what is Anthropocene

Anthropocene is a way of describing the most recent time period. Its said that its very human-influenced to the point where us humans have our natural worlds is now effected and changed due to us.

Anthropocene is used in lots of different forms through photography, film, vertical reality etc…And the main idea behind capturing these images are to be able to show how we are changing our world usually for the worst .These beautiful landscapes we had are now worn away. The images tend to makers you ashamed and to call us out as most of us are guilty for probably not treated our world and environment as well as we should be.

I believe that these images although they are not completely solving the issue. They are bringing a lot more attention to the problem. By doing this it makes people reflect on they’re choices and lifestyle and maybe make them feel slightly responsible so they may make a small change .However if everyone makes one small change in terms of being more environmentally friendly that can really help and cause lots of good changes.

the environmental sides of Anthropocene

This is probably more useful now than ever because as of recently climate change is effecting us more than ever every year our global temperature appears to be increasing with research saying “The global-average temperature for the past twelve months (March 2023–February 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.68°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.56°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average”.

However global temperature is not the only thing being effect. as of recently there is a major increase in loss of biodiversity due to many reasons like cutting down trees trees in order to provide us with material however by doing that we are often cutting down lots of animals homes. But not only are we cutting down animals homes animal hunting as become a lot mote popular compared to a few years ago. It may have been common a few million years ago when hunting animals were our main source of food however that has changed now and hunting is more done for enjoyment and to create material things out of the dead animal which is causing so many more animals to become extinct.

Contact Sheet

For these image I went down to Havre Des Pas where I started to take photos of the swimming pool which was made on the beach in 1895. I carried on and went round near the edge of the beach where they have more recently made these ginormous electricity and waste structures.

Editing process

Edited Photos

I think the first one is very successful because you can see especially in the bottom corner of the photo that there is this huge bush with many different kinds of plants and then behind it you have this massive buildings which looks to be a factory with many pipes coming out. The contrast between the two really exaggerates the idea of how humans ruin our wildlife.

I really like this photo as in this image you can see there are 3 different buildings which are all very different the one on the right are brand new flats however they have been designed using old buildings as inspiration then at the back you have the really tall apartments which were built very differently to the ones at the front.

Aaron Siskind Inspired photos

I think this first photo would be one of my favourites from my photos where I focused more on Aaron Siskind I like this one the most I think because I have lots of different materials in this small section and having it so zoomed in you can small all those small details like the cracks in the paint where the paint has peeled off the wall. The small markings on the wood probably from water damage.

what is New Topographic

Topographic is a way of describing images which have this similar banal look to them. And in most of the phots they contain both nature and built structures however the nature in them is not like how you would see it in maybe romantics. Usually in topographic the plants appear to be muted no colourful flower or super green grass its normally kind of muted.

where did it start

These images tend to really contrast romanticism paintings which wasn’t much before this as this style grew popular in 1975 due to a exhibition called “Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape” where they were changing from more classical and stereotypically beautiful nature landscapes and moved more towards how people have changed our natural environment using both the good and the bad. This exhibition held by William Jenkins was said to have held 10 artists work around topography’s and they were Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel.

The main idea of this style of photography is a reaction to the war that had taken place in America and how it was effecting people the war effected people in many ways it ruined their economy for a while people were having top work too many hours just to be able to afford their basic necessities all because of inflation. There was then a very big and sudden rise of the population they were having too many people having children at one time. Then also because of everything that had happened the rise in mental health problems was big so many more had ptsd and so many more due to the war being split up from your family maybe family dying.

William Jenkins

William Jenkins is one of the most influential people in term of the topic of new Topographics he was the one who created the photography exhibition called New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape. This art show didn’t actually have the best reviews at the time it came out people were confused. These are said to be some things said about the exhibition at the time

Romanticism art–

Romanticism art is a style of art which started in Europe towards the 19th century. Romanticism is said to be a way to express personal feelings, emotions and interest for the world. It gets its name due to the rise of popularity for medieval romance which heavily inspired this genre.

There are said to be 5 classifications of romanticism art individualism, nature, emotion, freedom and gothic/the unknown. Lots of romanticism art contains something like  “idealization of women; awe of nature; return to the past; critique of progress;  purity of childhood

Part of the romanticism art movement was about it being a revolt against the ideas of aristocratic social views and the political norms at the time. They wanted to draw attention to them and criticize their views which they did through their art.

The French revolution was a big contributing factor to the whole romanticism movement they would illustrate some of the of heroic acts which were taking place and should have gotten recognition. They also saw a spike in these aristocratic views and the the Enlightenment values so it was their response to that.

Sublime-

Sublime is said to be feeling when something is so amazing overwhelmingly so and its meant to be its the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling

The sublime is often described as a way to describe the feeling of greatness or awe and wonder to do with nature. When looking at the history behind it you can tell that it has taken inspiration from the baroque period is an elaborate style which gained popularity during the 1600’s and 1700’s in Europe. This philosopher Edmund Burke believed that the sublime can be beautiful but it also has this aspect of horror to it. He also spoke about the opposition of “beauty and sublimity” “He made the opposition of pleasure and pain the source of the two aesthetic categories, deriving beauty from pleasure and sublimity from pain”

John Constable the Haywain-

This painting was originally called “Noon” by John Constable which was later renamed to what we now know as The Haywain. The painting shows us this country side/rural area around the river Stour in England during the early 1820’s.

John Constable had a strange approach to his art compared To other artist at the time. This is because most artists were striving to have these perfect pieces of art with each stroke being calculated and “perfect”. However John Constable tried to do the opposite he didn’t feel like it had to look “perfect” his pieces were often more emotionally driven as he wasn’t planning it out as much and he did what felt right to him.

It’s said the concept behind this painting to show “an emotional reaction to a crisis beyond his control, and probably understanding”. At the time this paining was created they were in the middle of the industrial revolution. And World War 1 had only ended around 10 years ago so people were still heavily effect by those actions.

The enlightenment–

Enlightenment is the idea of  “individual liberty and religious tolerance” it kind of goes against the ideas of religion and the monarchy with the ideas of strict aspects of it and the values. The idea of enlightenment was created due to the rise of the intellectual movement during the 17th and 18th century where ideas such as God, reason, nature, and humanity were becoming more mainstream and enlightenment was a way of defying those views.

For this photoshoot I tried to focus more on the romanticism style of work where they often had the paintings including the sea and nature.

Editing Process

For this photoshoot I tried HDR image merging where you set your camera so the exposure will change each photo you take so the first image will be under exposed then normal/neutral and the last one will be over exposed. So then later in photoshop you select all three images and merge the three together so it creates this new image.

First version of images

second version of images

In the first edit I had the in colour which works well with romanticism however I I edited these more in the style of Ansel Adams by turning the images into black and white and then increasing the contrast and the level of the colours while they were in black and white so that certain colours turned out darker and others light like the system below.

I think that these edits are a lot more interesting than the first ones because they have that dramatic aspect and effect to them now. These images all have lots of the different zones from the zone system Ansel Adams used which creates this amazing detail which you may not have been able to see before due to maybe the colours being too similar but in black and white they really stand out.

I think this image above might be my favourite with this style of editing as it really reminds me of Ansel Adams work with the darker sky still with the lighter areas which gives it more texture and detail. However it also works really well with romanticism with the sea which was a common thing to be painted but with the lighthouse and the rocks surrounding it makes it more unique. I also think the sharp darker line from where the sea and the sky meet creates this mazing and contrast between the two elements.

Ansel Adams life

Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902 which was just before the big earthquake which took place in 1906 .When he was 4 years old he had an accident where he broke and disfigured his nose which sadly wasn’t fixable. This lead to him being bullied and made fun of in school so because of that he moved around a lot and it got to the point where his dad had to sort out home-schooling for him. After this he found lots of enjoyment and comfort in walking around the sand dunes and forest around his home in his free time.

All of Adams work was based on nature due to his absolute love and fascination with nature he loved to focus on environmentalism. He was quite young by the time he got his exhibition . In was only in 1922 where he had some of his photography first published and then in 1928 he had his first one man exhibition and he was only 26.

His photos were originally used to try and show the beauty of this incredible park because at the time it was still unprotected and there were plans to make it a power source. The strong river in the park made it a very good way for the city of Los Angeles to use it as a hydroelectric power source.

He actually created this book of the kings Canyon of all the photos he’s taken in order to try and convince congress not to ruin the park and not only did he stop them he also go the attention of the Franklin Roosevelt who was president at the time. Later he even got an award for his photography work where they celebrated both his photos and his efforts for helping the park.

Ansel Adams photography

Some people may describe his work as kind of controversial because it was known that he was taking photos to show the natural environment especially his war photos however when he was there he wold actually change some part by moving items around which some people disagreed with. Due to the fact his work was meant o tell the truth about war and the environment and although they aren’t big changed he is still changing the “natural environment”.

He also used these filters usually yellow or range which would help him achieve the high contrast and darker sky which he had in most of his photos.

However he also used the technique called visualisation where before he would take the photos he would actually imagen what he wanted and how he thought it should look so when he was taking the photos he had something to try and compare it to and it gave him ideas in how he can change his photos into how he imagined them. Within visualisation there’s the idea of the 3 C’s which are said to be correlation, clustering, and colour they are the three aspects of your photos that you want to think about before hand.

Genre of Landscape-

The term Landscape actually came from the Dutch word landschap. Which meant “region, tract of land” however the definition started to change in the 1500’s to “a picture depicting scenery on land”

16th Century

In the 16th century landscape started being recognised as a genre. There was a growing interest in natural world due to the Renaissance. During this time, Albrecht Altdorfer was one of the more prominent artists. He was said to be one of the first Europeans to produce pure landscape art. He took a lot of inspiration/included a lot of religious aspects which was a key aspect of Renaissance art. However, although Landscape was starting to be recognised as it’s own genre, t was still not a “popular” style of art.

Renaissance art

Renaissance art took a lot of inspiration from biblical texts or religious stories. Most of the art includes one of the following some of the classic styles (especially the human form); naturalism styles and individualism which was gaining popularity at the time. However a key part of renaissance art is they would focus on idealisation and perfection whereas romanticism which is similar was the one to mainly focus on self expression and emotion.

Some of the most famous and successful renaissance artists Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.

17th Century

Nicolas Poussin was also quite a popular landscape artist he mainly started during the 17th century where it was still very slowly rising in popularity. He was most known for his incredible paintings where he would take inspiration from Roman countryside. He is known for elevating the whole genre of landscapes.

Classical landscapes were gaining a lot of attention around this time. Classical landscapes aim to capture and illustrate the idea of recalling Arcadia. Which is this legendary place in ancient Greece which is known for its beauty.

Its said classical landscapes were heavily influenced by classical antiquity which focused on Greek culture from around 8th century BCE to the 5th century CE.

In classical landscapes during the 17th century they would have these idyllic aspects to them so they wold appear to be very tranquil, happy and blissful this cold be due to the fact arcadia is a mythical place so people would usually describe in this idealized way.

Add more here about the rise of Classical Landscape art in the 17th Century. There is a link here with more info: LINK

Add more about 18th / 19th Century Art…

Landscape Photography

An artist I have decided to research for photomontage is David Hockney. Brno Del Zou is a French artist who started his series ‘photo sculptures’ where he took a picture of his model and rearranged their features to make a new image.

Brno Del Zou said that the concept behind these sculptures that he does it to “use the fragmentation of the body in order to better understand it”.

Portraiture

I choose these three image as my final pieces I think the middle image is the strongest due to the very der5ama split lighting which makes the model appear very intimidating and as if she is very powerful.

femininity vs masculinity

I choose these for my mascinity and feminity due for the one on the left having multiple means with playing into the idea of how wen are strong and woem are weak vunerable emtional men dont cry but women do. Then the image on the right i tried to show the differences between the masculine body and the feminine body by showing off female curves which is quite a stereotypically feminine trait and then have more stereotypically male traits like muscles. And more strong features with vein

Due to this horrific act these protests started and gain a lot of popularity to the point where a poll in America came out and statics showed that 15 million to 26 million people participated in these black lives matter protests.

However these protests upset mainly American conservatives who believed that this movement was wrong and though it should be “All Lives Matter” and a big celebrity Kanye West also wore a “white lives matter” tee shirt. These completely make fun of the whole BLM movement because everyone one is important but its not like white people are struggling with prejudice or anything like that so we don’t need a movement.

lack of identity-

stereotypes-

prejudice-

social identity-

injustices for a type of identity

geographical identity-