Virtual Gallery

I created a virtual gallery with my final images to see what they looked like presented in a gallery format before I printed them. By using a blank wall I presented them as a tryptic display, as each shot connects to the next and they are more impactful next to each other. I also used a mixed black and white frame to match the colour theme throughout the images, this helped add a border to the photos so they didn’t feel like the geometric elements blended into the grey wall taking away from the harsh lines.

Final Analysis of Photos

The photos are all edited in a the same way, all black and white with blocks of black and white colour. This links all the photos together nicely as each photos content is a little different to the next. I went about the black and white editing on an individual basis making sure I tailored the overall low toned black and white look to each photo. This also meant I had to look after the texture of each photo, sometime increasing the texture to emphasis the point of the photo, sometimes decreasing to reduce the noise and make the point of the photo clearer. All three photos have the geometric style in common, as I used the same blocks of black and white alternating colour on all three photos adding a new element to the composition of the shot. Using the curves of the bay or harsh lines of houses is something I have done in each shot to provide leading lines and structure as otherwise photos in this style can get quite messy.

Analysis of Presentation

I have presented the photos as a tryptic both in person and on the blog. The hard copies I printed out at A4 size to ensure the details in the photos weren’t missed from being too small but also A3 would have been too big and the details of each shot would have been overwhelming. I then backed each shot onto foam board without a boarder as the white foam board looked like an extension of the photo with the photos have large amounts of white near the edges. Saying this I did then back the mounted pieces onto black mount board to group them together. This meant the shots would be displayed together with a high contrast similar to the colour blocks with the white in the photo and the black of the mount board. I chose to display them vertically as it breaks up the landscape orientation of the shots themselves, encouraging the viewer to apricate how large the areas of effected land are and it’s not just one scene. This also helped show the differences between each shot but where the similarities tied them together both in the editing and composition of the shots.

Analysis of Links to Photographer

In my final presentation of my final three photos, there are obvious links to all the photographers I looked at both for editing style and actual photos. In my final editing process I made sure I was using what I had learn through not only my first set of editing but also what I had learnt from researching and analysing Nick Frank and Guy Catling’s work. Both make use of natural geometric shapes created in the photos, removing sections nd replacing with solid colour and patterns drawing the eye to the subject of each photo. Particularly in Nick Frank’s work he uses the colour blocks to remove distracting details, details of the background highlighting the important areas of his work. I used the colour blocks to show the varsity of the areas effected by humans, almost doing the opposite of Nick Frank and using the colour blocks to draw attention to the area of photo beneath the block layer that otherwise would be over looked.

Analysis of Links to Anthropocene

The final photos I have presented have taken an unusual approach when it comes to talking about Anthropocene and it’s effect on our planet, simply because I haven’t looked into plastic or pollution individually but an area of Anthropocene as a whole. Telling the untold story of how we as humans have impacted the world around us, without even noticing. Often we have had good reasons to change a natural landscape whether it be farming so we don’t have to import so much food or housing and roads so we can access the island as a whole and reduce any over population in St Helier. My photos have also taken a dramatic editing style as well often not seen in photos around the Anthropocene as they are often kept natural so people can see it truly as it is. However I used the fact many people know the area well and overlook the differences, to my advantage, by covering the human impacted areas with blocks of colour it doesn’t just give a visual impact for the viewer but separates what they normally see with what they normally see that is human creation.

Lewis Baltz

Born in Newport Beach, California in 1945, Baltz grew up to be a photographer and educator. He rose to fame in the 1970s for his work in the New Topographics movement. Baltz father died when he was 11 but he continued onward attending collage and university, meaning by 1969 he held a Master of Fine Art degree and a BFA degree in Fine Arts. He first became interested in photography at 14 when he started working in a camera shop, however Blatz said from the start he never saw himself a photographer so much as an artist because ‘I never felt any allegiance to it’s history’ in fact he went onto say, ‘I made photographs because photography was the simplest, most direct way of recording something.’ Growing up just shy of WW11 Baltz saw for himself the toll American urbanisation was taking on the world around him and how quickly it was moving. As Baltz developed his career he went through many subject matters before becoming the photographer he is known as, during the 1980s he moved to Europe and started to create large coloured prints of his work. He continued to have a rich ever developing portfolio throughout his career, having many publications and books of his work published also becoming a professor of photography passing on his talent to the next generation. 

Work

Baltz’s work has always focused around the destruction of the world around us, particularly framing images in a monochromatic, deadpan manner highlighting the lack of detail and power humans have on the world stealing nature away to turn it into mass concrete structures. His work often comes across as simple, which you can’t deny it is, however it showcases the details or lack of details in the man made world instead the natural ruggedness destroyed for geometric beauty perfectly expressing the soullessness of the modernising world.

Photo Analysis

Common in Baltz work is the mid tones of Ansel Adam’s zone system, a geometric structure and a hint of nature. This picture perfectly showcases this, unlike many other photographers work there isn’t lots of context available about this photo as Baltz worked in an anti-style of sorts, creating a link between the majority of his work all aiming to project the same idea rather unlike modern day photographers who tend to change what they want to say each new shoot, however this is just a product of current society as was Baltz work. In this photo in particular there is great use of the geometric elements of the building, using the corner to center the photo and creating a unique angle to view the building from. This is then contained as the building is then cropped so the frame is nearly fully filled with the building and the areas that aren’t are blank space creating the deadpan feel to the photo. To break up the harshness of the photo Baltz has left four and a bit trees in frame, doing so creating a further divide between the natural world and the -at the time- current urbanisation of America. Overall it’s a simple but powerful photo highlighting the modern worlds take on rugged, natural places and creating geometric modern but soulless structures all done with a low angle of a corner of a building and monochromatic, high contrasted use of blank space and harsh lines. 

Edit One

These tools are what I used to fill in the blocks of colour. Starting by using the polygon lasso tool to select the outline of fields I then moved onto filling in the selected area with the bucket tool, switching between the colours at the base of the tool panel.

The photo above shows the layer blocked with colour, showing the shapes I made and selected using the polygon lasso tool.

This created the final image presented above. By blocking out parts of the field in black and white to match the photo it forces people to look at the image as it’s bold and intriguing.

Edit Two

This is a comparison between the original image and the black and white edited version. When editing the image I adjusted the highlights so the grey seemed duller, improving the visibility of the lighter sand patches and the sea wall. This helped me see the parts in the image I was going to cover while making the rest of the image a high quality black and white image.

For this photo I again, blocked out the fields/agricultural area in the photos showing just how much of the land is commercialised and effected by vital but often destructive human influence on the land.

Edit Three

For this photo I used the same process of changing the photo to black and white in light room before moving the image to photoshop to use the select and fill tools to map out the fields in the same style of the the other shots.

Final Images

This created a trio of photos edited in a similar style with the same emphasis on the environment. By using the fill tool to blank out sections of the agricultural landscape, it adds direction to the photos encouraging the viewer to look at the environment and how agriculture has effected it. By using black and white images with black and white blocks on top it has created a monotone effect adding harsh contrast and geometric shapes to help get the point of how much agriculture has effected out landscapes. Although it is essential the effect is still there.

This editing style is inspired by Guy Catling and Nick Frank both of whom use blocks of colour or pattern to add into photos, adding emphasise to the point and outlining/highlighting subjects.

Both Catling and Frank have used bright cheerful colours and patterns to block out sections of photos I want to experiment a bit more with highlighting the subject of the photo. Using a variety of photos I took inspired by Edward Burtnsky and other Anthropocene photographers I will outline the unnatural areas in the natural landscapes.

Trial Photo Edit

The first thing I did was duplicate the background layer and lock the original allowing me to edit one layer while always having a backup clean layer.

The next step was to select the paint tool this means I can draw on the layer. I wanted to use a harsh edge brush with a bright red colour to add intensity to the part I was drawing around.

Following this I use the adjustments to make sure the brush was what I wanted, this being a hard edge, red line brush I can create geometric designs with.

The photo I selected to use was one where a house was being built in the middle of fields, on the sea front. Although this photo was effective anyway the lines added to the feeling of the unnatural shapes and colours from the human impact being disruptive in the environment. To get the breaks in the lines I used one click and then hold down on shift and then click again at another point to create a straight line of colour without having to freehand it. This also allowed me to get the breaks in the lines to show where nature is covering the man made structure or where the structure changes in shape.

Final Edits

Presenting Final Images

This trio of photos was taken using Edward Burtnsky’s style of high up, overviews of areas impacted by humans. While two are agriculture and one is a mix of agriculture and housing I think the photos connect nicely showing the expanses of which one coast line has been effected and changed by humans for different reasons from, potatoes growing to fisheries to housing and roads.

This trio of photos works well together, making the impact seem tiny in comparison to the natural world alternatively it shows the human impact sneaking up on us quicker than we realise. The middle shot pulls the three together showing that human impact isn’t a new thing in fact we just get more advanced. I like how the orange looks like a step up from the grey concrete and the car will have some advanced technology where as the bunker was created out of necessity but still is impact on the natural world. Although I think this photo looks great as it looks like the car is an extension of the bunker, joining the present and past together with the geometric style but keeping the wide differences apparent.

This photo I have used as a single shot as it is a complex image with many things to look at, from the sheer scale of the dam to the smaller unusual square constructions at the base of the photo. The red geometric patterns add to the already harsh lines in the photo showing all the different impacts humans have had on the natural world small like the fencing and large like the dam.

Photoshoot Plan

What?- I will use the high point to my advantage and photograph the whole bay and surrounding area. This will create an impact as the photos will capture huge parts of the environment rather than a small section or close up.

How?- I will use a wide angle lens 10-20mm mixing it with a 70-200mm lens to capture everything. The 70-200mm will be useful for getting some higher quality photos or zooming in on specific areas. I will also make sure I have a high shutter speed and lens hood to keep photos crisp and remove any excess glare from the sun.

Where?- Rte Des Landes- a road that winds up above the entire bay in St Ouen. This is a great location as it offers views of the entire bay as well as much of the surrounding parishes.

Why?- I feel this is a great place to make use of a wide angle lens to capture similar to Edward Burtnsky’s style of capture a huge amount of land in one photo. This is also a great area as it has many different types of human impact so this allows me to capture how we effect the land in many ways on such a small island.

Rte des Landes

Rte Des Landes is the location I picked for this shoot as it mimicked Edward Burtnsky’s style, a high vantage point overviewing a vast landscape dotted with human impact.

Contact Sheet

I used blue to mark photos I might use for editing and green I used to select good photos overall. I ended up mainly using my 70-200mm f4 lens as the place was so high above the bay and surrounding area my 10-20mm lens struggled to pick up detail in the shots, making them feel flat and confusing to look at.

Best Images

Quick Edits

For all of these edits I have reflected on previous work inspired by Ansel Adams. I wanted to see the photos edited in a simple cohesive style before I did my final edits to help select a few good photos and add another dimension to my creative process of editing these photos. I think the black and white helps the range of shots pull together and tell the bigger picture, helping to also highlight the difference in soil colour or texture in the contrast between natural and manmade.

For my first photoshoot I have taken a variety of shots at Val De La Mare, a reservoir. Specifically I looked at the dam, a huge manmade structure constructed to hold all the water the reservoir collects. I wanted to use this location as it is a great way of showing people how agriculture has impacted the land. Before the dam was built it would have been untouched land but as the population increased the need for water did so the dam was built to hold 938 megalitres of water. This is a huge volume of water with 1 megalitre being 10,000 litres and the dam itself is equally as impressive and vast, almost incomprehensible as you get closer to it.

Contact Sheet

For this shoot I took a variety of shots from different angles and building different compositions. I used red for photos I didn’t think were suitable for the editing style I will use, green for the photos I do like and yellow for photos I can use if they would be suitable more so than the ones already highlighted in green.

Best Shots Before Editing

I picked these as my best shots due to the composition I have used a wide angle lens at roughly 15mm to take these shots so it has been really effective in expressing the vastness of the dam and the impact it has on the overall land around it.

Editing

I will now go onto edit a mixture of these shots and my other photoshoots. I will go onto make a series of photos I edit, for my first editing experiments I will look into how to highlight the unnatural parts in the natural world.

Edward Burtynsky is a photographer who is incredibly influential in the photography world especially when it comes to the topics of Anthropocene. Regarded as ‘one of the worlds most accomplished contemporary photographers’ having many world wide exhibitions looking at topics like the human impact on the world displaying the work across 80 major museums all over the world.

About Edward Burtynsky

Born in 1955 in Ontario, he then went onto receive a BAA in photography/media studies in 1982 at the Toronto Metropolitan University in 1982. Since then he has received an Alumni Achievement award and an honorary doctorate and even now he sits on the board of directors for The Image Centre. Along side this he has won many awards for his work, including a TED prize in 2015 and the Governors General’s awards in visual and media arts. He became intrigued by the concept of photography when he was 11 and his father brought a dark room and cameras and provided Burtynsky with two rolls of film. While learning black and white photography he learnt how to create lack and white prints. As he continued to progress he began selling photos for 50 cents a photo when he was photography events, eventually this led to him being able to travel and photograph ‘pristine landscapes’ the landscapes of his childhood, quickly developing his passion for landscape photography, as seen in his later career. After he left University in 1982, he quickly became the ever developing photographer we know now. Many of his early works were inspired by the likes of Ansel Adam’s landscapes, being coloured landscapes however he did go onto work for an architecture company and the Ontario hospital. This was before he founded Toronto Image works in 1985, which was not only a work space for himself but a place it doubled as a dark room rental facility, custom photo laboratory and training centre for up and coming media and digital development. This was a significant step in his career as now he could choose to produce his own work and take photos without jobs depending on it.

Edward Burtunsky’s link to Anthropocene

Burtynsky chose to start to move away from typical landscapes and became involved with the Anthropocene project. He also produced a Manufactured Landscapes collection containing 60 images. This was first step in becoming the influential landscape, or damage on landscape photographer he is today. His work has been shown many times, all over the world show casing just how as humans we have impacted the planet around us. Taking a different approach to many other Anthropocene photographers he has captured the things we don’t normally see but operate on a huge scale or just how easily we have taken away from nature without many truly realising as well as often adding in reminders of the greatness of untouched natured.

Photo Analysis

This photo is bright, colourful and bold. It has an element of enjoyment when looing at it that many photos based around the environment don’t, by drawing people in that way something based on a hugely damaging topic don’t tend to. The photo itself is of Lithium mines in Chile, with the ever growing production of battery’s for cars and as such as the world converts to electric to escape the damage and limited supply of fossil fuels the damage that comes with electric power will increase. The photo above truly shows how much damage we are causing on the world while thinking we are fixing the previous damage we have caused. From a high angle the photo is taken from a high angle, Burtynsky tends to use helicopters so this does actually contradict the idea of raising awareness of the Anthropocene development however we have to consider the amount of awareness these photos have brought to the topic ask the question is it worth it for the awareness it brings. The photo has been composed very well making use of the high angle to produce a large depth of field, emphasising the vastness of of the oil field in comparison to the mountain range. Textures appear scattered in the photo from the smooth foreground to the rugged mountain scape, again hinting at the human impact and how we are wearing the world around us down.

Examples of Guy Catling’s Work

Guy Catling

Guy Catling is a modern designer/photographer who works with a mixture of photos, often old war photos. His style is unique and comes from a unique inspiration source. He graduated as a graphic designer in 2014 in the UK continuing to go into a career in graphic design; he often also calls himself an artist for much of the work he does is considered art rather than photography as such. He is best know for his works of adding patterns and colour onto old war photos but he continues to use collage as a main medium, although unlike the classic sense of cutting and sticking magazines together he tends to use photoshop and inspiration drawn from graveyards. Believing collage can ‘create beautiful visual contrasts and can also give old material new life.’ has led Catling down many paths of sharing his work and ideas quickly leading to inspiring many other creators out there, from photographers to artists.

Why does Catling work in this style?

Catling uses patterned fabrics to collage onto black and white photographs. Consequently, adding these vibrant textures softens their dull moods and raises them to a more uplifting tone. The same way flowers add happiness, colour and love to a field full of grief that is grave yards.

Guy Catling’s Eye-Catching Collages Tackle Conflict Imagery

Photo Analysis

He is best known for the floral work that he has done, which was inspired by him visiting a graveyard and experiencing the juxtaposition between life and death. After this, Catling responded by adding patterned fabrics over the top of dull images to give them a new lease of life. Catling focuses on giving photographs an entire new feeling. By using collage and graphic design, Catling creates bright contrasting compositions that have been inspired from what surrounds him. The photo above is a great example of Catling’s style, using photos shop to add sharp lines and colourful patterns completely contrasting the softer, older photos. This gives old photos a new lease of life creating stark contrast between. This photo splits into sections of dark, high contrast foreground, colourful, bright mountain in the middle and softer, brown toned background with the patterned area reflecting this being a brown rather than a bright colour. I love how the photo has been broken up and made into something completely new, merging new technology of photoshop with ancient landscape and collaging as a technique which is between the two on a timeline, pulling all the elements of the photo together while keeping the photo relevant to modern time. However through this Catling hasn’t taken away from the stunning completely natural landscape. Catling’s style as reflected in the photo above shows the beauty and vastness of nature but also how easily we, as humans, can alter it.

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Anthropocene

The proposed current geological epoch, in which humans are the primary cause of permanent planetary change.

The word “Anthropocene” was coined by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen about a decade ago. One day Crutzen, who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds, was sitting at a scientific conference. The conference chairman kept referring to the Holocene, the epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, 11,500 years ago, and that—officially, at least-continues to this day.

The word ‘Anthropocene’ itself breaks down as ‘Anthropo’ meaning human and ‘cene’ beginning a new period of time, together meaning the period of time we are currently in following on from the Holocene, the term was coined in the 1980s but didn’t become commonly used till the early 2000s. The Anthropocene is the time period in which we look at just how greatly we, as humans, have impacted and damaged the natural environment around us for out benefit alone. To name a few impacts we have had on the planet, decrease in biodiversity, pollution increase, climate change, misuse of natural resources and many many more. Anthropocene began in the 1950s however wasn’t labelled as starting till 2016 when radioactive waste, we had caused, were found in soil samples. It was labelled as starting in the 1950s as there was a dramatic increase in human impact that year and we truly started to see the impact it was leaving/creating on the planet we so dearly love. As we started to introduce the invention of plastic into everyday life the problem quickly spiralled out of control, leaving us in the idea that life was improving thanks to the new everyday use of the material plastic. However very quickly we became careless with the quick growing population, thanks to the benefits of plastic from being able to store food better, more hygienically to the use of different medical treatments to the consumption rates at which we were using plastic for everything we do sky rocketing. As humans we have become the single most impactful species on the world around us in a very short space of time, we effect everything from the mass amounts of plastic pollution we create to the water and it’s life we threaten from melting the ice caps with climate change to killing biodiversity with eutrophication.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-the-anthropocene.html

Consumerism and the impact of it on the Anthropocene

Consumerism is the over consumption of goods. From making a huge amount of pollution, it makes us as people always want more because there is always a better or newer thing. This is ever present throughout our lives from fast fashion to trends in every part of our lives. A simple statistic that explains this is that is that the average American spends $1,497 a month on non essential items. This doesn’t change that much throughout the world where most places that have a stable economy follow suit with similar statistics. This is hugely highlighted in the fast fashion industry, this has a huge impact on the world as the trends increase as social media becomes more advanced this means the ‘need’ for more fast fashion. Fast fashion in itself has doubled the clothing produced while the use time of a garment has massively decreased. Not only is the fast fashion industry incredibly harmful and unethical using extremely poor pay and working conditions to make huge profits. The impact it has on the world is irreversible. With all the flights and marine transport fast fashion still comes out on top for creation of CO2 which in turn speeds up climate change at a rapid pace. It truly is the second largest polluter when it comes to different industries, the only one outweighing it is the use of fossil fuels which is a huge part of everything in our lives. Over consumption isn’t limited to just the fashion industry we do it in everything we own, from buying the new water bottle everyone is talking about when our old one is perfectly fine to needing multiple of something just because it comes in a different design for example. In general over consumption hasn’t only caused mass amounts of non revisable damage to our planet but it has made us as the human species incredibly unaware of how much we have and enjoy the smaller things in life.

The Holocene

The Holocene is the only state in which we know humanity can thrive with anything like the 7.5 billion humans being supported today. It began at the last major glacial epoch, which was the ice age 11,700 years ago now. It had another name which meant the age of man, this being Anthropogene, similar to the newly coined Anthropocene, however this can be misleading as in fact humans existed before the ice age but around this time was when we started to see the recorded history and now it’s history from ice age to modern day in the development of humans and the impact they left in their wake. The climate changes during the Holocene were more stable than the Ice Age period, however there were still changes for example when a large ice sheets collapsed the oceans oscillations dramatically changed thought he time period. However the Holocene was considered to be an an atypical interglacial that has not experienced significant cooling over its course ‘an atypical interglacial that has not experienced significant cooling over its course’. Was this a warning for the drastic increase in sea temperature increase in modern day, the Anthropocene? We have now left the Holocene and are in the transition to the Anthropocene. This new geological epoch was named to acknowledge human influence on the state of the planet. 

Causes of Anthropocene

Urbanisation –

The increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities.

Urbanisation has a huge impact on the planet around us from improving things for humans with more housing etc which improves our lives directly with providing us safe, good places to live. However this comes at great cost to the planet as not only does it mean the ever increasing population will likely continue to increase, but it also then creates more and more over crowded, polluted city space but this then takes more and more of the natural land. So not only does this decrease the natural Earth that is best left untouched but it continues to decrease the area of our planet that can still be saved. As we increase in the urban scape the pollution will continue to increase and just add to the un reversible damage we have already done to this planet.

Agriculture –

Agriculture, an essential part of daily life that people hesitate to think about or consider how greatly we cannot exist without it. Simply over half of the worlds inhabitable land is used in agriculture and 26% of all the worlds greenhouse emissions comes from food and the production of it. However not only do we not consider how much we reliable on the agriculture industry, we forget how much it impacts the planet. Unlike other industries agriculture impacts many areas of the eco system from polluting the water with the run off of fertilisers causing eutrophication, to the general increase on green house gas emissions from the rearing and looking after animals to the transporting of out of season produce across the world to more scientific developments as in looking at genetic modification on certain foods aiming to produce bigger and better qualities while being quicker and less laborious. However we cannot blame this on the sole providers of our food as in fact a lot of time we are to blame. The rise of the human population, rising as quickly as it is means we will be needing even more food in less time so again the rates of damage agriculture is enforcing on the planet will be doubled before we know it.

Industrialisation –

This is the development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale. As the population continues to increase the rate of industrialisation has also increased, taking up more natural land than ever to the demand for supplies being on the rise. This actually dates back further than some of the bigger issues now as while a lot of hand powered agriculture machinery was used and a lot less of the things we have now like private jets and commercial oil rigs. This became significant in the industrial revolution which was 1790-1840 and not only began significant new development in the world around us and increase in pollution but also caused a depletion of natural sources. This also started a large and incredibly harmful trend of using fossil fuels that we still use to this day but will one day not too far away be depleted leaving only nasty after effects.

Edit One

For this first photo I used the masking tool to darken the sky without changing the rest of the photo too much. I turned the whole photo to black and white in the style of Lewis Baltz and the new topographic movement. This helped the photo hugely as it added tone to an otherwise flat photo (created by the mix of dull yellows in the original).

Edit Two

Edit two, this has a different subject point. Instead of being a landscape styled image this uses the pillar as a central point to the photo. To emphasis this I used a high contrast black and white adjustment, this helped keep the deadpan tone in the photo. By changing it to black and white removes the yellow tones that are otherwise distracting and makes the photo seem a bit average, where as the black and white gets people to look at the detail they normally miss.

Edit Three

I wanted to use this shot as my third edit because it is a great shot showing the new topographic inspiration. While it is busier than most deadpan photos I used the black and white to reduce some of the atmospheric noise created by the different colours and textures of the sea and surrounding landscape.

Edit Four

I loved this shot and thought it had a lot of potential so to help make it a better photo I levelled the building slightly using the crop tool and then changed the photo to black and white, looking at the tone and making sure the contrast wasn’t too high as I wanted the grey scale to be visible. Often in the New Topographic style and Lewis Baltz in particular grey scale is used as most of the photos are black and white but with low contrast to keep the deadpan look, this is often linked to Ansel Adam’s work as many believe the new topographics style is inspired by his work.

Edit Five

This was my final edit for this project so far as I liked how the water appeared almost still due to the moment the photo was taken the wave had just started to break at the edges. The black and white enhanced the photo, increasing the contrast helped the detail become visible as before the brick work wasn’t as noticeable nor did it really add to the photo and after the editing the photo seems much more joined and has a more deadpan look to the overall image.

Final Images