Robert adams was a photographer who documented the damage to the American West, including the extent of it and its limitations. He created over fifty books of pictures, which included both despair of the environment and also hope. his goal as he said “is to face facts but find a basis for hope.” Adams grew up in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Colorado, and enjoyed the outdoor environment with his Father in each of them. When he was twenty-five he was a collage English teacher, and that is when in his summers off he picked up photography, After spending time with his wife in Scandinavia he realized that there were complexities in American geography.

His work

Within the 1970’s and 80’s he produced a series of books which included- The New West,Denver,What We Brought,Summer Nights- which focused on expanding suburbs along Colorado, books that portrayed the need to development but also the surviving light of the natural world. He also examined humanity’s footprint and nature’s resilience in the wider western landscape. Adams has occasionally published smaller, sometimes more personal volumes. These have included a prayer book set in the forest (Prayers in an American Church). He has sometimes directly engaged civic and political issues as well. A series of photographs at the Ludlow memorial, for example, speaks for organized labor, and another at a protest against the second Iraq war records the suffering that accompanies empire. 

Image analysis

Adams has used natural daylight when taking this image, which manipulates the intensity of the sunlight reflecting against the ground. It also looks as if the image is a bit over-exposed, in order to manipulate the burning oil smoke to be as dark as possible compared to its surroundings to show its intensity, and how much damage it is creating. This photo is sharp and in focus, and has a sharp tonal range, using different shades of grey and linking them to emotions. He has laid out the image within a way that the damage to the environment is right in our face while still capturing the environment trying to fight back against this man made damage, he has done this by creating a depth of field where the destruction is right in our faces, but the beauty is surrounding it, we see this when the bug black burning oil smoke is right in our faces, making it very hard to miss, but there is a small tree standing very still to the left of the destruction. His image also relates to a political context, where people were fighting for the burning of oil to be calmed down or stopped all together, this relates to the 1973 oil crisis.

What is it?

New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. Unlike their predecessors, these new “topographic” photographers (such as Robert Adams) were less concerned with portraying an ideal image of nature and were more interested in showing plainly how man has altered it

Who are they?

The New Topographics photographers were Robert Adams, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel Jr.

What was the new topographics a reaction to?

Their stark, beautifully printed images of this mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Artist reference – Robert Adams

Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature. While Adams was teaching English at Colorado College, he began taking pictures of nature and architecture with a 35 mm reflex camera, and learned photographic technique from the professional photographer Myron Wood. His earliest series The New West (1968–1971) depicts the uniform housing tracts that were part of suburban development in Colorado.

New Topographic mood board

The New West

The New West is a photographic essay about what came to fill it—freeways, tract homes, low-rise business buildings and signs. In five sequences of pictures taken along the front wall of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Robert Adams has documented a representative sampling of the whole suburban Southwest.

Frank Gohlke

Frank Gohlke was raised in Wichita Falls, Texas. He received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin in 1964 and an M.A. in English Literature from Yale University in 1966. While at Yale, Gohlke met photographer Walker Evans, and in 1967 and 1968 he studied with the landscape photographer Paul Caponigro.

Between 1971 and 1987, Gohlke made his home in Minneapolis, and has resided since in Southborough, Massachusetts. He has taught photography at Middlebury College; Colorado College; Yale University; and the Massachusetts College of Art.

Gohlke is the recipient of two Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, a Fulbright Scholar Grant, and two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as grants from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Gund Foundation. He has also received commissions from the Wichita County Heritage Society and the Texas Historical Foundation.

Gohlke′s photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; the Amon Carter Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 1975, he was included in the influential exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape, organized by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House; the Canadian Center for Architecture; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Amon Carter Museum; and the Walker Art Center.

Storm damage

For this task, over half term i decided to go on a drive around jersey and take photos of storm damage. i visited parks, fields, estates, small lanes and football pitches. These are some of my best images:

I like this photo as it shows the roots of the tree that have been pulled out of the ground. This represents how strong the storm was to physically pull a tree out the ground.

These two images are very similar. I like these pictures because the grass is eye catching along with the neutral colours of the tree and sky/background. I like how they both have standing trees in the background to show the variation of how the storm affected these areas.

This image shows the raw reality of how the storm has damaged the island. It almost tells a story amongst the storm and how people had to deal with this experience.

This image is one of my bests. I love how gloomy the picture looks, it really brings out the horrifying experience everyone went through during the storm.

I love this image as the contrasts of the different colours draws you in.

Landscape images

Ansel Adam was a man often considered to be the father of modern landscape photography with his famous landscape work of big mountains and rivers/lakes. Being born in 1902 he grew up in California in the sand dunes amid the golden gate. As he grew older after his family being largely effected by a volcano his father helped him pursue his creative roots and ideas even when not fitting in at school with a more traditional style of education. Progress in school until he gained a ‘legitimising diploma’ and soon after spent the majority of his time outdoors hiking, climbing and observing what was on his door step. However his photography career did not begin here so much as he taught himself to read and play music quickly becoming his occupation until he gave it up for photography, not after having learnt many important lessons of planning and patience from the music. As his love for photography progressed using the Brownie box camera his parents gave him, he joined the Sierra Club in 1919 looking after their memorial cabin located in the Yosemite Valley in which he spent four summers growing and learning while meeting fellow conservation enthusiasts. This club gave Adam’s so much of his life not only did he meet his wife during his time there but it was essential to starting his photography career, starting with his first publishing being in the clubs bulletin. As time continued to progress the clubs yearly month long trip during the summer, quickly grew in popularity with having up to 200 attendees. Adams now being on the board of directors for the club as well as now being the trip photographer/artists, he strayed further from a concert pianist and realised he could make a living off of his work. The most life changing year in Adam’s career was 1927 when he took his first ‘visualized’ photo which became what he was known for and how he created all of his work. Adams only grew in popularity and fame from here as his work grew and began being featured in more and more shows all the while his new techniques and talents shone through and taught so many others. Later on in his career he met  Edward Weston who himself is a hugely important and influential photographer. This pair was quickly noticed by Group f/64 who did so much for the duo presenting shows of their work together and helping Adam’s have his first solo exhibition in a museum, although this group did not last long they brought a whole new idea to ‘straight’ or ‘raw’ photography works and looking at photography as though it what the eye would see. Time went on and Adam’s was forced to do more and more commercial work but even for this he had an unusual talent for this as well but he felt it limited his creativity that the entire reason he started photography in the first place. Adam’s was revolutionary not only for his creativity but he was a master with all the technical sides of camera, he developed the ‘zone’ system that is still used and completely changed how other photographers looked at their own work and his. He was looked up to greatly in a lot of other aspects of his life, whether it being his social company or his sheer passion for the environment and preserving it.

American west, why?

Adams was also a tireless conservationist and wilderness preservationist who understood the power of a strong image to sway public and political opinion. His stirring images of US national parks have no doubt always inspired a desire to protect the natural world.

Group f/64

64, loose association of California photographers who promoted a style of sharply detailed, purist photography. The group, formed in 1932, constituted a revolt against Pictorialism, the soft-focused, academic photography that was then prevalent among West Coast artists.

Goup f/64 included: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, Brett Weston, and Edward Weston.

Zone system

The zone-system of Ansel Adams divides the photo into eleven zones; nine shades of grey, together with pure black and pure white. You could assume that a normal photo does not contain pure black and pure white. Therefor the nine shades of grey would be the only zones you can find in a photo

Comparison

Romanticism: a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasise, inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

Both romanticism and Ansel Adams both have the ideas of human creativity. In photography, photographers who took up the romanticist approach aimed to sensationalise the overall look of their mages by enhancing certain colours to make the image look almost surreal, glorified and they wanted to dramatize certain areas of their photographs.

Ansel Adams uses black, white and grey to romanticises his images with a dramatic effect. He uses the perfect contrast of all colours so there isn’t too much of one.

One difference with Ansel and romanticism is, a lot of romanticism used in pictures uses colour, Ansel Adams doesn’t.

Influence on others

Ansel Adams is known for his artistry in what has become known as Landscape Photography. He also contributed to advancing the technical aspects of bringing this artistry to light. In this class, you will learn some of Ansel’s important innovations to photography and how they relate to your modern digital camera.

Here’s my virtual gallery for femininity vs masculinity

These are the pictures closer up

Environmental portraits virtual gallery

Different lighting virtual gallery

Justine Kurland Photos.

Before

I have picked these two photos as I believe they are the best out of all the ones I took. I believe that these pictures best represent Justine Kurland as they are adventurous and represent ‘girlhood’.

After

To edit these pictures, I used Adobe Lightroom and adjusted the different settings to get my pictures looking more colourful.

Cindy Sherman

before

I have chosen these two photos because I believe they show femininity through more of a girly way. I think they best represent Cindy Sherman as she was all about taking pictures of women to represent femininity, and these show girly traits, e.g in the first picture, the models hair tells a story in itself about loving and embracing hair when your a girl, and in the second picture, i focused on trends these days, for e.g always being on a phone, fashion etc.

After

I chose to edit these photos in photoshop. I wanted to show different angles in the pictures to emphasise what message I’m getting across. They both represent femininity in similar but different ways.

Justine Kurland – her photos

Analysis – In this photo you can see two girls play fighting. This image shows femininity/girlhood by feeling free outside in the wilderness.

Analysis – In this picture, you can see two girls, one sat on a wall and one holding her other shoe. This represents femininity as the girl on the right is being supportive and helpful of her friend.

Justine Kurland – my photos

Analysis – Similarly to the first picture I put for Justine Kurland’s, my picture also has two girls having a friendly snowball fight. This represents ‘girlhood’/femininity just like Kurland’s as it shows how teenage girls have fun. I edited this photo changing different settings to make outside look like a brighter place to be as Kurland’s photos represent the wilderness.

Analysis – Similarly to the second picture I put for Justine Kurland, this image shows one friend helping the other out. Brushing hair is a girly act, so therefore also represents femininity in that way. I also used a filter to make the photo look a little more wild.

Cindy Sherman – her photos

Analysis – These pictures show femininity by the basics of the clothes, colours, and style.

Analysis – This photo represents femininity through the story its telling. Cindy Sherman used her photos as a way to show stereotypes. This shows a young lady waiting to pick up the phone, this is feminine again because of the use of colours, but also the stereotype that women need men.

Cindy Sherman – my photos

Analysis – This picture was inspired my Sherman. I used the models hair and posture to show femininity. This is similar to Sherman’s pictures as the main focus was showing femininity through the hair.

Analysis – In this image, I used the use of the models phone to represent femininity. As you can see in one of Cindy Sherman’s photos, you can see the model waiting to answer the phone, I went for the same idea to show how many women rely on their phones for validation.

Contact Sheet

Here I rated my picture selection with colours, yellow being okay, green being great.

Star Rating

1 star being the worst, 2 stars still nit good, 3 stars getting better, 4 stars I like it, 5 stars its great.

I like all my pictures as they are all showing femininity, however I have narrowed it down to 6 main pictures that I like the most.

Selected images

I have selected these images as my best. They all represent what I’m trying to show, femininity. They are all clear and in focus. They are my favourite as I feel like I can be more creative with these photos.

These are my photos for femininity:

Photoshoot 1

What?

These are ‘Girl Pictures’. Altogether, Kurland published 69 pictures of girls in a series called Girl Pictures.

Who?

For my first photoshoot, I was inspired by the photographer Justine Kurland. Her work is very adventurous and displays femininity in interesting ways. Me and two of my classmates took these pictures.

When?

I took these photos during one of my photography lessons.

Where&why?

The pictures got taken outside as all her pictures are based outside too.

These are some pictures before being edited we took inspired by her:

For these two photos, we went outside and took pictures playing in the snow. This was inspires by Justine Kurland as its outside and adventurous, it explores the fun in the natural environment.

In this photo, I focussed on portraying a friendship through ‘girly’ activities.

Photoshoot 2

What?

Sherman used cinematic conventions to structure these photographs.

Who?

The next artist I was inspired by was Cindy Sherman. I also used two of my classmates for this shoot.

When?

I also did this shoot in a photography lesson.

Where&why?

For this photoshoot I focused less on ‘girlhood’ and more on beauty as that’s Sherman’s style. I did this photoshoot in the studio.

These are some pictures before being edited we took inspired by her:

For these pictures, I focused on femininity through the phrase ‘free will’, by doing normal day to day things (makeup, phones). In these pictures, you can see girly traits through, hair, style, clothes, makeup etc.

Masculinity

Mind map:

Mood Board through years:

Femininity

Mind map:

Mood board through years: