For this photoshoot, we went to St Malo for a day in order to photograph the different buildings and take pictures of people without manipulating their poses/ what they were doing by not making them aware they were being photographed. The aim was to mimic the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the decisive moment. To do this, we ensured that we didn’t try to bring attention to ourselves or get people to purposefully pose for a photograph as the goal was to capture natural, real behaviours. However, sometimes this wasn’t possible due to people spotting the camera and then asking for photographs or changing their behaviour. When we visited, it was quite cloudy which meant we had to adjust the camera to cloudy mode. Additionally, we wanted to test out using different shutter speeds in order to get movement in our images. To do this, we lowered the shutter speed which allowed us to capture the movement of different things eg people and vehicles. On the other hand, if we wanted a sharp, in focus images, we increased the shutter speed.

In order to minimise down the many photographs we had taken, we imported them into Lightroom then began by giving each image either a white flag (if we wanted to use them) or a black flag (if we didn’t want to use them). This narrowed it down by a half approximately but there were still too many. So, next I ranked each of the images out of 5 stars (5 being the best and 1 being the worst). Once I had completed this, I then selected the filter button and made it so I could only see the images with 3+ stars. Finally, to finish narrowing down my selection I assigned each of my images a colour: green (I wanted to use as a final image), orange (potentially use) and red (not going to use).

With people

Once I had narrowed down all of my images, I then gathered all of my images with people in and put them into a folder. I then used Lightroom to adjust each of my images eg the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites and colour hue, saturation and luminance. These were my final outcomes:

Overall, I like how these images came out as I think I manged to successfully photograph some decisive moments where people were acting naturally and unaware they were being photographed. However, I also liked the images were people were aware of the camera and looked at it/ posed as I feel from each image you get a slight insight into that persons life and highlighted to me how different everyone is.

Black and white

Finally, I decided to turn some of my favourite images black and white. I think these images are good as the people are acting naturally and not looking into the camera. Its also interesting to see the different types of emotions people were displaying whilst I was taking the photograph. I think the image with the lady holding the umbrella is mysterious as you cant see any of her face and I like how she is in focus and the background isn’t. This brings the attention to her yet the viewer cant work out anything more about who she is or what she looks like due to the umbrella covering her. Additionally, I think the image with the man holding the dog is interesting to look at due to the lady’s facial expression which makes you curious as to what they were talking about in order for her to produce that reaction. Finally, I think the last two photos are good due to the framing of the people due to the trees on the bottom left image and the unique positioning of the people in the bottom right image (as usually the people are in the centre of the image but this time they’re to the right). Finally, they are both in good focus and sharp.

Without people

I then put all of the images without people in into another folder. Next, I edited all of the photographs the same way I did for the ‘with people’ images.

I think this photoshoot was good as I managed to capture a wide variety of different buildings from a range of different angles. For example, in some of my images I zoomed out quite far in order to get the whole building/ street in but in others, I zoomed up into certain parts of the buildings. Additionally, some of my photographs were taken from head on but some were taken from a side angle. This helped to create more variety in my work and make it more interesting to look at. Most of my images had high focus and sharpness. However, one problem I encountered whilst taking my photographs was that due to the sky being cloudy, it meant that lots of my images looked quite dull where the sky was. I tried to minimise this by using the burn tool on photoshop and experiment around with the colour section on Lightroom in order to enhance the blue in the sky.

Black and white

Finally, I made some of my images black and white. I think these images turned out well and create more of a gloomier atmosphere. They’re in good focus and sharp/clear.

Mood Board

Henri Cartier-Bresson key themes of photography:

Physical pleasure

Extension of the eye

Focuses on connecting humanity

How does Henri Cartier-Bresson view the activity of photography?

“To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It’s a way of life.” “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which gave that event its proper expression.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson described the “Decisive Moment” as the exact instance when a unique event is captured by the photographer – when something that may never happen again is frozen in the frame.

Biography

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment.

Henri was educated in Paris and developed an early love for literature and the arts. His great-grandfather had been artist and an uncle was a noted printer. His father also dabbled in drawing.

In 1927 he began a two-year stint studying painting under noted early Cubist, André Lhote, then moved to Cambridge University to immerse himself further in art and literature courses. Sparked by the avant-garde scene enveloping Paris, and fresh from his release from the Army, which had stationed him just outside Paris, Cartier-Bresson travelled to Africa in 1931 to hunt antelope and boar. However, he eventually grew tired of the sport and gave it up. But Africa did fuel another interest in him: photography. He experimented with a simple Brownie he’d received as a gift, taking pictures of the new world around him. For Cartier-Bresson there were direct parallels between his old passion and his new one.

“I adore shooting photographs,” he’d later note. “It’s like being a hunter. But some hunters are vegetarians—which is my relationship to photography.” In short, as his frustrated editors would soon discover, Cartier-Bresson preferred taking shots rather than making prints and showing his work.

Upon returning to France later that year, Cartier-Bresson purchased his first 35mm Leica, a camera whose simple style and stunning results would help define the photographer’s work.

Throughout his life, he made clear his disdain for the augmented image, one that had been enhanced by artificial light, dark room effects, even cropping. The naturalist in Cartier-Bresson believed that all edits should be done when the image was made. 

The decisive moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson described the decisive moment as the exact instance when a unique event is captured by the photographer – when something that may never happen again is frozen in the frame.

The concept of the decisive moment implies that in the constant flow of events, there are moments in which the arrangement of everything within the frame is perfect. These moments are always spontaneous, so a photographer must be ready to click right away. As part of capturing the decisive moment, Henri took photographs of people who weren’t aware they were being photographed in order to capture their real behaviour instead of them becoming aware of the camera and changing what they’re doing/ how they are posing.

For example, in this image the decisive moment is the two people looking at each other. You can clearly see that they aren’t aware that they are currently being taken a picture of and are solely focussed on one another, showing their real, natural behaviour. Therefore, this is a good example of the decisive moment as there is no manipulation or pre determined poses, he simply captured what he saw in the moment. I also like this image as there is a clear contrast between the people and the background as the background consists of lighter shades of grey whereas the two people are dark grey/ black.

Throughout the time I have spent learning and researching about Anthropocene, I feel like I have gained a good understanding on the topic and understand what the word means (human kinds impact on the Earths natural environment). For my Anthropocene project, I decided to focus on urbanisation, industrialisation, overpopulation, natural landscapes and artificial animal habitats. For urbanisation and overpopulation. I decided to take photographs of what I saw whilst in central London, to which I captured many buildings all clustered together and crowds of people everywhere. This highlighted to me how severely humankind have expanded and built on the earth; stripping it of its natural beauty. Additionally, for industrialisation, I went down to Havre Des Pas and carried on walking along the side of it until I reached La Collette. From here, I took photographs of the incinerator and waste disposal building. Next, for the natural landscape images, I visited various beaches/ cliffsides around Jersey and photographed the view. I decided to take these images as a way to spread hope for future generations and hopefully inspire people to help them realise that we can have this natural beauty and beautiful views if we stop harming the planet so much. Finally, I took photographs of different animals in their artificial habitats in the zoo. This idea was inspired by Zed Nelson who does something similar and I found it ironic how humans are stripping animals of their real, natural environments in order to put them in artificial ones, simply so we can be entertained.

Urbanisation and industrialisation

Overall, I like how these images came out as they are in focus and the majority have good lighting. The images with lots of buildings stacked on top of each other was inspired by Giacomo Costa. I felt this linked to the theme of Anthropocene as it is almost exaggerating further how overbuilt and crowded our planet is. However, this may not be an exaggeration but a reality for what our planet is going to look like in the future if we don’t stop building and expanding so much. I then decided to further experiment with this idea by adding a crack like shape into the centre of the image and then adding one of my natural landscape images behind it, creating a clear comparison between the two different types of landscapes. Finally, I wanted to further emphasise the difference between the two landscapes and so I decided to make the building layer black and white then the natural landscape layer coloured.

Artificial habitats

This photoshoot was inspired by Zed Nelson. In order to create these photographs, I went to different zoos in London and Jersey. I then focused on taking photographs of animals with unnatural backgrounds eg paintings of real landscapes or artificial lights. I tried to place my camera as close to the glass as possible in order to minimise any glare or reflections but this wasn’t always possible. However, I think having some of the images with visible glare/ reflection is successful in reminding the people who are looking at these images that these animals are stuck behind glass and in cages, restricting them from the real world. Therefore, by reminding people of the conditions these animals are in, it may lead to people wanting to help them and hopefully provoking positive changes. I think these images turned out well as the focus and detail is good and I think it successfully replicates the work of Zed Nelson and links to the theme of Anthropocene by highlighting how humans are destroying animals natural habitats just to recreate them in an artificial way.

Natural landscapes

For this photoshoot, I wanted to capture the natural beauty of the Earth. These images were taken in many different places like Norway, France and Jersey. I decided to take these more positive images as a way to bring hope to people who are looking at them. By highlighting the natural beauty our planet already has, it may hopefully cause a realisation for people that by building such vast amounts of buildings, we are hiding beautiful views. I also wanted to capture some manmade structures in some of my images to portray the idea that we can live simultaneously together and it doesn’t mean that humans should just demolish everything we’ve built but instead compromise and protect certain places from being built on and destroyed. Overall, I think this photoshoot came out well as I think I managed to successfully capture the beauty of the landscapes I was photographing. Some of my images were also inspired by Ansel Adams and romanticism as I turned the images black and white and manipulated the sky into making the clouds more prominent and powerful, creating a different kind of vibe to the image.

AI photography refers to a form of photography that utilises artificial intelligence to either generate new images or enhance existing ones that mimic real photographs. One of the most exciting applications of AI-generated photography is the creation of synthetic photo studios. It’s particularly remarkable for its capability to create virtual photo studios. These digital environments empower photographers to produce realistic images without physical studios or equipment, offering flexibility in location, lighting, backgrounds, and subjects, without the typical logistical challenges of traditional photo shoots.

AI-powered tools can analyse photographs and calculate optimal exposure, correct colours, and adjust shadows, among other enhancements. These tools aim to streamline the photo culling and editing process, offering faster and more customised processing and adjustments.

How Does AI Improve Your Photography?

AI can improve the way photographers capture images by making post-processing less time-consuming and more focused on capturing shots. Here are some examples:

1) AI-powered autofocus systems can help photographers take sharper and more in-focus images, even in challenging situations. This can free up photographers to focus on other aspects of composition and lighting.

2) AI-powered noise reduction can help photographers reduce noise in images, especially those taken in low-light conditions. This can make images look cleaner and more professional, without having to spend hours in post-processing.

3) AI-powered image-upscaler can help photographers upscale low-resolution images to higher resolutions. This can be useful for printing photographers’ images or for displaying them on large screens.

4) AI-powered style transfer can help photographers transfer the style of one image to another. This can be a fun way to create unique and creative images, without having to spend a lot of time in post-processing.

5) AI-powered background removal can help photographers remove the background from an image, leaving only the subject. This can be useful for creating product images or for creating composite images, without having to mask out the background manually

For this idea, I combined my piece inspired by Giacomo Costa and wanted to add a gap in the buildings which would reveal a natural landscape. I did this by opening up the Giacomo Costa inspired piece and then opening up an image of a natural landscape that I had taken. I then put the natural landscape image layer behind the Giacomo Costa level. Next, I selected the magnetic lasso tool and made a hole shape with rough edges to make it look like there was a crack in my image. Once I had made this cut out, I then right clicked and pressed layer via cut, creating a hole in my top layer and then making the bottom layer visible. To finish off this idea, I then decided to add a drop shadow to the hole to make it have more depth and look more realistic. Finally, I experimented with this idea by making the buildings layer black and white and then the natural landscape layer colourful. This made it stand out more and highlight the difference between the two types of landscapes. I like how this idea came out as it shows two polar opposite landscapes (one which has been destroyed and built on by humans and the other beautiful and undestroyed).

For these images, I wanted to incorporate futuristic and modern things into a landscape image I had taken and then incorporate old objects/ things into another landscape in order to highlight how different our world is now compared to before. I decided to add a sepia photo filter onto the old image in order to give off the impression of aging and make it look vintage. Overall, I think this was a good first attempt at experimenting with time and AI but next time I would research what type of things were seen in the past as I struggled with ideas of what to add to my image.

For this photoshoot, I visited different zoos and took pictures of the various animals which are trapped there. This photoshoot was inspired by Zed Nelson who is often seen taking pictures of animals in zoos and highlighting this idea of a false landscape being created in order to mimic the animals’ actual habitats. The problem with this being that we are destroying these animals’ actual habitats in order to replace them with manmade ones which are evidently too small for them. In order to narrow down my photographs, I imported all of the images onto Lightroom and then flagged each image with either a white flag or a black flag (white= wanted to use, black= didn’t want to use). I then pressed the filter button and selected so I could only see my white flagged photographs. I then rated all of these out of 5. I then filtered it to only show my images which had a 4 star+ rating. Finally, I edited all of these images by adjusting different settings on Lightroom.

For this set of images, I focused on photographing different animals in their enclosures which are made to look natural by adding things such as trees and rocks. However, it isn’t natural and is evidently way too small for these animals. This links to the artist Zed Nelson as he explores how people have put in effort to recreate these animal’s natural habitats when the animals could have their actual natural habitat if it weren’t for humans destroying their homes in order to build places like these which create a false reality of these different habitats. Another thing I noticed when taking pictures is that there were often paintings of natural/ earthy landscapes seen behind the animals, further emphasising the idea of recreating a landscape which we would already have if it weren’t for human kind.

For these images, I wanted to try and capture the barbed wires and fences that are stopping these animals from escaping from their miniscule prisons. I also tried to take photographs of the animals when they were looking into the camera as I feel eye contact makes it harder for people to overlook the animals horrific conditions they are kept in and are forced to face the reality of how these animals are suffering at the cost of our entertainment.

Overall, I like how this photoshoot came out as I think I managed to successfully link my photoshoot to Zed Nelson’s work. I also found my images of different animals looking into the camera be very effective in making you feel sympathy for them and looking at them more than just a source of entertainment. However, in some of my photographs you can see a glare from the sun hitting the glass which makes my images look less professional. However, I also think it is important that you see that these animals aren’t just free roaming and are actually trapped in these ugly, unnatural cages.

For this photoshoot, I decided to get to higher level grounds and take images of the view I saw before me. I noticed that everywhere I looked was very urbanized and there was a severe lack of natural landscape, highlighting to me the idea of how humans have negatively impacted the Earth by constantly expanding on it and not embracing the beauty we already had.

Overall, I think this photoshoot was successful in highlighting just how much we have expanded on the Earth as you are met with a sea of buildings and no natural landscape when looking at the images. However, my photos that I took on the plane turned out less clear and a bit murky due to the window and reflection from the light, making these images have less quality than my other images.

London Photoshoot

For this photoshoot, I decided to photograph central London as it is a very heavily built area which I think successfully shows how human kind have expanded and built on the Earth, destroying it of its natural beauty- that has to be ruined in order to make room for these masses of buildings. I focused on photographing areas with lots of buildings joined next to one another

In order to cut down on the amount of photos I would use as my final images, I completed a series of steps. First, I imported them into Lightroom and then gave each image either a white flag or a black flag depending if I wanted to use them or not. The white flag symbolised that I did want to use it and the black no.

I then used the filter in order to only bring up my white flagged images. Next, I rated each of my images out of 5. Any images below 3 stars I decided to not use. Finally, I gave them a colour rating (green being the best and red being the worst). This enabled me to find my best images out of the bunch and ensured that I only edited these ones as to not waste time.

Overall, I think this photoshoot was successful in highlighting how much natural land had to be flattened and animal’s habitats destroyed in order to make room for these vast amount of buildings. I noticed as I was taking pictures that the buildings looked like they kept going on forever, which made me realise just how largely humans have expanded on the Earth, ripping it of its natural beauty. Although these buildings provide us with entertainment and places to shop and eat, the long lasting effects of building so much and destroying the trees that provide us with oxygen, outweighs the positives significantly.

Another thing that I noticed when taking my images, is that the streets were extremely busy, making it difficult to even get from one place to another. There was also a vast amount of rubbish scattered throughout the streets and the underground, highlighting to me how bad the issue of pollution is in these busy cities. I found it difficult to take images of this rubbish and crowds of people due to people being right behind me, causing a disruption if I were to of stopped to take an image.

I think that these massive, impressive buildings are built in a way to cause people to turn a blind eye to the actual harmful effects of such buildings, so that we as a society don’t really care to notice that we have natural beautiful landscapes underneath all of this construction. This has inspired me to do another photoshoot in which I will take photographs of the natural beauty seen in Jersey in order to show to people what our planet could look like if we stop destroying these places and expanding on them.

Favourite images:

Giacomo Costa Inspired Photoshoot

For this photoshoot, I was inspired by Giacomo Costa. In his work, he stacks multiple buildings on top of one another. To me, this shows how we as a species have expanded so much on the Earth and it feels very crowded. It could even suggest that if we keep building new buildings at the rate we are, we may even have to start stacking them on top of each other as seen in his images, making a fake image a reality.

In order to recreate his work, I first chose a photograph I had previously taken of buildings with a gap between them (to which I would then fill in with other buildings). I then adjusted the levels and curves of this images and used the quick selection tool in order to cut out only the buildings. Once I had highlighted the area needed, I then pressed layer via copy. I did this to ensure that the buildings I would be adding to the image wouldn’t overlap and be in front of it, making it look unnatural. Next, I opened up a new image of a building that I had taken and used the quick selection tool to cut out only the building, pressing layer via copy afterwards. I then dragged the cut out onto my original images and used ctrl t in order to adjust the building to make it fit in more. I repeated this step again and again until I had a sufficient amount of buildings. I often had to change which level each cut out was on in order to make it look more seamless and natural. Finally, I decided to experiment with using black and white in my image, making one of my images fully black and white and the other with normal coloured buildings and a black and white sky.

These were the different images of buildings that I used in my final edit.

I am going to layout my final image like this, with the three different images next to one another. Overall, I like how this idea came out as I think I successfully managed to recreate the work of Giacomo Costa and highlight the extent to which we are expanding on the Earth and how destructive this is and bad for our environment. One thing I would change about this image is one of the buildings I used as it is very reflective unlike the rest of them, making it look unnatural and not blend in as seen in Giacomo Costa’s images. I could experiment further with this idea by potentially printing out 2 of each image but printing one as an A5 and the other as an A4 then stacking them on top of one another. On the other hand, I could also print out 2 of each image and then cut out certain buildings on the 2nd image and then use mount board in order to raise it, giving my final piece more depth.

For my first photoshoot, I am going to take pictures of very built up areas (urban landscapes) in London like Oxford Street etc. I am going to focus on the vast amount of buildings seen in these places and how overpopulated it is. I will also try and capture large groups of people, showing how mankind has taken over Earth and expanded so much that it is ripping Earth of its natural landscapes and replacing it with buildings and homes in order to accommodate with the demands of the increasing population. With my images of different buildings, I am planning to recreate the work of Giacomo Costa and stack these together. This will highlight the idea of how mankind has polluted the Earth with buildings instead of embracing the natural beauty we already have.

For my second photoshoot, I am going to take images of Jersey’s natural landscape and its beauty without any pollution. By doing this, it will hopefully inspire the people who look at my work to try and make a difference on the environment so that we stop destroying the Earth with litter and instead bring out these potentially breath taking landscapes that are hidden by human kinds disregard for the environment. I will then take images of pollution eg litter on the beach and compare the two so people can see the contrast between what the world could be and what it is right now. I will also compare my images of Jersey’s natural beauty and London’s built up, overpopulated area to highlight the idea of what all those buildings are covering up. This may inspire people to leave the very minimal natural landscapes we have left as they are.

For my third photoshoot, I am going to take photographs of different zoo animals in their artificial habitats. This was inspired by Zed Nelson who does something similar to this. I am going to try and take pictures of animals who are in enclosures with unnatural things eg a painted wall of nature or a spotlight instead of natural light as they would have in the wild. This highlights to me how ironic we are as a society as we recreate these natural landscapes, that we could already have, if we didn’t destroy them in order to expand.

Anthropocene is humans impact on the earths environment.

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 are now altered by humans. The word combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time.  In simple terms, it describes the time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet.

A popular theory is that it began at the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, when human activity had a great impact on carbon and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Others think that the beginning of the Anthropocene should be 1945.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth until now. It affects Earth’s geology, landscape, limnology, ecosystems and climate. The effects of human activities on Earth can be seen for example in biodiversity loss and climate change.

Examples of Anthropocene include: pollution, destruction, storm damage, weathering, land reclamation, overpopulation, traffic congestion, waste disposal issues, recycling and fly tipping.

For this theme, I am going to be focusing on overpopulation, pollution and capturing how the Earth could look if we stop destroying it.

Keith Arnatt Artist Research

Keith Arnatt was a British conceptual artist. As well as conceptual art his work is sometimes discussed in relation to land art, minimalism, and photography. He lived and worked in London, Liverpool, Yorkshire and Monmouthshire. Apart from his conceptual works in 1960s and 70s Arnatt developed a set of images from a rubbish tip that developed from landscape based images to still-live of discarded objects

Keith Arnatt (1930–2008) emerged in the 1960s into the tumult of the London art scene to become a key figure in the history of British conceptual art and photography. In a self-reflexive practice that questions with a deadpan wit the status of both the art object and the role of the artist, Arnatt carefully examined and critiqued an increasing reliance of product over process and object over idea. Visually, his work embraced many of the tropes of international conceptualism and minimalism, yet by imbuing his work with an absurdist humour, Arnatt was able to develop a unique artistic language.

One of his photoshoots was called Pictures from a Rubbish Tip 1988–9. It was a series of five large coloured photographs taken by the British artist Keith Arnatt. It featured close-up shots of rubbish that has been dumped at a local tip. In each photograph, the lens focuses upon select pieces of discarded food – such as bread, chicken bones and vegetables – that lie on clear and pale-coloured plastic bags. These bags both reflect and diffuse the surrounding daylight, highlighting the varying hues of the rubbish so that the scenes appear brightly coloured and partly abstract. Although the types of rubbish shown and their exact position within the compositions varies slightly, each is presented at an apparently fixed distance from the camera and this, as well as the similar lighting effects used across the five works, creates a sense of cohesion in the series.

Another one of his photoshoots was called Miss Grace’s lane, 1986-87. In this set of photographs he incorporates imagery of the natural land tarnished with dumped rubbish. He highlights in his images how mankind’s problem with pollution and discarding of rubbish anywhere has lead to once beautiful landscapes to turn into ugly wastelands. I think that by him zooming up on specific areas with rubbish in, it makes it stand out more than if he would’ve used more of a wide angle and so the person looking at his images cannot ignore the vast amount of pollution seen in the images and is forced to face the reality of our situation. In some of his images, the main colour seen in it is brown. To me, this may be suggesting how dirty our Earth has become instead of being filled with vibrant green colours as would be seen without all the pollution causing our natural environment to die.

Keith Arnatt’s work has inspired me to go out and take images of rubbish that I find in my environment and take close up angles of it so that people’s attention will be solely on the rubbish rather than anything else. This will ensure that people have to see the consequences of littering instead of ignoring it and pretending its not there as most people do.

Zed Nelson Artist Research

Zed Nelson is an accomplished documentary photographer based in London, renowned for his work that tackles significant global social issues. His numerous projects have been exhibited worldwide, and he has received many awards for his contributions to photography.

This project examines humankind’s fractured relationship with the natural world, revealing not only a phenomenon of collective self-delusion.

In his latest project, ‘The Anthropocene Illusion,’ Nelson delves into the intricate relationship between humanity and nature. The project reflects on how we have become adept at curating and managing an artificial experience of nature while simultaneously causing irreparable damage to the natural world. The project, completed in 2024, took five years to complete fully. To me, his photographs highlight to me how ironic we are as a society as we are creating these artificial environments and placing these wild animals in, creating a false reality (which we could actually have if we didn’t destroy these natural environments and replace them with fake, unnatural ones).

Zed Nelson’s work has inspired me to take images of animals in artificial environments instead of their natural environment that they should be in and how humans have caused these animals to suffer by placing them in small areas and expect them to perform for people 24/7 in order for humans to be entertained. I am going to do this by visiting different zoos and taking pictures of various animals in artificial environments which are way too small for them.

A photographic typology is a body of work that visually explores a theme or subject to draw out similarities and differences for examination. Through the methodical photography and presentation of a specific subject or theme, a typological photographer makes a space that invites a viewer to simultaneously identify both consistencies and distinctions in a series, building up a more nuanced whole.

The typology is a genre built on differences and correlations. Visual classification according to a specific type has historically been applied in sectors ranging from architecture to botany, with carefully laid out illustrations distributed across a page to illuminate key aspects of a subject. As photography developed, so did the execution of photographic typologies – photographers gathered subjects and/or themes in a cohesive presentation deliberately designed for motivating comparisons within similar visual content for identification and insight.

August Sander – The Face of Our Time

August Sander’s father was a mine carpenter and, later, the family ran a small plot of farmland. Sander first discovered photography at the local mine, while helping carry the equipment of a company photographer. His son Gunther said, that looking through a camera ‘transfixed him – and not just for that instant’. He spent his military service (1897–99) as a photographer’s assistant and went on to set up his own photography studio in Cologne in 1909.

In the mid-1920s, Sander began his highly ambitious project ‘People of the 20th Century’. In it, Sander aimed to document Germany by taking portraits of people from all segments of society. 40,000 negatives were destroyed during WWII and in a fire. The project adapted and evolved continuously, falling into seven distinct groups: ‘The Farmer’, ‘The Skilled Tradesman’, ‘The Woman’, ‘Classes and Professions’, ‘The Artists’, ‘The City’ and ‘The Last People’.  Sander categorised his portraits according to their profession and social class. 

Sander once said ‘The portrait is your mirror. It’s you’. He believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. He used these images to tell each person’s story; their profession, politics, social situation and background

Seen together, Sander’s images form a pictorial mosaic of inter-war Germany. Rapid social change and newfound freedom were accompanied by financial insecurity and social and political unrest. By photographing the citizens of the Weimar Republic – from the artistic, bohemian elite to the Nazis and those they persecuted – Sander’s photographs tell of an uncertain cultural landscape. It is a world characterized by explosions of creativity, hyperinflation and political turmoil. The faces of those he photographed show traces of this collective historical experience.

Sander’s methodical, disciplined approach to photographing the world has had an enormous influence on later photographers, notably Bernd and Hilla Becher. This approach can also be seen in the work of their students Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff. Other photographers who have explored this idea include Stephen Shore, Gillian Wearing, Nicholas Nixon, Martina Mullaney and Ari Versluis.

Bernd & Hilla Becher – Typologies of industrial architecture

The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their typologies (grids of black-and-white photographs) of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure. To create these works, the artists travelled to large mines and steel mills, and systematically photographed the major structures, such as the winding towers that haul coal and iron ore to the surface and the blast furnaces that transform the ore into metal. At each site the Bechers also created overall landscape views of the entire plant, which set the structures in their context and show how they relate to each other. The typologies emulate the clarity of an engineer’s drawing, while the landscapes evoke the experience of a particular place. The exhibition presents these two formats together; because they lie at the polar extremes of photographic description, each underscores the creative potential of the other.

For close to fifty years, they documented architectural forms they collectively referred to as “anonymous sculpture.” Their extensive series of water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples, framework houses of mine workers, and other vernacular industrial architecture—often technologies on the verge of obsolescence—comprise an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function. The Bechers produced black and white photographs, using a large-format camera carefully positioned under overcast skies to record shadowless front and side elevation views of their subjects. Arranging these matched photographs in a grid, the Bechers grouped buildings by function, underscoring the similarities and differences between structures.

Bernd Becher studied painting and lithography, and Hilla Wobeser trained as a commercial photographer. The two met in Düsseldorf, and began collaborating, photographing industrial sites Bernd knew from his childhood. The Bechers went on to teach at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where they influenced a generation of photographers including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Struth.