Edward Burtynsky was born in 1955 in Ontario after his parents migrated in 1951 to Canada. He is a famous, Canadian artist who is known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. Burtynsky is known as one of Canada’s most respected photographers. He conveys the unsettling reality of parts of the world that has surreal qualities of human-altered landscapes, and locations that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. His photographs are included in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art- New York, and the Tate Modern- London.
Influence on photography
When Burtynsky was 11, his father purchased a darkroom, including cameras and instruction manuals, from a widow whose late husband practiced amateur photography. This gave him a starting point of starting photography as a hobby. In the early 1970s, Burtynsky found work in printing and he started night classes in photography. From the mid-1970s to early 1980s, Burtynsky formally studied graphic arts and photography. He obtained a diploma in graphic arts in Ontario, 1976, and a BAA in Photographic Arts in Toronto, Ontario, in 1982. Burtynsky’s early influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins, whose prints he saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the early 1980s.
Examples of his work:
Burtynsky’s photos are unique, and are purposely a vivid reminders of humanity’s impact on the planet in haunting aerial photographs. His Anthropocene photos can be seen as beautiful, but also scary and daunting. They are different to other photographer’s images as he captures the truth around the world from an above angle- an aerial view. His large-format view depicts humanity’s scarring on the landscapes. He creates the subject, with “astonishing colour and relentless detail”, always focusing on the consequences of global consumerism.
Anthropocene is a term that describes the recent evolution of the earth, and how it is changing through the influences of humans. It is clear, through overwhelming global evidence, that humans have become the most influential factor that is affecting the earth’s systems, environment, processes and biodiversity. Most of these impacts on Earth are long-lasting or potentially irreversible. Pollution is a key marker of the Anthropocene. Earth is now full of plastic – millions of tons are produced every year. As plastic doesn’t biodegrade, it ends up littering soils and ocean beds, which harms animals and habitats.
The genre I have chosen to focus on for this topic is landscapes, because I think it links really well with Anthropocene as I can clearly show evidence of it through my landscape images.
MOODBOARD
EXAMPLES OF ANTHROPOCENE
Global warming
Rapid population growth/ overpopulation
Carbon dioxide emissions
Ocean acidification
Habitat destruction
Extinction of animals and life
Pollution
HISTORY OF ANTHROPOCENE
The Earth’s history is divided into a series of different, small time periods, this is referred to as the ‘geologic time scale’. These divisions are called eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. However, the Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time which is used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history, when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.
Lots of people have debated on when the Anthropocene period actually started. One 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, when humans tested the first atomic bomb and then dropped atomic bombs on Japan. This resulted in radioactive particles being detected in soil samples all around the world.
In my opinion, I think photos that focus on Anthropocene can be seen as quite beautiful and moving, whilst still having a powerful message behind them about our environment. However, some photos, for example pollution and habitat destruction, can be seen as disturbing and scary for people. Photographers like to focus on these kind of images as it spreads awareness about the destruction humans are causing to the Earth, and can lead to encouraging people to help solve these issues more day by day. I don’t think that these photographers are solving these problems, but they are trying to help people see the destruction that humans have caused from a different, more realistic, perspective.
In this photoshoot, I mainly focused on the urban area around Havre des Pas beach as I thought this could link really well to New Topographics. I also tried to include photos of man-made structures vs nature to show the difference and development between the two. It was very interesting seeing the contrast between the older, traditional houses compared to the newly-built, modern ones. I was very much inspired by Robert Adams and his photography, and I tried to use his work to influence mine.
MY PHOTOSHOOT:
MY BEST IMAGES:
All of these following images are my final outcomes of the topic ‘New Topographics’. I edited them using Lightroom Classic, and I think they were all very successful. My favourite edited image is the last one, because I really like the dramatic detailing of the rocks and also, how the clouds have been exaggerated to look as if they’re looming over the beach. The clouds have been edited to make them look emphasised, as if they are storm clouds, which creates emotion within the image and towards the viewer. I have edited all of these images similarly to each other to make sure all of the photographs hold the same amount of feeling, and they present the natural world in a straightforward, realistic way.
ORIGINAL VS EDITED:
PANORAMIC PHOTO EDIT:
I tried to make a panoramic edit by merging 3 similar photos together, which then resulted in a panoramic-like image. I think this was very successful, and it’s a new way of exploring landscapes through different ways of presenting them. This is a good way of presenting landscapes because it includes all 3 images into 1, therefore it’s unique yet detailed. I carried on to edit this image to make it black and white, which links it back to New Topographics.
New topographics was a term created to describe pictures that have a similar formal aesthetic, usually black and white prints of the urban landscape. Many of the photographers associated with new topographics, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by man-made objects. Other inspiration came from the streets, warehouses, city centres, industrial sites and suburban housing, which were all depicted with a beautiful stark atmosphere. These photographers chose to take photos of landscapes which lack a feeling of life and comfort which provided a new perspective of the American landscape.
What was the New Topographics a reaction to?
These unique, stark images were created due to a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them. This is because the photographers involved in New Topographic photography felt strong emotions towards the changing landscapes, and wanted to share this with the world. New topographics can also be a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and basic landscapes to become urbanised. One last reason could be due to the American war.
America post-war struggled with..
Inflation and labour unrest.
The baby boom and suburbia.
Isolation and splitting of the family unit, pharmaceuticals and mental health problems
Vast distances, road networks and mobility
Artist research- Robert Adams
Robert Adams is a famous American photographer who focuses his photography around the changing landscapes, which are developing from natural to man-made. Adams uses black and white photography to express his love for landscapes and nature. Through these his images, he explores how urban and industrial growth have changed and he documents changes wrought by humans upon nature.
Adams was born in New Jersey in 1937, and raised in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. He moved to Southern California in 1956 to attend the University of Redlands. After earning a Ph.D. in English Literature, he returned to Colorado to begin what he anticipated would be a career in teaching. At age twenty-five, as a college English teacher with summers off, he started doing photography in his free time and soon learned to love it. He began by taking pictures in 1964 of nature and architecture, and learned photographic techniques from the professional photographer Myron Wood. Since the 1970s, more than twenty-five books of Adams’s photographs have been published, as well as two collections of his essays, and he became a full-time working photographer.
‘The notable thing, it seems to me, about great pictures is that everything fits. There is nothing extraneous. There is nothing too much, too little, and everything within that frame relates. Nothing is isolated. The reason that becomes so moving is that the artist finally says that the form that he or she has found in that frame is analogous to form in life. The coherence within that frame points to a wider coherence in life as a whole.’ –Robert Adams
Exposure bracketing in photographyis a technique that photographers use to capture the best possible photo. It’s where you take exactly the same picture of your subject/landscape at several different exposures, so you end up with the same image with different exposures. This technique gives you a range of options to choose from when you’re editing, and you can even merge the images together to make the perfect photo with the best exposure.
There are a few different ways to bracket your shots. The most common way is to take one picture at the exposure you think looks best, then take two more photos at either side of that exposure, one slightly darker and one a little lighter. Some cameras also have an auto-bracketing feature that can do this automatically.
Why use exposure bracketing in photography?
Bracketing is useful in photography for many different reasons. It is an important technique for photographers to learn because it helps allow them to get the best possible photo of a scene.
There are several reasons why bracketing is essential in photography:
It allows you to capture every detail in a scene.
It helps you avoid overexposing or underexposing your photos.
It gives you more options to choose from when you’re editing.
My attempt at exposure bracketing:
I took this image using the exposure bracketing technique. I had the exposure on -2 to create an ‘underexposure affect’ for this image. For the middle, I has the exposure on 0 so normal exposure, and for the last one I overexposed the image so it was on +2.
I then merged all of the images together to make one, so I could reach the perfect exposure for the image:
What is HDR imagery?
HDR imagery in photography stands for high dynamic range. Dynamic range is simply the range of the lightest tones to the darkest tones you can capture in a photo. In another way, it’s a measure of the light intensities from the highlights to the shadows. A HDR photo is really just two or more photos taken at different exposure levels using the exposure bracketing technique, and then merged together to create a better picture. HDR is the quality of the image produced after using the exposure bracketing technique.
I edited all of these images using Adobe photoshop and Lightroom Classic. I waned to use Ansel Adams as inspiration for my photography because I like to take photos of landscapes as I find they are really emotional, especially black and white, and I felt I could make the image more dramatic through editing them.
Contact sheet:
Before editing:
After editing:
Before editing:
After editing:
This is my favourite image I’ve edited as I like the way the clouds are really dramatic whilst looming over the inky, intimidating rocks. I found that increasing the texture and clarity really helped improve the quality of the photograph as it made the individual details look more precise, instead of blurry. I also increased the dehaze quite a bit to help emphasise the striking affect of the clouds, whilst the sea holds a slight reflection of the sun. Lastly, I decided added a black and white filter called PB11 on Lightroom Classic to help enhance the contrast between the different tones.
I edited these photos using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, with inspiration from the storm as I thought I could take photos of the damage that has been caused to nature. I edited these photos to be black and white, as I think they create more emotion towards viewers. I think I could’ve improved this photoshoot by taking clearer photos that has one subject, instead of a few as they would’ve then looked neater and not as chaotic.
Photoshoot one: For my first photoshoot, I am planning on going to the woods to take photos of the damage that has been caused due to the storm. I like this idea because it is a good way to view landscapes in a different way, instead of it being presented in a romanticised way.
Photoshoot two: For my second photoshoot, I am going to visit different landscapes around the coast and photograph the cliff sides/beaches and include aspects of the sublime.
Ansel Adams was born in 1902 in San Francisco, he grew up in a house set amid the sand dunes of the Golden Gate. Adams was a famous photographer, most known for his landscape photography capturing Americas natural beauty. When he was very young, the great earthquake of 1906 happened and affected him and his family. He badly broke his nose, distinctly marking him for life and making him feel very self conscious. Natural shyness, along with his disfigured face, caused Adams to have problems fitting in at school. He was not successful in the various schools to which his parents sent him, this led to his father taking up the role and tutoring him at home. The most important result of Adams’s somewhat solitary and unmistakably different childhood was the joy that he found in nature. Adams took long walks in the still-wild reaches of the Golden Gate, nearly every day he found himself hiking the dunes or meandering along the beaches or forests. When Adams was twelve he taught himself to play the piano and read music. He soon realised that he was not going to become professional in music, so he ultimately gave up music to focus on photography.
While sick in bed with a cold one day at age 14, Ansel read a book that would eventually change his life. James Mason Hutchings’ In the Heart of the Sierras caught Adams’ imagination, and he soon managed to convince his parents to vacation in Yosemite National Park. From his first visit, Adams was transfixed and transformed. Equipped with a simple Kodak Box Brownie camera his parents gave him, he hiked, climbed, and explored, gaining self-esteem and self-confidence whilst snapping the first images of what would become a lifetime of incredible artistic productivity. He spent substantial time there, due to the love he had for the place, every year from 1916 to his death.
In 1919 he joined the Sierra Club and then spent six summers accompanying High Sierra tour groups as trip photographer. He became friends with many of the club’s leaders there and he also met his wife, Virginia Best, and they married in 1928. The Sierra Club was vital to Adams’s early success as a photographer and his first published photographs appeared in the Club’s 1922 Bulletin.
1927 was the pivotal year of Adams’s life. He made his first fully visualized photograph, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, and took his first HighTrip. Adams came under the influence of Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco patron of arts and artists. The day after the pair met, Bender set in motion the preparation and publication of Adams’ first portfolio.
In 1928, Adams and Virginia Best became married, who also happened to be the daughter of landscape painter Harry Cassie Best. Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley was a convenient place for Adams to display his photography, and after Virginia’s father’s death in 1936, Ansel and Virginia took over the studio. The couple had two children, Michael and Anne, who grew up in the Valley. The children eventually also became involved in the family business, renamed it The Ansel Adams Gallery.
In 1933, he made his first visit to New York on a pilgrimage to meet photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who gave him a solo exhibition at his gallery An American Place in 1936. After this meeting, Adams opened his own gallery in San Francisco. Most importantly, in 1936 Stieglitz gave Adams a one-man show at An American Place. He gained much attention over the years and influenced many people through his photography. His black-and-white images were not “realistic” documents of nature. Instead, they sought an intensification and purification of the psychological experience of natural beauty. He created a sense of the sublime magnificence of nature that infused the viewer with the emotional equivalent of wilderness, often more powerful than the actual thing.
Ansel did not only influence people through his photography, he also influenced people through his respect for nature. Adams routinely lobbied personally for conservation efforts. And perhaps nowhere was he more successful than in the creation of Kings Canyon National Park. Kings Canyon sits immediately to the north of world-famous Sequoia National Park. in spite of its stunning natural beauty and its proximity to Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon itself remained unprotected into the 1930s. And by 1936, its future as a natural wonder was in jeopardy. The powerful river in the park plunges nearly 11,000 feet in just 80 miles. It carried enormous potential as a power source, which led water interests into the idea of creating a series of large dams in the canyon to conserve the power. The Sierra Club entrusted the job to Ansel Adams, one of their most prominent members, to convince Congress to protect the High Sierra.
Over the course of the fight to preserve Kings Canyon, Ansel presented his portfolios proudly when eventually meeting with over 40 members of Congress. Of course, the photographs themselves were stunning, but equally compelling were Ansel’s personal stories of hiking the John Muir trail and how his experiences in the High Sierra led him to devote his life to photographing and preserving America’s natural heritage. Though the idea to preserve the canyon failed in 1936, Ansel’s fight was not over. In 1938, he published his Kings Canyon images as a book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail.
The United States secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, received a copy from the Director of the National Park Service, and realised it was not only just a book, it was an argument: protect Kings Canyon. Ickes was so convinced to help Adams that he took a copy to the White House, and set it in front of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Finally, as the President of the United States took a look at this stunning book, capturing the full grand view of Kings Canyon, Ansel’s argument found purchase. Just two years later, in 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was founded, and today it sees over 600,000 visitors a year.
Examples of his work
Yosemite Valley, Thunderstorm by Ansel Adams Available as a Yosemite Special Edition Photograph
This particular image caught my eye as I love the contrast between the dark thundery clouds and the highlighted points, like the unique granite esplanade. Through this image, Yosemite Valley is presented in a beautiful way. This image documents not just the fierce beauty of a looming thunderstorm, but one of Yosemite National Park’s most beloved aspect, the classic Tunnel View. Ansel made this stunning image in 1949, and published it . To increase the contrast and show off the ethereal beauty of the rain-soaked forest in the valley below, he used a yellow filter, which darkened the sky and intensified the stormy, To increase the contrast and show off the ethereal beauty of the rain-soaked forest in the valley below, he used a yellow filter, which darkened the sky and intensified the sinister, ominous clouds.
What is the Zone system?
The 11 zones in Ansel Adam’s ‘Zone System’ are used to represent the graduation of all the different tones you would see in a black and white print and divide the photo into eleven zones, nine shades of grey, with pure black at 0 and pure white at 10. With this system, Adams was able to perfectly control the contrast in his black and white photos. Adams base rule was: “Expose for the shadows; develop for the highlights.” The biggest advantage of understanding a Zone System is that it allows you to be in control over the photos. Nowadays, the Zone System focuses more on understanding how digital cameras respond to different levels of light and dark. The Zone System allows you to get the right exposure every time without guessing. It does not require you do any special film development and you never have to waste time with bracketing.
Romanticism was a particular movement in art that emphasises on emotion and individualism, along with a glorification of the past. Painters, poets and writers drew particular inspiration from nature, which played a prominent role in their depictions. Photography in the 1800’s were slowly developing, but quickly becoming popular as a form of art. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789. Nowadays when the term Enlightenment is used, it refers to a period in history in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s. During that time, people all over Europe believed that the darkness of the past was giving way to light. The darkness was ignorance, superstition, and unproven beliefs; the light was knowledge and the improvement it brought. The Renaissance paved the way for the Enlightenment. The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art. The Industrial Revolution also influenced Romanticism, which was in part about escaping from modern realities. Artists would intentionally paint or photograph landscapes and not include
When did Romanticism come about?
The Romantic Period began roughly around 1798 and lasted until 1837. Romanticism gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789.
What are some characteristics of Romanticism?
Some characteristics of Romanticism include a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature and a general exaltation of emotion over reason. Romanticism placed particular emphasis on emotion, horror, awe, terror and apprehension. Emotion and feeling were central not only to the creation of the work, but also in how it should be read.
What is meant by the term ‘Sublime’?
The philosopher Edmund Burke who defined the idea of the sublime in the mid eighteenth century understood the importance of people being made to feel small and insignificant as a way of putting daily life in perspective. The idea of the sublime is central to a Romantic’s perception of, and heightened awareness in, the world, it is often a slightly elevated version of delightful or delicious. Burke defined sublime art as art that refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation.
The Sublime by Caspar David Friedrich
Artist reference:
John Constable:
“Nature is the fountain’s head, the source from whence all originality must spring.”- John Constable
John Constable (born June 11, 1776- died March 31, 1837) grew up in East Bergholt, a village found in the Stour River valley of Suffolk County in the southeast of England, an area that came to be known as “Constable country.” Although its gentle landscape did not include grand mountain scenery, Constable believed the Stour valley had set him on the path to his life’s work, and he chose it as his primary subject for much of his career.
Constable is most famous for his landscape paintings, which are mostly the Suffolk country where he was born and lived. He was one of the first artists of the Romantic movement to create landscape paintings drawn directly from nature (open-air sketches) 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:
This particular painting is called The Hay Wain, which is of the millpond at Flatford on the River Stour in Suffolk, where Constable grew up and lived. Flatford Mill was a watermill for the grinding of corn, leased and operated by the Constable family for nearly a hundred years. His determination to capture the rural Suffolk landscape of his boyhood in these monumental paintings would’ve been due to the changing of landscape around him from rapid industrialisation. Constable focuses on rural landscapes and during the industrial revolution, the factories, steam power and such are absent in his artwork.
