I took a photoshoot based in the area of St Clements near a few farms. I colour-coded my best images and edited them in a more detailed way. Some required more than others.

Whilst I was walking I came across an abandoned van that appeared to have been vacant for a long period of time. It had been vandalised quite badly however a thick blanket of greenery remained around it and looked as if it was slowly creeping inside as if it was trying to take over:

My first image is of the exterior of the van submerged in a large growth of weeds in the centre of the field. I wanted to shoot this image as I think that the greyscale look of the van has a high contrast against the greenery and accentuates it to appear more vibrant. I feel that this is a good example of how the abandonment of property and structure causes the natural landscape to grow around and within it, restricting it from truly moving freely and thrive as an ecosystem.

My second image is taken from inside of the van through one of the many smashed windows, looking onto the large mound of thorns. I wanted to shoot this image because I feel that it allows to see from a perspective that areas like this often are taken advantage of and forgotten about when it is right in front of us. I feel as if it symbolises that we should open our eyes more to acknowledge great natural spaces like this and how so much time is spent indoors when areas like this exist just outside the window.

In this image, I chose to position my camera diagonal to the drivers seat of the van in order to capture the entire area of plants behind. In this image, the drivers door is open, allowing the plants to struggle to creep in as there is nowhere else for them to go due to the restriction. I feel like the way the windshield is smashed symbolises how careless and reckless humanity is about the environment, crashing into this field through ignorance.

For this image, I rested my camera on the top of the leant back passengers seat to get a shot through the other smashed window. I chose to capture the high rise flats looking through the window peeking behind the greenery because it shows the urbanisation that takes over these great areas for a higher amount of housing.

This image is adjacent to the headlights of the van, facing towards two abandoned horses carts used for transporting them from farm to farm. I chose to shoot this as I wanted to include different pieces of abandoned property scattered around the greenery, poking out from behind. I like this image as the foreground consists of this bright crowd of plants however the trees in the background are sparse with leaves, bare and dull.

For this image, I used the rule of thirds to shoot 3 urban buildings poking out from behind the weeds and trees. I feel as if this represents the way that urbanisation is taking over, so much so that this natural space most likely won’t exist in a few years due to the forthcoming building plans that will be bound to come.

I wanted to shoot this image as I really liked the composition – the way the poison ivy is creeping down this eroded granite wall as these limestone and granite walls are everywhere to be seen in Jersey, something made from a natural resource that formed around 400 million years ago.

One of the main focuses and aspects I want to involve in my photoshoot on Anthropocene within Jersey is the way that man-made structures restrict the growth and nurturing of the natural landscape alongside the ecosystems that reside there. Alongside this, I would like to demonstrate how the fast pace of human development not only adds to this issue (e.g. disregarded, abandoned structures mean that plants cannot thrive in or around this area, causing them to dry out and die or swarm the structure and take over in an unnatural way), this increases the amount of waste production. Another issue I would like to address within the Anthropocene is pollution:

• Air pollution
• Water pollution
• Land pollution (e.g litter in town centres)

By doing this I hope to highlight how using man-made products/services for personal gain produces a selfish and harmful effect on the world in hundreds of different ways. This way, I’m pointing out the subtle problems that we walk by every single day nonchalantly when realistically, these factors build up and combine to damage the world as we stand by without realization.

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The first aspect I would like to photoshoot the derelict greenhouses located in the more rural/ countryside areas of the Island, for example in St Clements:

I am going to take inspiration from this image in George Marazakis work of ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’:

I am going to use artificial light e.g. from torches and get some of my friends to stand on the opposing side, behind the greenhouse. This way, the interior of the greenhouse will be reflected and visible through the glass to create an eerie yet mesmerizing feeling through the strange beauty of the shadows poking through. This way, not only will I be able to show more detail but I will be able to give the impression of a sunset/sunrise leaving it open to experimentation once I edit it in Lightroom.

The reason why I am taking this approach is also because derelict greenhouses around Jersey was used for tomato and potato farming around the island. However, due to mechanical and chemical-based farming, they are no longer in use as human development has leaned more towards using synthetic fertilizer. This is a technique that relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to boost yields and control pests, which can have negative impacts on the environment and human health but produces higher yields in the short-term due to greed. This leaves the greenhouses vacant to catch dirt and sit there, not allowing the environment to thrive, instead forcing it to decay. On the 20th of January 2023, the Chief Minister stated:

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

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

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The second way I would like to photoshoot the Anthropocene is pollution. In order to do this I am going to go into St Helier as this is the town centre and the most urban location on the island, being where the most people live. To look at land pollution I’m going to collect litter from my household, for example crisp packets and plastic bottles that I use. Then, I’m going to incorporate the natural landscape into it by photographing flowers and other plants coming out of the item which I am using. I would then like to piece this all together by placing it onto a black sheet and taking an image from above.

My concept behind this is to demonstrate how plastic is becoming more present within the natural landscape itself, being silently detrimental. For example, Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic each year. This causes intestinal injury and death, transferring plastic up the food chain to bigger fish and marine mammals. This results in a high percentage of microplastics being ingested by humans themselves due to the high content in the seafood being consumed. Whilst the accurate figure on how much plastic actually enters the ocean is uncertain, it is estimated that there are 100 million tonnes of plastic in oceans around the world.

This results in approximately 100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste alone, however many become trapped in the litter and get hurt alongside this in things such as beer tags, plastic water bottles and plastic bags. If a marine animal does become trapped in plastic, it has severe consequences of reduced mobility, starvation, drowning, or suffocation. Alongside this, it can cause the need for amputations, infections or growths, causing them to be less capable of finding food as well as being much more vulnerable to predators, causing an imbalance within the food chain. Animals often eat plastic because they are not always able to distinguish plastic from food. Organisms that are filter feeders (plankton, shellfish, baleen whales) or that live under the beach sand (lugworms) cannot make that distinction.

I would also like to highlight this issue because it demonstrates how the careless and selfish actions taken (littering and polluting the planet) has high consequences for humans themselves. Due to the high level of plastic in the ocean, this becomes consumed by an unknowing small fish, causing the microplastic ingested to travel up the food chain from prey to predator. Eventually, it reaches the seafood that we enjoy at home or in restaurants. In fact, studies have found that we eat about 52,000 particles annually, possibly 5 grams of microplastic per week – about the weight of a credit card. In 2022, it was found in a study that humans actually have microplastics in their blood due to high exposure to this pollution – 77% of people who were tested had microplastics in their bloodstream. This high hazard of mismanaged waste approximately kills 1 million people annually.

When plastics end up in the environment, they can bind with these pollutants, including persistent organic toxins such as PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls) and dioxins, both of which are not only very resistant to degradation but can also accumulate in animal fats and tissues. This means that the plastic will not break down and decompose over time, only gets broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. However, the particles do not actually degrade.

“While I was photographing the landscapes affected by human interactions in the middle of natural spaces, the topography started looking like a body to me – like something with the early stages of psoriasis on its skin,”

George Marazakis was born in 1976 in Creta Island, Greece and currently lives with his wife and their son in Heraklion, Greece. He studied Mechanical Engineering and currently works for the Greek Ministry of Justice, however he shoots images relating to the Anthropocene in rural, vacant areas that have been abandoned by society in his work of ‘A Cure for Anthropocene’. These areas are scarce, forgotten about and become consumed by nature warping around the structure, mostly due to society progressing through the years at such a fast rate that the area/ structure is no longer needed yet still leaves a mark and impact on the environment around it, restricting growth and areas for ecosystems to thrive in.

Marazakis’ work contains an ominous tone brought along by a muted colour scheme that is grounded by a great clouds of mist and smoke overlooking the subject of his images, giving an extra terrestrial feeling. His images are taken in the Winter early mornings or late afternoon of Greece, dusk or dawn, so that the sky is reaching a pastel colour due to the sun either rising or setting out of the frame as it is uncommon for overcast days to appear here. This minimalistic viewpoint highlights the issue of air pollution, not just in urbanised locations but also the growth of it within the countryside, places which are idealised as areas of a country with the healthiest natural spaces. This is due to the rising growth in populations across the world meaning that there is a decline in housing available in city centres, so much that people are having to move further and further away from civilisation and taking over these ‘vacant’ areas. Alongside this, it demonstrates the critical issue of climate degredation in hopes of finding some sort of ‘cure’ to draw back all of the vast mistakes humanity has made over many years to try and guide the globe back to a healthier state.

“If human civilization is in fact a disease, then it can also be the cure. But if the cure to the planet’s disease isn’t self-restriction, it will result in self-extermination. After all, the salvation of the planet is a different concept than the salvation of humanity.”

Analysis of his work:

This wide-angled image taken on a large format camera is taken in the early morning when the sun is rising or when it is about to set, due to the gradually lightening blue above the greenhouse, giving an ombre effect. The orange glow behind the greenhouse appears like the orange of the sun however artificial light has also been placed on the opposite side to enhance this effect so that the detail inside is revealed at a higher contrast. The dead grass in the foreground shows how neglected this area is, the dullness contrasting against the colour in the sky above. Along the glass windows, there are subtle white streaks streaming down, showing that this greenhouse has been abandoned for a long period of time, getting dirtier and more neglected while it faces the elements. Within the greenhouse, there are large twisting figures, most likely left behind crops that had been planted and left behind. Traditionally, greenhouses were main sources of producing fruit and vegetables and were in use all over the world. However, due to the fast-pace at which new technologies are created, the use of greenhouses died out due to the rise in artificial processing and growth of vegetables and therefore left them abandoned. The loneliness of the image creates an ominous atmosphere for the viewer, creating a moment of peacefulness alongside impending anxiety of how quickly society moves on and progresses, faster than it ever has before.

This image has really intrigued me as I feel that it has a very different take on the Anthropocene – instead of showing these compact, busy, urbanised areas, Marazkis’ shows the abandoned and neglected side of it, the side that is acting like a silent killer and restricting nature from thriving. In one of my photoshoots, I would really like to focus my attention on this aspect of the Anthropocene, specifically the greenhouses of Jersey located in St Clements. Greenhouses used to be used frequently for growing Jersey’s tomatoes however have been left to blur into the background due to importation of goods from other countries becoming an easy route.

“My earliest understanding of deep time and our relationship to the geological history of the planet came from my passion for being in nature.”

Edward Burtynsky OC RCA, born February 22nd 1955 (aged 69), is a Canadian photographer and artist best known for his large format photographs of the industrialisation of natural landscapes. His work depicts the notably developed locations around the world which have been affected the most by human influence through things such as pollution, over-population and over-farming. He acts as an advocate for the urgent environmental conservation needed, deeply entwining his work with the scars left by industrial capitalism and vividly revealing the environmental devastation not only in remote areas but cityscapes too. Burtynsky’s work is most oftenly connected to the concept of the sublime, established by the grand scale he works on as well as the disturbing context of rapid industrialisation.

Born in St Catharines, Ontario, his father was a Ukrainian immigrant who sought employment from the largest production line at the time – General Motors. When Edward was just 11 years old, his father purchased a darkroom alongside cameras from a widow who’s late husband was an amateur photographer, sparking an interest in him as a young boy. Given rolls of Tri-X and adapting to black and white print, he began to photograph events and take portraits of people at his local Ukranian community centre. Gathering 50 cents from each image he took, he spent his time travelling along his hometown capturing the pristine landscapes of his childhood which would later lead him into his interest of the natural landscape of destinations around the globe. Continuing into his early career, he formally studied graphic arts and photography until he received his diploma in Niagara College in Ohio. Not initially considering to carry on down the path of higher education, he eventually led onto a four-year undergraduate course, receiving his Bachelors in Photographic Arts, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Ohio, 1982. His earliest work resides in colour of locations across Ontario and Western Canada at the Ryerson’s university’s image centre. These images carry heavy influence from Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Carleton Watkins. Some of his earliest original landscape photographs such as Landscape Study #1, North Carolina, USA (1979) and Landscape Study #2, Ontario, Canada (1981) served as portfolio submissions for Ryerson and displayed traces of his early exploration into the main themes of his work: human control over nature.

Now, Burtynsky used to take his photographs using a large format field camera before 2007 on large 4×5 inch sheet film, his editions ranging from 18 × 22 inches to 60 × 80 inches. Typically, his images are based at high-vantage points using natural topography, drones, helicopters or just elevated platforms. He currently uses a high-resolution digital medium format camera.

The Anthropocene Project:

The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work of three collaborating photographers: Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier. Not only does it involve a photobook of the images which capture humanity’s scarring on the landscapes of the globe in a sublime nature, but includes a major travelling museum exhibition, a feature-length documentary film and an interactive educational website to raise awareness of the consequences of civilisations radicalised consumerism. This project was launched in September 2018, combining scientific research with art to capture the most spectacular evidence of human influence, while taking time to reflect on the deeper meaning of what these profound transformations signify.

“We hope to bring our audience to an awareness of the normally unseen result of civilization’s cumulative impact upon the planet. This is what propels us to continue making the work. We feel that by describing the problem vividly, by being revelatory and not accusatory, we can help spur a broader conversation about viable solutions. We hope that, through our contribution, today’s generation will be inspired to carry the momentum of this discussion forward, so that succeeding generations may continue to experience the wonder and magic of what life, and living on Earth, has to offer.” – Edward Burtynsky

His other exhibitions:

• 1983–1985 Breaking Ground: Mines, Railcuts and Homesteads, Canada, USA
• 1991–1992 Vermont Quarries, USA
• 1997–1999 Urban Mines: Metal Recycling, Canada Tire Piles, USA
• 1993–Carrara Quarries, Italy
• 1995–1996 Tailings, Canada
• 1999-2010 Oil Canada, China, Azerbaijan, USA
• 2000–Makrana Quarries, India
• 2000–2001 Shipbreaking, Bangladesh
• 2004–2006 China
• 2006–Iberia Quarries, Portugal
• 2007–Australian Mines, Western Australia
• 2009–2013 Water Canada, USA, Mexico, Europe, Asia, Iceland, India
• 2016 Salt Pans
• 2014–2018 Anthropocene

Analysis of his work:

Edward Burtynsky’s image Ivory Tusks was shot on April 25, Nairobi, Kenya, 2016. The ideology behind this image is burning ivory tusks in order to prevent poaches from killing wild animals such as rhinos and elephants to sell these tusks and profit from inhumane acts. In the image, several roaring orange flames are captured swaying to the right making the image have a murky auburn tone to the overall atmosphere, setting a tone of anger and frustration. It involves the nature of the sublime due to the dangerous yet somewhat beautiful formation of the flames. The image includes a lot of detail and colour, producing a motion blur through the use of a slow shutter speed on a large format camera. This forces the viewer to adamantly sit by and watch the consequences of humanity’s greed and feel the guilt of how extreme it has become. The clouds of smoke bring an ominous tone throughout the image, filling the dark night time sky with anger and mystery. This provides a soft flow in the air contrasted against the uneven gravel scattered across the floor, symbolising how the burning of the tusks releases the animals from the impending deaths they would’ve had.

The Anthropocene is a geological unit of time, continually describing the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity began to have a significant impact until now. It takes into account the effects on the Earth’s geology, landscape, climate, limnology and ecosystems. This geologic time scale is split into hierarchical series of smaller lengths of time, descending in length of time: eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. These units of time are composed through the classification of the Earth’s rock layers and the fossils found within them. Through this, scientists can examine the correlation between the certain organism’s characteristics of the certain parts of the geologic record – stratigraphy.

The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human (‘anthropo’) and new (‘cene’), but its definition is controversial. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer. The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old while humans have been here for a much smaller scale, yet irreversible influence has taken place on biodiversity and nature, fundamentally altering the Earth’s physical, chemical and biological code. In the last 60 years, the Great Acceleration has began. This is a term used for the increasing rate at which human impacts are unfolding at an unprecedented scale and speed, causing the globe to deteriorate and become more modified, spiralling downwards. Being the most influential species of the planet, human behaviour has created a snowball effect of significant impacts not only for other ecosystems or species but ourselves too. Just a few of these are:

• Carbon dioxide emissions,
• Global warming,
• Ocean acidification,
• Habitat destruction,
• Extinction,
• Widescale natural resource extraction,
• An increase in extremeness and frequency of severe weather conditions e.g earthquakes, tornados and storms

In photography, the scientific research of The Anthropocene is used to document and investigate the substantial impact humans actions have had on the state, dynamic and future of the planet. The burning of trees releases carbon however, when all the other trees have been destroyed for urbanization, there aren’t any nearby to take in this carbon and revert it. As a result, this carbon goes up into the atmosphere and begins to create holes in the ozone layer. This then provides the sun to be able to get its harmful rays in even stronger as the ozone layer acts as protection. This heats up the globe and continues our path down global warming. Alongside this, the burning of fossil fuels releases harmful toxins which contribute to this issue which is a result of the constant redevelopment of areas around the globe. This is a continuous cycle, especially in over-populated cities in countries such as Tokyo, Mumbai and Manila, causing people to begin moving out into the countryside/ more vacant areas further from the city to compensate for this, resulting in further destruction of natural spaces contributing to the growth of climate change. For example, in 2014 the global population was 7.3 billion however it is now 8.1 billion. If civilisation doesn’t move towards more sustainable lifestyles such as the refusal of consistently burning fossil fuels, even more dramatic changes could occur which could be incredibly life-threatening for the human species too, as if it is nature taking its revenge.

The opposing side of The Anthropocene epoch is The Symbiocene, a vision created by scholar Glenn Albrecht.This is an idea to stimulate all humans to create a future where positive Earth emotions will prevail over negative aspects, allowing the period of reintegration between humans and the rest of nature to begin. Some principles of this are:

• The full elimination of toxic-to-life substances,
• The complete and safe biodegradability of all materials in human use (e.g plastic)
• Exploitation of non-polluting forms of safe, renewable energy,
• Priority use of the renewable resources of locality and regions,

The idea of all materials becoming biodegradable is one of the many vital aspects at the moment. It is estimated there is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our oceans at the moment, meaning that there would approximately be 46,000 pieces in every square mile of ocean. The weight of this on land would amount to about 269,000 tonnes. Not only is this incredibly harmful to sea life and even species on land, but once this is ingested by the fish we eat it ends up in our own food.

Nearly one-quarter of the world’s plastic waste is mismanaged or littered. Around 82 million tonnes. This means it’s not stored in secure landfills, recycled or incinerated. One-quarter of that – 19 million tonnes – is leaked to the environment. 13 million tonnes to terrestrial environments, and 6 million tonnes to rivers or coastlines. 1.7 million tonnes of this is then transported to the ocean: 1.4 million tonnes from rivers, and 0.3 million tonnes from coastlines. The rest of the plastic waste that was leaked into aquatic environments accumulated in rivers and lakes.

https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-plastic-waste-ends-up-in-the-ocean

Mood Board:

-The Anthropocene Project

I went through each of my images and rejected the ones that were blurry, angled in an awkward way or lack the detail that I wanted to capture. I created images of my own, however I also created responses to my artist references: Bernd & Hilla Becher and Joe Deal.

Contact Sheets:

I created virtual copies of my favourites so that I could experiment with them in black and white alongside other tones and temperatures.

My Best Images:

(Bernd and Hilla Becher inspired images)

This image would be my favourite as I think the light has hit off the metal so perfectly so it didn’t require much editing. I think the composition has worked together well too by zooming in on a smaller area of these structures.

Joe Deal inspired images:

In this image I chose to shoot a construction site against a modern house as I feel this shows how modernisation is taking over from typical buildings and structures.

My own:

I took this image as I liked the contrast of the new modernized building behind an older, more timely structure as its a prime example of how society progresses.

Similarly, I shot this image with the same idea behind it. This structure used to be a part of an old railway track flowing around the island however, they are no longer is use. I wanted to capture this as there is black graffiti on the bench showing the change in timeline. I also wanted to do this as people would usually just walk past the many of these huts located around the island without even acknowledging the history behind it.

Similarly, I liked the contrast in this image with the new modern flats in the background of an obviously old wall as it shows the fast progression we have as a society. It shows the rise of modernisation.

‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.

Bernhard “Bernd” Becher and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (1931–2007; 1934–2015) were a married collaborative duo of German conceptual artists and photographers. In the forty years in which they worked together, they are best known for their extensive focuses on the disappearing industrial structures and buildings, often arranging them into grid formats. They are said to have changed the course of late twentieth- century photography and pioneering the thought behind these industrial spaces being something made, artifacts frozen in time to tell a story of history.

They originally began working together in 1959 after meeting each other at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd began as a painter whilst Hilla was a trained commercial photographer, marrying after two years. The documentary style of their images were of water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories just to name a few, presented in black and whit in the form of typologies. These images never including people and just focused on the industrial structure. These images focused on Western Europe and North America where the modern era was fuelled. The Becher’s tended to call the subjects of their work ‘anonymous sculptures’, leading to this referral, and produced a very successful photobook of these images in 1970. This meant that in 1990, they received an award at the Venice Biennale for sculpture due to the powerful ability they had to illustrate the sculptural properties of architecture in such an aesthetic way. The themes represented in their work was commonly about overlooked beauty and compiling an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function. This addressed the effect of industry on the economy and environment.

Typologies:

a set of images made with a common subject or idea in mind, repeated through out the set. 

One of the first photographic typological studies was by the German photographer August Sander, whose epic project ‘People of the 20th Century’. He produced a large volume of portraits entitled ‘The Face of Our Time’ in 1929. Sander categorised his portraits according to their profession and social class. This methodical and disciplined approach later influenced many other photographers at an enormous scale, notably Bernd and Hilla Becher. Each image is replicated in a consistent style, shooting from the exact same angle and distance from the same building, documenting how the building would change over time going unnoticed. This not only makes the viewer become more considerate of their surroundings, but question the subject’s reasoning/place in the world. It also invokes questioning revolving around the rate at which we develop as a society – for example these industrial structures are being taken down for developments to move towards urbanization and modernization. Bernd and Hilla Becher also used this technique to group images together of structures that had similar styles, just with size differentiations, yet still keeping that structure consistent throughout the grid. Each subject has a relationship with the other.

They used a large-format camera and carefully positioned it under overcast skies. This was necessary to record shadowless front and side elevation views of their subjects in a deadpan way.

Their key pieces of work began with their first photobook in 1970 named ‘Anonymous Sculptures’, being their most well-known piece. The title was chosen through not only the referral of their images as ‘sculptures’ but due to Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades:

This noted that the Bechers acted as if these industrial pieces of history were like found objects. This photobook acted like an encyclopaedic inventory, documenting kilns, blast furnaces and gas-holders, categorising them into their related sections.

Bernd and Hilla’s work left a legacy that led to influence minimalist and conceptual artists such as:

• Ed Ruscha
• Carl Andre
• Douglas Huebler

Alongside being photographers themselves, they were also professors at The Dusseldorf School of Photography, continuing to influence their German students such as Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth. Bernd died on June 22, 2007 in Rostock, Germany, while Hilla died on October 15, 2015 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Today, their works are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Gallery in London.

“The Great Plains of North America exists for me both as a physical landscape and as an idea, or internal landscape” – Joe Deal

Joe Maurice Deal was an American landscape photographer, who became one of the ten founding photographers of specializing in depicting how the landscape of the earth had been transformed by people. Born in Topeka, Kansas on August 12, 1947, Deal attended the Kansas City Art Institute where he subsequently earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. After his graduation in 1970, Deal worked as a janitor and guard at at the George Eastman House in New York within its museum of photography instead of enrolling in the military. This led to him receiving his Masters degree in photography alongside his Masters of Fine Arts degree in the University of New Mexico, paving his way to becoming one of the participants in the movement of New Topographics.

During the mid-70s, Joe Deal was chosen for an exhibition, alongside 9 other photographers, curated by William Jenkins named “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. This was an exhibition focusing on the effects human beings as a society have on the landscape and furthermore, the globe. Deal contributed 18 black and white photographs in a 32 cm × 32 cm format, submitting newly constructed homes against the desolate landscape of the American Southwest. These housing developments were presented at various stages of completion, using indicators of development from newly-laid roads with construction materials spread nearby, adjacent to mounds of dirt and other piles of destroyed plants.

“anthropological rather than critical, scientific rather than artistic.” – William Jenkins

Joe Deal and his colleagues rejected Romanticism from their predecessors and aimed to achieve a realistic and straightforward document of contemporary society by using emotional indifference. Through square formatting, viewers could read the landscape as if it was traces of human decision-making. The moments of too-perfect symmetry in the patterns of rocks and bushes expose the landscaping as unnatural. Joe Deal photographed suburban development in the form of construction sites which become contrasted against the large piles of refuse and empty lots regularly shown in these images that suggest the wastefulness of abandoned projects. By framing the land in this way, he created a space where his viewers must consider the cost of rapid growth in the fragile desert and how dangerously this would be impacting these natural spaces that should be protected and preserved.

 Analysis:

Joe Deal’s work actively focused on the destruction of these natural spaces due to the inclusion of construction sites against the decaying deserts with rubble and waste discreetly scattered around. The angle of the camera looking above and over this area whilst using a 32 cm × 32 cm format causes the viewer to face and understand the uneasy coexistence of man and nature along the San Andreas Fault in Southern California. This was a key feature continued through into his portfolio of images, “The Fault Zone,” in which he created after his huge success within the “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” by William Jenkins. His worked acted revolutionary towards Romanticism and ideas of The Sublime in landscape photography. In a monotone way, Deal presented tract houses, industrial sites, motel, warehouses and highway projects in a deadpan and uninflected style, looking at these spaces straight on. The mundane style of this image, this desolate areas guided by three homes with a dividing road resonates with climate change and global warming as it depicts how humans are consistently “having a want for more”, urbanizing and emptying these natural spaces, blankly showing society the personal intrusion we do consciously or unconsciously. The scattered construction materials discreetly point out to the viewer, unmanipulated, alongside the tire marks swirling around on the grass, giving evidence of human interruption. The housing is shown in a more accurate 3D form through the shot being taken from a high angle, contrasting against the harsh decaying bushes surrounding, patchy and destroyed. The black and white gives a large tonal range, resembling Ansel Adams’ work, appearing perfectly exposed. The image brings a lot of sharp and fine detail taken in daylight yet even though it is quite far away, the long depth of field captures it at a wide angle. The cropped section of grass laid out purposefully at the back of the house, being the focal point, appears wilted and especially sparse being left to be destroyed by the next building development.

A few of his other exhibitions:

In these images, Deal took these images on the concept of geology and land use however are seen to be memorable from their beautiful composition and structures rather than subject matter.

In West and West: Reimagining the Great Plains, Deal used a gird format once again. In this series, Joe Deal captured much of the Midwestern United States which led to it being exhibited at University of Arizona’s Centre for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. This series opened at Rhode Island School of Design which led to it being presented again at being presented at New York City’s Robert Mann’s Gallery. This image gives a clear notification towards the work of Roger Fenton in his series of the Valley of the Shadow of Death due to their composition. The resemblance between the two is very obvious, and has connotations towards how the landscape changes over the years.

Subdividing the Inland Basin featured suburban areas east of Los Angeles, tending to include people within the landscape. This is a notification towards the way humans almost ‘conquer’ the landscape, for example in this image this is done through graffiti as if society claims these beautiful things only to destroy them in a selfish way.

“Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape”

New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. These photographs captured a site of interaction between humans and the non-human, nature, and how the rapidly increasing population growth in countries produces new housing developments which are moving further and further away from city centres, taking over the countryside. New Topographics reflected this suburbanisation and reacted to the idealized image of landscape photography in a world where the ideal image of nature had simply been altered due to mankind. William Jenkins curated this as a signalled new approach to Landscape photography. The ten photographers who used this approach were:

• Robert Adams
• Nicholas Nixon
• Lewis Baltz
• Frank Gohkle
• Joe Deal
• Henry Wessel
• John Schott
• Stephen Shore
• Bernd Becher
• Hilla Becher

These photographers signalled the radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape photography and revealed the stark industrial views around us, scenes we go by every day unconsciously aware of them. They documented these suburban areas such as housing, warehouses and even car parks, depicted in the same way that these countryside areas were captured – beautiful stark austerity. Not only did this cause people to be more consciously aware of the reality of our environments, filled with man-made structures, but it also raised a daring concern and worry on how humans had been eroded natural spaces with industrialisation. An exhibition that helped with this awareness was The International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers.

This documentation of combined natural and man-made structures in America also captured the tension between natural scenery and monotonous structures of post World War Two. These images were often stark of human presence, described to be “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion” by Jenkins himself. The American Landscape being photographed in such a casual and common place without beautification opens peoples eyes to the unnoticed and how much society progresses. By foregrounding, rather than erasing human presence, the photographs placed people into a stance of responsibility towards the landscape’s future. This was a position that resonated with ecology, the branch of environmental thought that was gaining traction in the 1970s.

Through square formatting, viewers could read the landscape as if it was traces of human decision-making. Moments of too-perfect symmetry in the patterns of rocks and bushes expose the landscaping as unnatural. Joe Deal photographed suburban development in the form of construction sites which become contrasted against the large piles of refuse and empty lots regularly shown in these images that suggest the wastefulness of abandoned projects. By framing the land in this way, Deal creates a space where his viewers must consider the cost of rapid growth in the fragile desert and how dangerously this would be impacting these natural spaces that should be protected and preserved.

Climate Change:

The message of climate change and global warming is invoked within these images. Due to the mundane showings of our society’s continuous and persistent growth further and further into industrialisation, it causes the viewer to question our actions. To create these spaces for urbanisation, trees and plants must be destroyed in order to create the largest space possible to allow the largest amount of houses to be developed for example. This is due to the constant growing population rates in countries, especially after World War Two where many people, especially Jewish, were occupied in Nazi Germany. Those who didn’t pass away were returning to their homeland to re-join with their families. Alongside this, the aftermath of World War Two brought:

• Inflation and labour unrest – a large economic concern
• The baby boom and suburbia – millions of people had died and lost family or friends. Veterans were finally free to make up for lost time, get married and begin their family.
• Isolation and mental health issues – Many people had lost family and were alone, PTSD from returning veterans

The returning people who fought for the country were various ages, especially those whose life had only begun due to being such a young age, were returning to begin families of their own after being away for 6 years of their lives already – resulting in ‘The Baby Boom’. This resulted in immediate new housing developments which began a spark, still continuing to this day where there is constantly a need for more. The burning of trees releases carbon however, when all the other trees have been destroyed for urbanization, there aren’t any nearby to take in this carbon and revert it. As a result, this carbon goes up into the atmosphere and begins to create holes in the ozone layer. This then provides the sun to be able to get its harmful rays in even stronger as the ozone layer acts as protection. This heats up the globe and continues our path down global warming. Alongside this, the burning of fossil fuels releases harmful toxins which contribute to this issue which is a result of the constant redevelopment of areas around the globe.

During an exhibition of New Topographics, some comments made were:

“I don’t like them—they’re dull and flat. There’s no people, no involvement, nothing.”

“At first it’s stark nothing, but then you look at it, and it’s just about the way things are.” 

“I don’t like to think there are ugly streets in America, but when it’s shown to you—without beautification—maybe it tells you how much more we need here.”

However, it causes viewers to rethink their choices and decisions when taking advantage of what is already there and what is genuinely needed against what is not once you really look at the image.

I took a series of images focusing on the damages around the island from Storm Ciaran however I also took images that involved Romanticism and the Sublime.

My Inspiration from the Storm:

Photoshoot:

I focused on the area of St Clements for my photoshoot as it was one of the areas in Jersey that was affected the most severely therefore it would still have damage and debris around.

Photoshoot 1 best images:

For these images I focused on the surrounding areas of a row of fields as I felt that this would be an area where there would be not only a lot of damage from the storm but also many different locations and perspectives to find.

For most of my images I created virtual copies of them and made them black & white to represent Ansel Adams’ work as his were also monochrome. I also feel that this shows the distinct and unique forms that the branches take on due to the strength of the wind. I really liked this area as there was a combination of natural and man-made resources, as well as many twisting branches varying in size. Many of them twisted forwards so I positioned the camera in certain angles the create depth in the image. For some of my images I used HDR to combine 3 images so that the exposure was suitable, this also resulted in the images looking more vibrant by saturating the green tones more. However, this wasn’t necessary for all images as I wanted some to have a more pastel shade such as in the sky as I feel that this creates a calming and tranquil tone for the viewer, representing ‘the calm after the storm’. As well as this, in the majority of my images I used the graduated filter to create a smoother gradient from the top of the image through to the middle, then increasing or decreasing the contrast.

Photoshoot 2 best images:

For these images I chose to go into a more public space. This was a pile of chopped wood from trees that had fallen down and been piled up on top of each other. I really liked the way they had been placed and all the details that would’ve been hidden within the tree have been exposed that wouldn’t normally be shown. I also liked the way some smaller pieces had rolled off as the position each of them have landed in makes it look intentional yet relaxed. I created some blank and white versions of these images too because I wanted to show aspects of Ansel Adams work in my own.

I created an idea using Photoshop, keeping the main part of the image in colour and the background in black and white. This adds more vibrancy to the orange/brown tones and makes each layer stand out more.