Bernd and Hilla Becher

Why are Bernd and Hilla Becher important?

The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931–2007; 1934–2015) changed the course of late twentieth-century photography. Working as a rare artist couple, they focused on a single subject: the disappearing industrial architecture of Western Europe and North America that fuelled the modern era. They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married.

What did they photograph?

Industrial structures including water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories. Their work had a documentary style as their images were always taken in black and white. Their photographs never included people.

They exhibited their work in sets or typologies, grouping of several photographs of the same type of structure. The are well known for presenting their images in grid formations.

What were their key works?

Their first photobook Anonymous Sculptures was published in 1970 and is their most well-known body of work. The title is a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and indicates that the Becher’s referred to industrial buildings as found objects.

The book consisted of an encyclopaedic inventory of industrial structures including kilns, blast furnaces and gas-holders categorised into sections (the pot, the oven, the chimney, the winch, the pump, and the laboratory.

Bernd and Hilla Becher
Water Towers USA, 1988

These are some of my images from my photoshoot. I colour labelled them to know which ones were good, and which ones weren’t as good.

These are my final edited images.

I took this picture at a beach, this is because my artist reference also did similar. I like how the colours are vibrant, how the sun reflects off the wrapper, and how the sand looks golden as if it was glorifying littering.

In this image, I like how the colour of the chewing gum packet, nearly matches the colour of the sky. I also like how the shadow enters the picture, as if it was coming in to the whole photo. This gives off a negative, depressing view on littering.

I like the different colours in this picture. I also like the simple but bold statement this photo gives off.

In all my photos, I tried to be as dramatic as possible as Andy Hughes also was in his pictures. I like these images best as I think they look best to represent Andy Hughes work. I liked working with the same style he used as it is different and fun, but also shows a deep meaning in to how our world is affected through human input.

These are my final images.

For all my images, I put a black and white filter on. This was a recurring theme throughout all my photos as in typologies, you’ll notice that it is a well known fact that most typology images are black and white. I believe it gives a much better effect for the photo, and will most definitely draw in peoples eyes. For pictures 1&2, I found an abandoned looking green house. The reason it looked abandoned was due to the storm. I like these 2 images as the contrast of fencing, grass and the shed, all relate to each other, almost as if it could tell a story within itself. For pictures 3&4, I took a picture of the green house from a different angle, getting the whole building in it. Personally, they are my two favourites out of all my typologies images. This is as they show typologies well. For picture 5, I liked how there was quite a few things included(motorbike, fencing, trees, storage etc), but also how the black and white filter keeps it all the same. Pictures 6&7 were taken at a petrol station. I like that the photo gives off a rustic feel. Picture 8 is also one of my favourites. I like how the two benches are alone, but are also the most focused on part of the image. I like how it’s simple but effective. For my final image, I took a picture of scaffolding around a house. I liked this as it gives an industrial look.

How did I get my images?

To get my images, I went on a walk and I took these landscape pictures around school campus. I wanted to get buildings in my pictures as much as possible to show the real urban/industrial setting and show the real change in time and years. All these buildings have been built through the economic growth.

These are a chunk of the images I took on a walk around the school of urban/industrial views. I edited these final images on Lightroom to make sure they are clear and in focus. On Lightroom, I colour coded them and gave them a star rating as to what I think of my images.

Final Images

These are the best photos showing urban/industrial sights in my opinion.

I like how this photo shows a building as well as a car. This shows the economic growth through the years as you can see how much more developed cars have become.

I like how this photo shows a building as well as a worker. I like how the worker can represent the working industry.

This is one of my favourite as it shows the view of town and all the crowded streets.

I also love this image as the contrast of having lots of buildings in the back with a tree in the front. I like how I’m showing that pollution is killing our world and I tried showing that through the use of a tree with no leaf’s.

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an evolving technology that tries to simulate human intelligence using machines. AI encompasses various subfields, including machine learning and deep learning, which allow systems to learn and adapt in novel ways from training data. It has vast applications across multiple industries, such as healthcare, finance, and transportation. While AI offers significant advancements. it also raises ethical, privacy, and employment concerns.

How it AI used to generate images and visual content using new technology?

An AI image generator is a sophisticated tool that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to create images from textual descriptions or prompts. These generators analyse the input text and generate corresponding visual representations, ranging from realistic photographs to abstract artworks. By controlling the power of machine learning and neural networks, these systems can produce high-quality images that mimic the style and content described in the text.

Mood board of AI images

All these images are somewhat related and edited to AI. I used this for inspiration as I think it represents AI properly and there are some images I believe I can replacer.

These are past, present, and future images I played around with on photoshop.

Final Images

Past

In this picture, I used an image of a beach and changed the filter to ‘sepia’. This gives it the effect of being an old picture. I also used AI to add in soldiers and an army plane to make it look like it was taken during the war.

Present

In this image, I took a picture over town. I used AI to add builders, a bird and a plane. I did this for my present image as it is present that we still use planes and real people for work. The bird represents that the world isn’t fully ruined as we still have wildlife.

Future

I used this picture of a lake. I got AI to add litter and pollution. I used this to represent the future as I believe this is what it’ll look like due to global warming and technological advancements, humans wont be needed.

Andy Hughes was born in 1966 in Castleford, Yorkshire, he developed an interest in the seascape and landscape after learning to surf whilst at Art College in Wales. He obtained a First Class Degree in Fine Art at Cardiff University and an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London.

Andy Hughes’ photographic work explores the littoral zone and the politics of waste. In 2013 he travelled to Alaska, invited as part of an international team of artists and scientists to work on the project Gyre: The Plastic Ocean. This project was a world first and unique project that explored the integration of science and art to document and interpret the issue of plastic and human waste in the marine and coastal environment. He was the first Artist in Residence at Tate Gallery St. Ives and short-listed reserve residency artist for the Arts Council England Antarctic Fellowship. His previous work explores human scale waste products such as plastic and other discarded items washed ashore across various beaches in the USA and Europe. For over two decades he has worked consistently on this theme. In 2013 he travelled to Alaska, invited as part of an international team of artists and scientists [Pam Longobardi, Mark Dion, Alexis Rockman, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Carl Safina] to work on the project GYRE: The Plastic Ocean. 

Some of Andy Hughes work:

I like how he represents Anthropocene through the use of plastic on a beach. People littering is a world wide problem, 12 million tonnes of plastic finds its way into the ocean every single year. 9.5 million tonnes of this enters the ocean from the land with 1.75 tonnes being chucked into the sea directly from the fishing a shipping industry. There are approximately 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons.

What is Romanticism in photography?

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. The following characteristic attitudes of Romanticism are the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities

What Are the Characteristics of Romanticism?

1. Emotion and passion.
2. The critique of progress.
3. A return to the past.
4. An awe of nature.
5. The idealization of women.
6. The purity of childhood.
7. The search for subjective truth.
8. The celebration of the individual

Mood Board

Romanticism of Rural life/outcome

Nineteenth century urban society romanticized rural life. “The frontier farmer was idealized, and it was held to be true that life in the west fostered independence and self-reliance.” It was believed that life on the frontier consisted of a classless society in which people were judged not by their family name or position, but on their character, ability, and talent. The belief in “the nobility of country life” and the “purity of lives lived so close to the soil” contributed to the acceptance of the placing out movement by nineteenth century society. The west was viewed as the perfect place for the “urban poor to begin over and reach their full potential.” Brace actively pursued the placing out of New York City children in homes in rural America as a result of this idealization of rural life. He viewed the city as “an evil place full of temptations and unsavory associates.” Brace believed that children were easily corrupted by the immorality and wickedness they witnessed on the city streets and that this exposure doomed them to a life of crime and misery.

The country, on the other hand, represented a healthy, wholesome environment filled with opportunities for prosperity. Brace held a “startling idealized portrait of country folk.” He believed the tables of rural America overflowed with an abundance of nutritious food which rural families would be happy to share with hungry children. Brace believed that rural America was the “cradle of wholesome values.” He enthusiastically believed that rural families could be trusted to embrace the disadvantaged children of poor and educate them to become successful, productive members of society. The determination of Brace and the CAS to remove children from New York City, transport them across the country, and place them in rural homes, was a direct result of the romanticized view of rural life held by the majority of people living in nineteenth century society.

Introduction

A landscape is part of Earth’s surface that can be viewed at one time from one place. It consists of the geographic features that mark, or are characteristic of, a particular area. The term comes from the Dutch word landschap, the name given to paintings of the countryside.

Landscape photography, in its purest form, is the art of capturing pictures of nature and the outdoors in a way that makes the scene feel meaningful for the viewer. From the grandiose vista to the minute details, it’s about showcasing the beauty and splendour of our world.

Landscape photography is not limited to static images of mountain ranges shot at midday with a wide-angle lens. It can encompass everything from cityscapes to astrophotography and can be shot with all sorts of lenses, and from drones to underwater setups.

Mood board

This mood board shows various different landscape types.

These are a few urban/industrial landscape pictures I took around school:

Before

After

Before

After

Who is Paul Nicklen?

Paul Nicklen is a Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and marine biologist who has documented the beauty and plight of our planet for more than thirty years. Focusing on the polar regions, his evocative nature photography displays a deep reverence and sensitivity for the wildlife and environment of these most isolated, endangered places in the world. Over that time, he has said it is one thing to capture the natural World in a moment of grace and dignity, but that pales in comparison to an image that shines a brighter light on the
environmental crisis and drives everyday people to action, even if only in some small way.
Nicklen did not come to this style of documentary photography by accident. He was born to it. Through the power of the image and, just as importantly, emotion and raw power, his work has been singled out for creating a unique connection between image and viewer by featuring wild subjects in some of the most extreme conditions known on Earth.

What photography techniques does Paul Nicklen use?

Lenses: Nicklen has utilized a variety of lenses for his photography, including wide-angle, telephoto, and macro lenses from Canon, allowing him to capture diverse perspectives and create compelling compositions

Why did Paul Nicklen become a photographer?

Paul Nicklen was born in Canada in 1968 and spent his childhood in Baffin Island with the Inuit community. They taught him the love for nature, an understanding of the Arctic ecosystem and the survival skills that helped him to become one of the greatest nature photographers.

Why did I pick Paul Nicklen?

I picked Paul Nicklen to inspire my photoshoot for anthropocene as i like that he photographs animals to represent global warming.

These are some examples of his work. I like how warm he makes the photo feel, reminding the public to make a change to keep wildlife alive.

Anthropocene is the effect that mankind has had on the natural world. This has only come about in the past few centuries since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and has exponentially become a global problem.

This is a good topic for photography, mostly because it is everywhere, and a clear message can be received, for example, global warming.

There are 4 major signs of Anthropocene; agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution. Each of these are the root causes of the major problems mankind faces today.

When did Anthropocene begin and end?

Anthropocene Epoch, unofficial interval of geologic time, making up the third worldwide division of the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago to the present), characterized as the time in which the collective activities of human beings began to substantially alter Earth’s surface, atmosphere, oceans etc.

It began in 1950. The resulting radioactive particles were detected in soil samples globally. In 2016, the Anthropocene Working Group agreed that the Anthropocene is different from the Holocene, and began in the year 1950 when the Great Acceleration, a dramatic increase in human activity affecting the planet, took off.

What is the Anthropocene project?

The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.

What is the main idea of Anthropocene?

The Anthropocene is sometimes used to simply describe the time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet. Whether or not we are in a new geological age, we are part of a complex, global system and the evidence of our impact on it has become clear.

What is an example of the Anthropocene?

The Anthropocene is a new, present day epoch, in which scientists say we have significantly altered the Earth through human activity. These changes include global warming, habitat loss, changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, oceans and soil, and animal extinctions.

Why was Anthropocene created?

In the years since the term Anthropocene was coined by Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000, it has increasingly defined our times as an age of human-caused planetary transformation, from climate change to biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, megafires and much more.

Mood Board

This mood board shows the variations in Anthropocene. As you can see, each section of the mood board has different scenes and representations of what people believe Anthropocene looks like. However, all the ideas start off somewhere, for example, the top middle image could represent climate change/global warming. That is why the image has two main colours (blue to represent water, and red to represent the heat).

Jersey Areas that provide Anthropocene;

• Open Cast Mining – Quarries: Ronez, St Peters Valley, Sand Quarry St. Ouens
• Power Stations – La Collette, Bellozane Sewage Treatment
• Urbanisation – St Helier: Grands Vaux, Le Marais Flats, Le Squez etc.
• Mass Wastage – La Collette recycling centre
• Disposable Society – La Collette recycling centre – refrigerator mountains etc
• Land Erosion – farming industry: poly tunnels, packing sheds, plastic covered fields etc. Old Glass Houses
• Over Population – poverty/social divides: Social Housing sites. Car Parks, traffic etc.
• Industrialisation – La Collette area, Bellozane, industrial estates. Desalination Plant, German Fortification (WW2)