing concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, realism and romanticism, factual and fiction, public and private.

For the first photoshoot, I visited a few of Jersey’s marinas to discover some pieces of Jersey’s harbour history.

During my journey, I explored parts of the newer St. Helier Marina, the older South Pier, and even older Albert Pier. My focus initially was to take as many photos of anything I found interesting in order to inspire myself in later photoshoots.

This tended to be the various historical monuments placed all around the harbour, large boats that were moored in the marina, or things I couldn’t even name. This became very helpful for gaining an understanding of the harbour and the various elaborate systems that have been created over the harbour’s history. For example, the object in the right photo is a buoy, used to warn sailors of danger. The two hats on the top are actually arrows indicating to sailors that the danger is to the north of the buoy.

During the photoshoot, this image stood out to me, however my camera settings were very wrong and the photo came out very underexposed and the white balance completely out of place. I was able to fix this in Lightroom.

This edit of the image worked very well. By removing the terrible colour of the background and making it black and white, I was able to very easily balance the photo in contrast to the vibrant blue. However, I was very unpleased with how the initial photo came out. In my second photoshoot I returned to the same angle to retake the photo with a clearer sky.

This version of the photo is much better. There is so much more colour present in the photo which adds a genuine tone to the image. The blue crane as a whole is being used as a leading line that guides the viewer through the photo as if it is bleeding the colour of the sky onto the rest of the photo. The main colours of this image are from the blue sky and crane, the distant green trees, and the turquoise water at the bottom which acts as an intersection between the blue and green. Sandwiched between those is the New North Quay, which is used for hauling containers on and off small cargo ships. The subtle yellows and reds scattered along the quay bring the photo further through the colour spectrum. There is also a flat deadpan look to this photo, and in combination with the perfectly symmetrical beams reflecting in the water at the bottom of the photo, this image really stands out to me.

Another photo that stood out to me in my first photoshoot was this.

I liked this photo because of the contrasting vibrant colours and the composition of the objects that form a diagonal line. However, I was unhappy with this version of the photo because there wasn’t enough colour and the image didn’t look as full as it truly could have with the cloudy grey sky. In my second photoshoot I came back to fix this.

In this version of the photo, I took it in landscape to capture a larger photo than before. By doing this I also include more of these colourful buoys in the photo, which I think makes the photo look more full and vibrant. With the addition of the bright blue sky, the colours now work very well with each other, the blue sky acts like a base for the rest of the colours to pop and stand out to the viewer. The juxtaposition of the massive incinerator between the yellow and red buoy also makes the objects looks big and tall. Overall, this is a standout photo from all of the photoshoots that I definitely will want to use in my project.

During the second photoshoot, I noticed this small boat coming into the harbour. I also noticed the contrast between the small boat and the yacht nearby, and the incinerator and a support beam that I could use to create a juxtaposed line by adjusting my position. Once I lined them up, I simply waited for the boat to sit evenly between the two support beams to take the photo.

Once I had the photo, I adjusted the colouring and the contrast. I like this photo somewhat, it has an odd looking composition, the elements of the photo look very contained. However, I feel that the yacht is a bit too long and it drags the photo out to the left a little too much, which creates this empty space above it which slightly skews the photo overall. If the boat was a bit shorter, I could crop the image so that this empty space is out of frame and the elements of the photo look even more contained.

This is another image from the second photoshoot. I was intrigued by these colourful lines on the floor that I could use as perspective lines, and the large ‘Ferryspeed’ logo. As I was lining up the shot through the gaps of a fence, I noticed this yellow ‘terminal tractor’ getting ready to reverse. As it rotated into place, I captured this image when it was perfectly in between these perspective lines. In addition to the blue sky, the yellow and greens in the photo stand out very prominently and helps to section off each area of the photo. The flat blue and grey at the top and bottom make the image appear overall very minimal and basic, while also acting as a canvas for the rest of the elements to sit in the middle of. As a whole, this image is another that I will be keen to use in my project.

While I was at the harbour the second time, I stumbled upon this.

This is the HMS Iron Duke, a 133m Royal Navy battleship launched in 1991, although it hasn’t been involved in many wars, with the exception of 2 artillery missions off the coast of Africa directed at Libya in 2011 during the First Libyan Civil War. Prince William served as Sub-Lieutenant on this ship in 2008 in the Caribbean. During this time, the ship intercepted multiple large shipments of illegal substances headed to Europe. Nowadays, the ship has been refitted and has stayed around the south coast of England between Portsmouth and Plymouth. It just so happened that the ship was in Jersey the day I was at the harbour, and although the sun direction is a little bit late making the ship mostly shaded, I still think I can use this photo in my project. I do wish I had returned the next morning to grab a better photo with more direct lighting, but this photo is honestly good enough.

After the second photoshoot, I knew I had good photos, but not that many of them. However, I was able to get some more photos when I returned to do some maintenance on my family’s boat.

On the boat, it was very hard to line things up correctly because of how much the boat was rocking in the waves. Also, I had complications with the objects constantly moving more and more out of place as I tried to line each photo up correctly. This made it harder to get good photos. However, this didn’t stop me from getting good photos, it just limited me as to how many I got.

Overall, this was my favourite photo out of them all.

However, the white balance in this photo was really wrong and the photo came out really dark and unsaturated. I fixed this in lightroom.

I simply made everything except the sea and the red buoy black and white, and brought up the vibrance and saturation to bring out the remaining colour. Overall, I think this effect creates a contrast between the old Elizabeth castle constructed in the 1500s and the new world around it that has changed so much since.

After I got off the boat and started heading back, I continued to take photos at the harbour. This tended to be various boats in the Old Harbour marina and the old commercial buildings.

I mostly experimented with the very reflective water that the boats sat on. I liked how these photos looked, the reflections helped fill the frame rather than simply acting as blank space. However, I wasn’t totally happy with how the colour of these photos came out, they didn’t match the other photos that I was going to use for the project. Although, this photo stood out to me.

This was a very simple photo I took near the end of the photoshoot. I like the basic geometric shapes that form from the curvature of the objects. This photo does not fit with the rest of the images in my opinion, it has a lot less details and overall just doesn’t fit with the sequence, however I feel that this image will be good to include on the back of my zine just to conclude the project.

Selection and Editing

While selecting images, I found that a few of my images would work very well together as doubles to each other.

Double 1

Before

After

For this photo, I decided to crop the image so that the colour of the street met both corners of the photo. This is so that the image looks cleaner and more controlled. I also thought that the photo was very underexposed and badly coloured, so I fixed this by bringing up the exposure, shadows and vibrancy in Lightroom. Later, I had the idea to colour some parts of my photos black and white in order to make them appear more striking. This is the first example of this that I did, where I coloured the man and the pictures in the shop, and made everything else black and white. This makes the photo more focused on what the pictures in the shop actually are and what the man is admiring.

Before

After

For this photo, I cropped the top of the photo slightly to remove the white blind in the top left corner as I felt it made the photo look too spacious and inconsistent. Then I decided to bring up the shadows and the saturation to bring out the blue and red in the photo. I then applied the same technique as before, this time making the two subjects of the photo black and white and only letting the red and blue stand out.

I then combined the two to present them as a double in the virtual gallery. I also decided to flip the second photo vertically because I found that the streets in both images lined up well.

Double 2

Before

After

For this photo, my focus was to make the stairs look daunting to the old woman standing at the top. Firstly, I brought up the saturation and vibrancy to exaggerate the green and blue. I then cropped the image using the rule of thirds to place the right side of the image perfectly into a third of the image. In addition to this, I made the buildings and the people travelling up the stairs black and white, which blended the colour of the buildings together. In turn, this made the buildings negative space, and also makes the stairs look even more daunting for the old woman.

Before

After

In this photo, I wanted to create a similar effect to the previous image. To do this, I brought up the exposure and shadows just to make the colour look neater and more consistent. I then made the building, street and people in the far background black and white. This creates a similar negative space to the previous photo, as these objects become less apparent to the viewer.

When combined, I think these photos work fairly well together. However, I think this is the worst out of the selection because, although the images look good standalone, when put together they don’t significantly relate to each other.

Double 3

For this double, I combined two photos I got of this very lonely looking man. I then made everything except him black and white. Also I cropped the second image so that both photos lined up perfectly. I feel that this image shows his perspective, he is clearly thinking in his own mind and separated from the world around him.

Double 4

Before

After

I found that this image was very underexposed and the greens weren’t as apparent as I wanted them to be. To fix this, I brought up the exposure and saturation. Also, I cropped the photo slightly to make it a little less spacious.

Before

After

For this photo, I found that it was underexposed and the colours weren’t as vibrant as I wanted them. I brought up the shadows, exposure and saturation to fix this. I also cropped the photo to remove some negative space above and on the sides of the photo.

When combined, I think that these are the best images out of all. Although they do not relate to each other on a surface level, I feel that the positioning of both couples in the bottom left of each photo creates a connection between the two.

Virtual Gallery

Henri Cartier-Bresson is a popular photographer born in 1908, well known for his candid photography. The techniques Cartier developed and used in his own work has since inspired many generations of photographers after him and he is considered to be the father of photojournalism.

Life and Techniques

Henri Cartier grew up in a wealthy family a few kilometres east of Paris. From a young age, he liked to draw and paint, and was even influenced by the Surrealist photography of the 1920s. During his conscription into the French army in 1930, he received his first camera from a friend. Afterwards, Cartier decided to spend a year in the Ivory Coast, where he would learn hunting techniques which he would later use in his photography.

Cartier’s approach to his photography allowed him to make his photos perfect, by using a technique he developed called the ‘Decisive Moment’.

“There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment” – Cardinal de Retz, 17th Century.

This quote perfectly encapsulates Cartier’s technique. From a photographical point of view, the quote can be interpreted as, there is a moment in time where everything aligns perfectly.

Henri Cartier treated photography like hunting. He would align his camera perfectly for a photo and wait for the decisive moment to take the shot. This decisive moment is often when a person wonders into the frame, unaware of the camera.

It is this natural process of allowing the freedom of the world to essentially choose the subject of the photo that gives Henri Cartier’s photos a sense of truthfulness. None of it is faked or staged, Cartier’s work is grounded in reality. And the people in these photos are in their complete natural state, placing another layer of reality onto his photos.

The Leica Rangefinder

The Leica Rangefinder was the primary camera Henri Cartier-Bresson used. The camera was revolutionary for the time. Henri Cartier discovered the camera during his time in the Ivory Coast in 1932. The camera was compact, portable and had a quiet shutter. This was perfect for Henri, the camera could be handheld and kept out of sight, and when he took the photo the sound of the shutter couldn’t be heard by the people around him, allowing Henri to stay completely hidden from the subject and make his photos as true to reality as possible.

Cartier used a 50mm lens. This is because it provided a perspective much like the human eye, and had a wide depth of field, which added another touch of realism to his photos.

Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, 1932

This is one of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s most popular photos that also outlines some of the techniques that Cartier used in his photography. Firstly, the rule of thirds is applied to the framing of the photo, dividing the photo into three equal parts upwards and three equal parts across.

By framing the photo this way, Cartier divides each detail of the photo into sections, disconnecting every significant detail from each other. This allows for easier viewing, the photo isn’t interconnected and messy, it is organised and direct.

Additionally, the black and white enhance this directness. This is because the photo is stripped of colour, allowing the viewer to interpret just the objects and textures, as the additional complexities of colour are removed from the photo. It is also important to note that the shades of black and white have varying effects on the photo, depending on how dark or light. In the foreground and background of the photo, the people visible are the darkest parts of the photo. Additionally, they are both reflected in the puddle, where both subjects are contrasted heavily by the light of the sky. Both of these features make them stand out in the photo.

These two subjects also demonstrate two techniques Henri Cartier-Bresson used in this photo. The first is that both subjects are in focus, which means that Cartier would have had to use a small aperture so that both subjects and the rest of the photo would be in focus. The second is the connection between the two subjects.

The subject in the foreground is equal size to the subject and his reflection in the background. Although it is not obvious, this creates an invisible lead into the centre and background of the photo.

What is most important about the photo is Henri Cartier-Bresson’s use of the decisive moment. Without Cartier’s understanding of the decisive moment, he would never have taken this photo. If the photo was taken a few milliseconds earlier or later, the moving subject would be out of place. If it hadn’t rained, the puddle wouldn’t be there to reflect. If it hadn’t been overcast and cloudy, and the midday sun wasn’t directly above, the photo wouldn’t have been lit the same way. By taking the photo at that exact moment just before the subject hits the ground, Cartier takes the photo at the decisive moment, the moment in time, from that exact perspective, where everything aligns perfectly.

Anthropocene is the effect that mankind has had on the natural world. This has only come about in the past few centuries since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and has exponentially become a global problem. Anthropocene is such a massive problem that it is becoming the name for the era that we are living in.

This is a good topic for photography, mostly because it is everywhere, and a clear message can be brought forward, for example, against global warming. There are 4 major signs of anthropocene; agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution. Each of these are the root causes of the major problems mankind faces today.

Agriculture

Agriculture is a major part of modern society. It is the core beginning of all the raw materials and food that are used and eaten by the majority of the population. Because agriculture plays such a vital part, it has become one of the biggest industries in the whole world, and is presently valued at over $14 trillion. This includes livestock, vegetables, fruits, and mining minerals. Agriculture accounts for 10% of emissions in the US alone, and it is everywhere. Fields and mines spread for miles to maximise capitalisation. This means that an incredible amount of hard work would have been needed to remove any trees or plants that were there previously. Additionally, heavy machinery is used in every farming and mining process today, which further rises the amount of carbon emissions produced. Overall, agriculture is a very major factor in anthropocene, and accounts for a large part of climate change and global warming.

Deforestation

Along with agriculture, deforestation plays a major role in modern society. It is needed to make space for new infrastructure and even more agriculture and fields. However, lots of deforestation means lots of work, and on a large scale deforestation companies take shortcuts. Rather than individually cutting down trees and slowly moving habitats away from the area through various safe and careful methods, they burn the forest down. This causes massive devastation for anything alive in the area, especially in the Amazon rainforest where the picture above was taken. Additionally, the smoke produced from this process increases the carbon emissions released. After the forest is burnt, heavy machinery is also used to clear the debris, which further increases the net carbon emissions. Every minute, over 2,000 trees are cut down or burnt, which accounts for approximately 10 acres.

Urbanisation

Since the late 18th century, large cities have become the centre for all capitalist operation. Cities like London in England grew massively during the industrial revolution. This is because the cities are essentially where all the money is, and since mankind has become exponentially more and more capitalist and money hungry, these cities have and will continue to grow exponentially. Lots of work needs to go into these extremely large scale societies. Land potentially needs to be deforested, agriculture is needed to sufficiently supply the population, and an unimaginable amount of work is put in to create the infrastructure and buildings. All of this needs lots of heavy machinery to be done, including the transport of goods and food into the city. And much more than this is needed to create large scale cities. This takes lots of time. The largest cities in our society today were originally created hundreds of years ago, meaning that carbon emissions have continued to rapidly increase. All of this has accumulated, and cities have become the largest contributor to all carbon emissions globally. Cities are responsible for over 70% of all carbon emissions.

Pollution

All of the resources and materials that go into the city then come back out of it as waste. This means that everything that is packaged, and also all of the emissions from fuels like petrol is released into the natural world, and it ends up all over the globe. This is mostly apparent with plastics in the ocean. Now, it is nearly impossible to find a fish that doesn’t contain microplastics. There is also an island named “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” which is entirely made of plastic floating in the ocean. It is 1,600,000km². For comparison, England is 130,000km². This is killing hundreds of thousands of marine wildlife yearly; in the photo above you can see thousands of fish that have died because of the changes of the conditions due to pollution in the ocean. It is also devastating the coral reefs, which are the plants of the ocean. The world has lost 14% of its coral reefs in the last 10 years. And pollution doesn’t only contribute to the water.

In fact, all of the 4 major signs of anthropocene are all of the major contributers to the creation of greenhouse gases. With more and more of these atmosphere destroying gases floating around, the Earth is getting warmer and warmer, and mankind is slowly but surely killing life on Earth. We have no idea how problematic we have become to Earth’s natural cycles that are responsible for life’s existence.

Zed Nelson

Zed Nelson is a London based photographer who has explored a plethora of photographical concepts, such as portraiture and commercial work. Nelson is also known for his long-term photographical observations of society.

This specific exhibition, aptly named “The Anthropocene Illusion”, focuses on the false nature of the modern capitalist society. In this photo, we can see an arched entrance with drawings of animals carved into the walls and “AFRICA” written on the same side. Next to it, we see a group of three people, one in an electric wheelchair. From this information, it is clear to the viewer that these people are in a zoo.

On its own, the concept of a zoo is very anthropocene. It is essentially people creating an incredibly fake natural environment for animals who have been born into these facilities, and then hiding behind the statement of “conservation for endangered species”, just so that they can lie to tourists and pretend that these animals are wild, when truthfully the animals are just prisoners chambered from their own true freedom. This is all done just so that the people who created the zoo can make money from giving tourists the false experience of seeing a “wild animal”.

For this photo, it is clear that Zed Nelson went to a real zoo and captured exactly what he saw. The whole exhibition is focused on the relationship between mankind and nature, and the best way to capture this is with real world examples. The photos from “The Anthropocene Illusion” all follow this rule, meaning that every photo uses sunlight to light the photo. The camera settings for this specific photo are most likely; a low ISO, (from 100-400) to account for the sensitive sunlight, a small aperture (between f11 or f22) because everything is in focus and the photo has a medium depth of field, and a fast shutter speed (from 1/250 to 1/1000 sec).

This photo is another by Zed Nelson that is also part of “The Anthropocene Illusion” exhibition. It demonstrates perfectly how mankind has faked a reality in its venture for maximum capitalisation. In the photo, we see a lonely Chimpanzee sat on a rock against a painted wall. The painting depicts a paradise of nature, tall thick green trees towering over bushes of infinite unknown species, tropical plants emerging from the nutritious soil, and still lake water powering the life around it. However there is no life around, it is merely a fabricated world that encircles the small world that this Chimpanzee has lived its whole life in. It is all fabricated. The Chimpanzee looks exhausted, his arm hangs weakly over the rock, and chippings from the wall appear like the smoke from a cigarette. This creates the illusion that the Chimp is smoking a cigarette, which further cements the anthropocene theme as the cigarette industry is another huge capitalist movement where the product is basically an extremely addictive and expensive cancer causer which over 20% of the population consume religiously. What this photo doesn’t capture is the thousands of tourists who pay a small fee to the zoo to see the Chimp “in its natural habitat” behind the glass and trapped inside a prison. This photo encapsulates exactly how false the capitalist society has become, to the point where we strip wild animals of their freedom and trap them between the eyes of glass and concrete walls decorated with a false world.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer with over 40 years of experience. This quote from his website vividly explains his exploration of the Anthropocene world – “His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet — an inspection of the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes.”-www.edwardburtynsky.com.

In Burtynsky’s depictions of landscapes, he often chooses to look down at his subjects from a helicopter. This angle offers a completely different perspective of the devastation and mass destruction that goes on in the world. Take this photo for example, taken above the Niger Delta river in Nigeria. It captures the aftermath of decades worth of ecological harm caused by the greed of Nigerian politicians who are responsible for the millions of barrels of raw crude oil that has been dumped into the Niger Delta. The green river flows with infinite toxins from the middle of the frame, and branches out like a tree as if it breathes the life of dead wood. Surrounding it is a baron wasteland, torn from the lively greens and awe-inspiring wildlife that once sat above, now holding the carcass of what remains. A stretch of road tears through the graveyard with no care for the world around it. The road demonstrates a visual perspective of how mankind reacts to the anthropocene problems, the majority of us simply see it and drive on by, not caring for the atrocities that we inflict. But the reason we do that is because a sole person is not capable of stopping this mass destruction, and that is what Edward Burtynsky understands. He understands that the only thing he can do is visualise the destruction through his lens, and create a world where the viewer can understand and care for what is happening to the Earth.

Ideas

For my anthropocene project, I had a few ideas. Firstly, I had the idea to study some trees in Jersey that are surrounded by fields, relating to the works of Edward Burtynsky. This is because I found out that over 50% of Jerseys land is taken up by farmland, meaning that many trees, plants and habitats have been destroyed to create room for the farmland. My idea was to take photos of the old trees that have been left alone in the middle of the baron fields, to demonstrate the lone survivors of human destruction, and potentially the result of our consistent destruction to our planet due to global warming. However, I found that my photos weren’t as persuasive or obvious to the anthropocene theme, so I scrapped the idea and moved on.

I also had the idea to do a typology of polluting items slowly crumbling as the photos went down. I thought of doing this with a plastic bag, or a crisp packet. Ultimately, I settled on doing it with a plastic bottle, as they are very common and recognisable, and they crumple up very nicely.

Photoshoot

For this photoshoot, I used a black background to isolate the water bottles, and placed them on a platform where marked the positioning and direction of the bottles. For the lighting, I used a key light from 45 degrees to the right of the bottle, and a fill light from 45 degrees to the left, so that the lighting was completely balanced. I also made sure to avoid any massive light reflections on the bottles.

From there, I chose a few plastic bottles to work with. Then, I took a photo of each standing upright with no damage, and progressively crumpled the bottle. I did this with all of them, experimenting with the rotation of the water bottle. Ultimately, this is the finished project.

I am fairly happy with how the project turned out. It is exactly the idea I had in mind and it obviously sends the message that these plastic bottles do not break down or biodegrade. They are permanent and abundant in todays world, mostly neglected at the sides of roads, piled up in ugly landfills or endlessly floating and polluting the ocean.

In hindsight, I now think it would have looked better if I had removed the platform at the bottom of the images to isolate the bottles in the frame, as the height of the platform varies between the images and makes the project look a little bit messy. I also think I should have added a wider variety of brands to also give the message that the plastic bottle companies and their greed for money is the driving force to this crisis, and how the ignorance and selfishness of mankind perpetuates the cycle that plastic follows, from the top of the piece when the bottle is purchased and new, to the bottom where the bottle is neglected.

In this photoshoot, I focused on trying to merge the manmade world, such as the seawalls and buildings lined across the seafront, and the natural world, like the beach and the ocean.

I found that including wildlife in the photos also created a good mesh of natural and man made.

Here are the ones I though were best from this selection.

When editing these photos, I could play around with cropping the images into a square format and then presenting them as a triptych.

I also experimented with the rocks along the beach and trying to combine them with the built environment around Harve des Pas, such as the industrial buildings at La Collette.

In these photos, I tried to blend the buildings and the rocks by finding dips in the rocks where I could see the buildings in the background. Additionally, I tried to use the sea as kind of a middle ground to separate the natural rocks from the manmade buildings. Here are the ones I thought were best.

Here are some other photos I took also using these buildings in the background that I thought worked well as new topographic photos.

When editing these photos, I could play around with the cropping to make the buildings more contained in the frame and more of the focus in the shot. Additionally, I could make these black and white to emphasise the lack of emotion that is common in new topographic photos.

Editing

While editing these photos, I want to focus mainly on how these photos are going to be presented together. This means that the photos will have to be cropped the same way, the colouring will have to be the same, and I need to find a way to portray these buildings in a negative way. I could do this by displaying the photos together as different sections of the landscape, going from the beauty of the beach and the rocks to the drabness of the industrial buildings. I could also alter the colouring to go from happy and vibrant to sad and colourless.

To start with, I looked at the photos I took of the ducks. I also found that these photos had a blue sky, whereas the photos of the buildings were cloudy and drab. This meant that I could use this to help me with my idea of changing the colour between the photos.

Here is the first draft of the triptych I wanted to create with the photos of the ducks and the distant background of the coast.

With this draft, I was happy with how the photos turned out, but I felt that the two photos on either side were too similar, so I decided to change the one on the left to another photo.

I was much happier with this second draft, as it also followed my idea of gradually panning towards the industrial buildings, however I felt that the colouring of each photo wasn’t similar enough to create the same effect.

With this draft, I altered the colouring by taking the vibrance and saturation out more and more between each photo and making the photo colder. I also adjusted the exposure and the shadows to amplify this effect. I was very happy with this draft, and I felt that changing the colouring created the slow decline that I was aiming for.

I also tried this with black and white.

I felt that this worked very well, even more so than the previous draft. I was happy with this, so I then moved onto trying something with the industrial buildings. I was thinking of trying to add these photos with the triptych above.

This is what I came up with. My idea was that the top line of photos would gradually decrease in colour, and the bottom photos were completely black and white. However, I felt that these photos were too repetitive in triptych format, so I decided to separate these photos from the triptych of the ducks and rather make these their own presentation.

I thought that this combination turned out fairly well, and both of these photos clearly demonstrate new topographical work.

I also wanted to try and use these photos to tell a story of how mankind has ignored these new ugly developments. I had a few ideas in mind. Firstly, I could present the images like this from left to right. Secondly, I could present the images from top down in square format.

However, I wasn’t sure how I could present the photos in this format. Thirdly, I could crop out the subject in each photo and place them in one photo, and gradually increasing the opacity between each of them.

I thought that this idea worked fairly well and told the story that I had in mind. The subject walks past the tower, completely ignoring it, rather he focuses on something outside of the frame with his camera, demonstrating the aspect of ignorance that is presented in new topographics photos from artists like Frank Gohlke.

Final Images

New Topographics is a style of landscape photography that focuses on the clash between the human world and the natural world.

It originated in the 1970s in America. Rather than focusing their cameras at the beautiful national parks of America such as Yosemite Valley, new topographic photographers instead took photos of the newly made, post-war, bleak and baron American suburbs. Photographers such as Nicholas Nixon, Frank Gohlke and Robert Adams were the pioneers of early new topographics (who were all featured in the 1975 exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape”).

Robert Adams

Robert Adams was born in the 1930s in the city of New Jersey, but later moved to a town in the middle of the deserts in Colorado. This is where Adams would begin to take new topographic photos to show the wasteland towns hidden deep in America and how mankind has vandalised the beautiful, vast open landscapes of America.

Here is a good example of how Robert Adams expresses this distaste for the American town. In the photo, we see two boxy mobile homes on an empty street with empty driveways. The mobile homes block the view of a mountain in the background, and we can only see the top of it. This could be to demonstrate the point that these mobile homes that were flooding America at this time were useless and that they ruined the landscape. It could also imply Adams’ distaste for 1960s American suburb architecture. The homes of the time were very boxy and flat, and had no detail or personality, rather they appeared dull and lifeless.

Here is another example of Robert Adams’ work. In this photo, we can see in the foreground that there are, once again, boxy mobile homes. Although there are clear signs of life; there are cars in driveways and plants scattered outside homes, the image still appears lifeless. This is because of three things. Firstly, the image is in black and white and has no colour, which strips the image of any positive emotion. Secondly, the background is mostly empty and takes up half of the shot. Thirdly, the mobile homes in the foreground all look the same and appear very repetitive. The combination of all 3 implies a deeper message. The new wave of American suburbia is ugly.

Here is the final photograph by Robert Adams I want to show you. In this photo, we can see a distant large suburb that is bordered by a small road, and in the distance we see a tall mountain range reaching high into the clouds. It is important to note that the sky takes up the majority of the shot. Additionally, the mountains are clearly visible in this photo, rather than being hidden or covered by a boxy house or mobile home. Adams took this photo to show that, although these mass produced suburbs are very big, the natural world such as the mountains and the sky still tower over us. In his words, “Though the mountains are no longer wild, they still dwarf us and thereby give us the courage to look at our mistakes”. This is another reason why new topographics photos like to clash the natural and man-made world, to show that there is a more beautiful world outside of these repetitive and ugly towns, and that we are doing an injustice to the environment around us by creating these massive capitalist monstrosities.

Frank Gohlke

Frank Gohlke was born in the 40s in Texas. He later moved to Connecticut to study at Yale university, where he would meet two renowned photographers, Walker Evans and Paul Caponigro, who he would study the art of landscape photography with. In later years, he began to take new topographics photos in the south and west of America.

Here are a few examples of the photographs he took during this time. There are a few common themes in each of these photos. The most obvious one is emptiness. In these photos, there are no people. This is because Gohlke doesn’t want to portray these places as being urban and social, rather he wants the viewer to focus on the objects in the photos and what they truly demonstrate. Another theme is a focus on capitalism. In all of these photos, some form of capitalism is presented; cars, tourism, company logos on the smallest and the largest buildings. These photos are meant to be a demonstration of human greed. Additionally, in each of these photos at least a small piece of nature is present, however the nature is never the focus of the photo, instead it is hidden from the viewer in the reflection of windows or in the distant background. This is to show that mankind has become very detached from the natural world, and we have resorted to mass producing cities to confine ourselves from it. And the main drive for doing this has been capitalism. Businesses want their name as widespread as possible, seen by everyone, and a small area with millions of people, such as Los Angeles, is the perfect place to do that. Some of the money these businesses made was also then given to the city, which was then invested into building the city more and more. Frank Gohlke took these photos to show how detached people are from the reality of the natural world, and how mankind has completely neglected and converted the fight for survival in the wild into the fight for capital.

Summary

These new topographics works come from somewhere deep in the photographers heart. It is likely that they have watched the rapid growth of post-war American society as they grew up and how it has tainted and blinded the people into believing a false normal. These photographers understand that the natural world is much more powerful than the environments they have grown up in, and have demonstrated this emotion simply by displaying this new world in a single frame.

The main focus of new topographics is to demonstrate how mankind has altered the landscape to be perfect for us, but also to show how the development of this new world has blinded us from the beauty of the natural world.