I want to focus my photoshoots on the themes of pollution and overcrowding since they are the most prominent issues for the island ( Jersey ) .

Mood board 1 ( pollution ) –

My idea for the photoshoots surrounding pollution definitely include the use of portrait photography to include the idea of how pollution effects the human population and animal habitat, and I think that will be the best way to show this.

As of 2019, there had been 6.67 million deaths due to air pollution in the world which is almost 14 times the amount of deaths due too drug use. Air pollution has also been a leading factor of deaths due to disease killing almost 214 million people as of 2019.

Hopefully, with the use of making art to spread awareness of the issue more people will start to understand the issue and maybe it would make more of impact with the issue brought to light.

Mood board 2 ( overcrowding ) –

For this idea, I want to focus my photoshoots on the centre of St Helier mainly King Street especially on busy weekends because that is when the streets are mostly overcrowded. The photos that I could get would show the idea of overcrowding very well if I’m successful.

In the 19th century ( the 1800’s ) the worldwide population was 1 billion, the population was at 8 billion which shows a dramatic rise over a small period of time and by the end of this century the population is estimated to peak higher then ever before, hitting 11.2 billion by 2100, as of 2022 statistics.

Impacts –

With my work, I want it to really impact people and spread awareness on these causes. I want to show people the issues our world are facing and although I know that not one person can do something individually to solve these problems I thought by spreading awareness it educates and explains these issues through art instead of people having to read articles and watch news articles on the issue to be educated, which not everyone wants to do.

Another contradicting impact I want my work to have on people is that I want them to be scared. I know that my photoshoots and final photos will not be directly ‘scary’ however, when people see my work, I want them to feel uneasy or even scared. I want anyone who views them to feel guilty, this is because people seem to react better to fear the being ‘told what to do’. If I am even able to make someone feel uneasy that is the way to get people to make a difference.

Anthropocene is a type of photography where the idea of climate change and the effects that the human race, have had on the world due to negative habits, are shown through the use of photos.

The Anthropocene defines earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human – influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes have now been altered by humans.

These human actions cause, among other consequences, changes in the water cycle, imbalances and destructions in the marine and terrestrial ecosystems, the increase of extreme meteorological phenomena, the acidification of the oceans or the disappearance of the forests.

Anthropocene photographers focus on issues that are noticed all through the world such as ;

• Climate change
• Pollution (plastics and non-recyclable materials )
• Over crowding and over population
• Global warming

The Anthropocene photos taken by these photographers, are usually very moving and frankly quite unnerving because of the raw unfiltered reality that is shown through them. They usually include quite disturbing images, while not usually graphic the connotations that come through the photos can struck fear into anyone and really show the harsh reality we live in.

While people may view that these photos are solving the problems that we face I believe that all they do is spread awareness, yes that can play a massive part in solving these problems but in the long run, it does nothing. While these photographers are raving about the problems throughout the world, they still have shows and exhibitions to show their work and would be using non-recyclable materials to hang and showcase their work so in the long run, they feed the problem more then solve it.

For my first few photo shoots, I will be focusing on more of the pollution and overcrowding issues since they are the most relatable here in Jersey.

For the first photo shoot I can focus on litter and pollution on beaches and since there are a few beaches near town, the pollution can get really bad during certain times of the week.

For the second photo shoot I can focus on overcrowding throughout central St Helier during busy weekends. Since the population numbers in Jersey are quite large for the size of the small island, it would be easy to capture the busyness and crowding throughout day to day life.

For my first Landscape Photoshoot, I had the opportunity to visit Thailand and Tenerife. I particularly enjoyed capturing not not just natural elements but also a variety of cultural elements too.

From untouched landscapes to man’s imprint on the landscape –

When I initially thought about taking photos in these destinations, I had imagined that I would be capturing natural landscapes that resembled Romanticism and the Sublime. In a few of my Thailand photos, you can see that the dramatic, untouched landscape does give the impression of a Romanticism Landscape.

However, what became more apparent in these destinations, was man’s impact on the tourist destinations. How buildings and developments now cut through these once idyllic and natural landscapes.

Photoshoot 1 ( Tenerife ) –

Photoshoot 2 ( Thailand ) –

Final edited photos –

(need to find out how to get photos from phone to blog)

For the first photoshoot, the class took a trip to Harve des Pas, as the environment was fitting for the topographical theme.

We spent an hour walking around the coast line finding things to take photos off which included the bay and the swimming pool and even managed to get photos of some a textured, almost broken wall to just give a variety.

These are the photos I got on the trip ( after I deleted the photos that were blurry etc. ) They consist of photos of the wider landscape and some buildings and different structures that vary from timelines, I also got some photos of the industrial side of Harve Des Pas, around La Collette.

Black and white edits –

I wanted to add a black and white approach to some of my photos to almost give a worn and vintage look to them.

I thought that in the first photo in particular, the inclusion of different buildings from different eras of time the vintage look would be very impactful for the theme of the photo.

In the beginning I decided to just put a black and white film over the top to give me a base to work with, then I played around with the contrast and highlights to deepen the shadows and contrast between the highlights.

I thought that this photo would be complimented well in black and white because of the industrial architecture, I thought that the use of black and white could enhance the dark colours and the highlights.

I put a simple black and white film over the photo to start, then I enhanced the highlights so that the photo didn’t look so dark and was clearer. I wanted to keep some of the shadows throughout the original photo so after enhancing the highlights I played around with the shadows to see what fit best and landed on keeping them pretty subtle.

With this photo, the structure ( the pool ) was built in the late 1800’s before WW1 which was just after the first colour photo was made so I wanted to make it black and white for almost nostalgic purposes.

I turned the contrast up and highlights too to make the photo as bright as I could without it looking light a white photo. To almost give a vintage look I focused on the texture of the photo too and enhancing that to make it look genuinely older.

Virtual gallery –

Robert Adams was an American photographer born may 8th 1937. He focused on the changing landscape of the American west and his work first came to light in the mid 1970’s through his book ‘The new west’.

He lived in multiple places throughout his life but was born in Orange, New Jersey. Later in his life he moved to Colorado and in 1963, Adams bought a 35mm camera and began to take pictures mostly of nature and architecture. He learned photographic technique from Myron Wood, a professional photographer who lived in Colorado. Adams began to photograph in 1964 but did not start working as a full time photographer until 1970.

Some of his work –

As you can see, Robert leant a lot into the Topographic movement of photography, focusing on natural landscapes and how the man made structures, buildings and industrial estates affected them. His most famous being the first photo ( caravan park ).

Topographic photography is the idea of taking landscape style photos which show the infiltration of human life through the photo. Usually these photographs are taken in urban, rural or suburban areas, so the inclusion of landscapes are viewed.

The New Topographic idea, was a reaction to the infiltration of humans and made-made structures throughout the urban and suburban areas. The early topography photographers believed that as long as humans continue to intervein upon nature and the natural world, topography will remain a important part of showing the cause this will have on nature.

This photograph by Robert Adams in particular shows the contrast between the life and the landscape of the natural world quite harshly. The way the photo is almost split in half shows the difference between the natural unfiltered world with the habited rural world.

The way the clouds above the dark mountain are looming shows almost the unforgivable nature of the natural world while the sun gleams on the caravans below – it definitely shows contrast but also shows beauty between the mix of topics.

The blend between the two themes in this photo show almost a harmony between the two ‘worlds’. While still showing the nature and beauty of the mountain range landscape, Adams manages to reveal the impact that colonisation has on more rural places throughout the world.

The idea of ‘New Topographics’ signalled the emergence of a new photographic approach of landscape. It shows the beauty and controversy of man-altered landscapes that were taken over by buildings and factories. There were 10 main photographers that founded the idea of ‘New Topographics’ them being – Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel.

Ansel Adams was a photographer born in 1902 in San Francisco. He was born before the ‘big quake’ of San Francisco which took the lives of roughly 3, 000 people. Unfortunately, this event injured his nose breaking it. He never got the correct treatment for the break so the damage stayed permanently altering the construction of his face causing it too not heal and become disfigured. Because of this, he became very insecure and was a very quiet kid commonly perceived as very shy throughout his school life. This caused his father to move him school a handful of times, but Adams was never very settled or comfortable so his father decided to take him out of school and made the decision to home-school him with tutors. because of Ansel’s introverted personality, he took a fond liking to the outdoors and nature as a whole. His family home was luckily surrounded by nature, sand dunes and the famous Yosemite park in San Francisco. He took solace in the natural world and would often take walks through the dunes or the park to experience the joy that the nature brought him.

Adams initially wanted to be a musician as he played the piano religiously through his childhood. Sadly he did not make it as a pianist, since he slowly fell out of love and passion for the piano over time. He started experimenting with photography from a young age, on his 14th birthday, he was gifted his first camera, the brownie box. Because of his passion for nature Ansel wanted to capture the beauty, and with his new camera, he could. He often went on family trips to the south of Yosemite park, where there sat a mountain range where he would end up taking his first photo of the beauty of the mountain range.

Ansel Adams, a dedicated environmentalist whose love of the world was meant to encourage people to respect and care for their planet. His stark black and white images of rivers and canyons set the standards for all landscape photographers after him.

1927 was a very important time for Ansel’s life, he made his first fully visualized photograph ‘ Monolith, the Face of the Half Dome. ‘ His creative energies and abilities as a photographer blossomed after he met a good friend and role model Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts and artists. Adams began to have the confidence to pursue his dreams when Bender came into his life, and the projects and possibilities multiplied. In addition to spending summers photographing in the Sierra Nevada, Adams made several lengthy trips to the southwest to work with Mary Austin. In the same year Adams met photographer Paul Strand, whose images had a powerful impact on Adams and helped move him away from the ‘pictorial’ style he had favoured in the 1920’s. Adams began to pursue ‘straight photography’, since the technology had improved by hen so the camera lens quality had improved significantly. Adams was soon to become straight photography’s most articulate and insistent champion.

His link to romanticism –

Adams always loved the outdoors, as you know now, and he was always extremely passionate about the beauty of the natural world. Ansel hoped that his sharp focused, black and white photographs would help persuade Americans to value creativity as well as too conserve and expand American freedoms and wilderness preserves. This shows his romantic thoughts as he cares a lot about the nature and animals in the conserves and wants to look out for them and help as much as he could.

In his photos, he would cut out any trace of human activity, showing the raw untouched wilderness. He wanted to show that the world is beautiful without the mechanic infiltration that came around during the industrial revolution, covering almost 40% of the land to be covered with mechanical advances such as train tracks or factorys.

John constable, born 11th of June 1776 was an English landscape painter in the romantic tradition. He was known for his paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home.

Constable was one of the first artists of the Romantic movement to create landscape paintings drawn directly from nature rather than the idealised and dramatic depictions favoured by other artists of the period and in taking this stance he pioneered Naturalism in Britain.

Examples of his work –

Overall these photos show the natural beauty of the world and all the nature within it capturing the trees and a variety of landscapes to show how beautiful the natural world could be.

He painted photos that had a lot of meaning to him, he did not grow up wealthy so he often painted his home and the land he lived on. Because of the poverty he grew up around and lived around, he wanted to show that there was beauty anywhere through the nature and the world we live on.

He wanted to focus on nature because during this time period, the industrial revolution was a big era and he wanted to steer away from this thought of everything manmade and wanted to bring light on the natural life.

Introduction to Romanticism –

Romanticism is a movement and feeling that surfaced around the late 18th century, romantics focus more on the natural beauty of the world and the emotions and feelings that come with that.

It was characterised with a focus of emotion, thought/imagination, and individualism. Romanticism placed a strong emphasis on creative freedom and individual expression, as well as a celebration of nature and the wonders of the natural world. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order ; calm, harmony, balance, idealization and rationality that stereotypically thought out classicism in the 18th century.

Romanticism mood board –

Characteristics of romanticism –

A deepened appreciation of nature is an example of a characteristic which entails that romantic’s look at things with a lot more awe, they take in the natural beauty more then the regular person, appreciating it more. They have a deeper appreciation of the beauty of nature ; the idea of emotion over reason.

A deeper understanding of emotions and the connection of that to the natural world is another example of a characteristic and it means that romantics value and appreciate how beauty affects their emotions and are very in tune with feeling in a sense where a view or picture may make them feel emotions in a deeper way then most people.

The sublime

For Romantics, the sublime is a meeting of the subjective-internal (emotional) and the objective-external (natural world): we allow our emotions to overwhelm our rationality as we experience the wonder of creation.

Edmund Burke believed that the ruling principle of the sublime was terror. ~Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too … Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. ~Burke was interested in what happens to the self when assailed by that which seems to endanger its survival.

A landscape is all the visible features of an area of land, often considered in terms of aesthetic appeal ( nice to look at .) Landscape emerged during the renaissance in the 16th century but is said to have originated around 1826 – 1827 where the first landscape photograph was ever taken by a French inventor that went by the name Nicephorus Niepce.

Classical landscape art emerged during the 17th century however and eventually gained prominence in the late 18th century with the rise of romanticism, and often continued to carry a religious significance. Additionally, it became a method of self expression, with the emotions of the painter and their appreciation of nature demonstrated in the painting.

Mood board –

The origin –

People have been fascinated by landscapes long before photography technology came around. This is proved by the multiple hundreds of landscape Paintings that came before the technology of the time, was advanced enough to produce photographs. In the earliest days of landscape photography, technical issues meant that photographers were bound to work with blurry views, this was due to long exposure times because of the technology and it being not very advanced, which made any movement blurry. This made landscapes and cityscapes perfect material for there unadvanced camera exposures.

According to the records, the earliest known evidence of a landscape photograph was taken between the years of 1826 and 1827. It was an urban landscape photograph taken by a French inventor by the name of Nicephore Niepce. It was noted that the first exposure took him an astonishing 8 hours, which makes it understandable that he chose a still subject. A few years later, around 1835, an English Scientist named Henry Fox Talbot entered the scene and introduced innovations into photography.

It was quite revolutionary back then because this allowed people a much faster way of rendering reality into a two dimensional physical format that they were previously only able to do through painting, since the paining process took so much longer then taking a photo.

Frances Frith was a photographer from the 19th century, born and raised in England. He was most famous for his photographs of Egypt and the pyramids, he travelled around places like Egypt, Palestine, Jerusalem and other countries in the east to capture his photos. In Frith’s photographs he wanted to make the viewers feel like they were there with him and thought about how to bring to mind the feel of things for people who weren’t there to see what he did.