Definition – The dramatic changes in correspondence with humans and the environment.

How and why are photographers exploring this concept?

Some photographers that explore this concept of the world and human impact use photography as a source of spreading awareness about these environmental changes.

Mood Board

Photoshoot Inspiration

The main focus of my Anthropocene photoshoot is air pollution, planes and clouds. My photoshoot and ideas are inspired by various photographers associated with the study of clouds, but my main inspiration is Alfred Stieglitz. His work stands out to me the most because of the high contrast between the clouds and skies in his photographs as seen below:

I have always been very interested in the study of clouds because of the unique shapes, patterns, tones and layers of the clouds. To stay within the theme of Anthropocene, I plan to also capture contrails created by planes. I like the contrast with the linear lines that planes create against the soft, amorphous shapes the clouds are in.

I plan to show how dangerous plane contrails can be towards our Earth’s atmosphere by using the contrast of sharp contrails and soft clouds. I also want to show the contrails spreading out and losing shape to show the process of them absorbing and trapping energy and radiation into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Information About Contrails and Clouds

Contrails, also known as condensation or vapour trails, are long linear clouds created by aircraft engine exhausts or changes in air pressure. They are made of water vapour and low ambient temperatures that often exist at high altitudes.

Contrails contribute to climate change by absorbing and trapping solar radiation from the sun within the Earth’s atmosphere. They can allow a various amounts of solar radiation to penetrate to the Earth’s surface which causes the planet to warm up.

It is said that there are three types of contrails, short-lived, persistent non-spreading, and persistent spreading.

It has been documented by researchers that by reducing altitude when flying showed a 54% decrease in contrails being produced. By also using highly efficient engines planes can reduce contrail production from the engines.

Another alternative to reducing contrails is by using electric planes. This is because they are powered by fuel-cell-powered electric engines meaning nothing is being combusted because there is no exhaust besides water vapour. This means no solid matter is being produced for the contrails to attach to.

There are more than a hundred different variants of clouds which can be grouped into ten basic types, which are;

Multi-Level Cloud – Floats in numerous altitudes

• Cumulonimbus

High-Level Clouds – Float at altitudes of around 16,500 and 45,000 feet

• Cirrus
• Cirrocumulus
• Cirrostratus

Mid-Level Clouds – Float at altitudes of between 6,500 and 20,000 ft

• Altocumulus
• Nimbostratus
• Altostratus

Low-Level Clouds – Float at altitudes of less than 6,500 ft

• Cumulus
• Stratus
• Stratocumulus

Planes can be seen flying at about 31,000 to 42,000 ft in the air, however smaller aircrafts often fly below 15,000 ft. Planes of start forming contrails at around 20,000 ft, this is because the air surrounding the aircraft is well below freezing so it cools down the water vapour coming out of the back of the engines.

Some planes may seem like they are flying at around the same height but one is producing contrails and the other is not, this is because even a 1,000 ft difference can affect whether a plane produces them or not because of the drastic change in the atmosphere surrounding them.

For this photoshoot, I took inspiration from Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work, as well as Robert Adams, I tried to interpret the ways that they format their images. My focus for this theme was light and sewage pollution, I wanted to convey this message by taking photographs of manhole covers and street lamps as I believe people don’t acknowledge the impact that these simple everyday objects can have on climate change.

I also wanted to explore the theme of industrialisation as it links quite well with the theme of New Topographics. I believe this is because of the massive impact this has on our planet and ecosystems.

Born in New Jersey in 1937 and raised in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, Robert Adams is an American photographer who documents the changing landscape of the American West. He says that his work is an attempt to “reconcile” his disappointment with the destructive behaviour of people towards nature through his love and respect for the unique landscape of the American West.

He photographed places such as Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake City that had caused damage to their environments through suburbanization.

His black and white style of work was first recognised in the mid-1970s through his book The New West. He was also recognised for his participation in the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975.

His work shows a large variety of tonal range and textures, even with a long depth of field he still manages to capture the details. His images showcase an intimidating presence through the detailed and darkened sky, as well as the intense dark shadows and prominent textures.

Examples of his work and style:

Image Analysis

This photograph has captured a quiet rural landscape featuring a ranch in Keota, Colorado in the background. The image conveys a sense of quiet and solitude which reflects the impact of human presence on the environment.

Adams has used natural lighting to emphasize the details and textures of the landscape. He uses a straightforward composition which focuses on the vast expanse of the rural setting with minimal distraction or elements.

This piece of work is a part of Adams’ project that explores the changing American landscape and the effects of human activity on nature.

The term ‘New Topographics’ was first invented by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers who made pictures that had similar banal aesthetics. Their images where mostly black and white prints of urban landscapes.

(Banal Aesthetics –  Post-industrial realism style)

New Topographics was inspired by Albert Renger Patszch and the concept of The New Objectivity. It was a reaction to the increase of urban environments and industrialisation. Many who were associated with this type of photography were inspired by man-made subjects such as parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses.

An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featured photographers, such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, who showed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being taken away by suburbanisation.

(Suburbanisation – A population shift from historic core cities or rural areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of urban sprawl)

Here are some examples of photographer’s work that focused on New Topographics:

I plan to edit my photos in a way to show my inspiration from Robert and Ansel Adams. I will turn my images black and white and edit them further to show a more varied range of tones and shadows to create more depth and a dramatic affect.

Best Image Edits

Colour

Black and White

When editing these images I wanted to show my interest and inspiration from Ansel Adams and Robert Adams’ own style of editing. I aimed to have a high variety of tones and a lot of contrast within my images.

Overall Best Image & Analysis

I believe this is my best image out of my entire photoshoot. I really like the variety of tones and the general composition of the photo. The positioning of the camera gives the building intimidating industrial look, It leads the eye from the fence to the dark tower and sky. The textured surfaces on the building contrasts with the soft cloudy background combined with the natural lighting.

Overall I think this image shows my inspiration from the photographers I have researched the best because I’ve used a large tonal range and heavy contrast. I have also been able to captured plenty of textures and a variety of shapes in the buildings and clouds and kept a well balanced exposure.

Process of Editing Images

Edits of Best Images

Edits of Best Photos

Creating a HDR image in Lightroom

In order for me to create a HDR image, I first selected my three bracketed images that are of the exact same landscape.

I then right clicked on them and scrolled down to Photo Merge and selected the HDR option.

This pop-up then shows up and once I am satisfied with the image I selected ‘merge’.

I then label my HDR images with a star rating so that I know which ones they are.

Bracketing Photoshoot – HDR Photos

I had decided to take a photoshoot of my old neighbourhood and surrounding areas that have been affected during the storm. I tried to focus on both urban and semi rural places to show all the damage the storm had created.

Edits

Born in 1902 and died in 1984, Ansel Easton Adams was a famous American environmentalist and landscape photographer who well was known for his black-and-white images of the American West using his large-format camera. He was a relentless activist for the cause of nature and the environment.

He aimed to make people acknowledge the importance of preserving the last remaining wilderness lands. For him nature was always “a mystique: a valid, intangible, non-materialistic experience”. His work was not intended to be realistic, they were documents of nature which provided people a psychological experience of natural beauty.

He said one of the reasons for his images being in black-and-white was because he felt colour could be distracting, and could therefore distract an artist’s attention from taking a good photograph and reaching their full potential. He did however start taking colour photographs after the Kodachrome film was invented in the mid 1930s.

Adams was responsible for founding a group called Group f/64, this was an association of photographers, such as Edward Weston, who supported pure photography; photography that attempts to represent a scene or subject in sharp focus, detail and drastic tonal range. He had also developed an idea called visualisation; you picture the outcome of something before it happens, because his images didn’t turn out how he saw them in his head.

This is an example of one of Adams’ famous photographs which became his first conscious visualization. This is an image of the Half Dome in Yosemite National Park where he took the majority of his photos. At first he used a yellow lens on his large-format camera, however he swapped it for a dark red one which created much more depth as we can see in the image above.

The reason for his work being mainly based on Yosemite National Park was because for most of his life he was inspired by it’s natural beauty. He had first seen this park when he was in his childhood when his family took a vacation there in 1916. This was also when he had received his first camera, a Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie. 

To create his very detailed images, Adams had used the zonal system which allowed him to creatively visualize an image and produce a photograph that matched it. He had also used darkroom techniques such as dodging and burning which changed the exposure of his images which resulted in high contrasting and tonal pieces of work.

Image Analysis

I have chosen to analyse this image by Ansel Adams because I think it portrays what his style of photography looks like.

Technical – As we know Adams had used darkroom techniques and filters to play around with the exposure of his photographs and it looks like in this image he had used this technique.

We can see that natural lighting has been used in the creation of this image and from the angle that this image has been taken, we can guess that it was taken from some sort of hill, high place and or the camera has been placed in a upwards position. The image has a wide depth of field which gradually turns more faded towards the middle of the image.

Visual – We can see a large range of tonal values in this image, ranging from pure black to pure white. There is a lot of detail and texture in this image, however it gets less detailed towards the middle of the image. I think the leading lines of this image are the trees and mountains which point towards the middle of the image where we can see more mountains, snow and even clouds.

Contextual – I know that the photograph was taken somewhere in the Yosemite National Park because the majority of Adam’s work came from there as it was his source of inspiration ever since he was young.

The reason why this, and many other images, have a large tonal range and are very detailed is because Adams attempted to recreate what he had seen in his mind when he saw the landscape, he tried to convert his vision into a photograph by using filters and darkroom techniques to achieve this.

Conceptual – I think Ansel Adams took this photograph because he was inspired and motivated by the landscape: “At this location one cannot move more than a hundred feet or so to the left without reaching the edge of the almost perpendicular cliffs above the Merced River. Moving the same distance to the right would interpose a screen of trees or require an impractical position on the road. Moving forward would invite disaster on a very steep slope falling to the east”.