These photos were from Budapest and it shows all the war and destruction caused and how the buildings were damaged. These photos were taken to show people who don’t know what’s going on around the world, all the danger and destruction. The way the photographer does this is by making all their photos black and white, with an almost ‘decisive moment’ frame in each picture which means it wasn’t planned, that’s what they all have to go through everyday.

These photos are for showcasing the breast cancer awareness and sadness of it.

These are some student exemplars from the past.

The running man is the main focus, as if the shot was framed where the man would be on the left, there wouldn’t be any ripples, reflection of the buildings on the puddle, fallen ladder and the other objects. It would be very plain with a lot of negative space. The chimney on top of the building is also perfectly diagonal to the man’s reflection. Another use of equal spacing and no negative space.

About taking the Photo.
He used a small aperture to capture the in-focus from the for-ground to the background. Used a fast shutter speed to capture the jumping man, even though he is a little out of focus and blurry, for taking it back in 1930, that is amazing and he is basically in focus. The photo relies on natural light, and the shadows suggest that it was taken during midday when the sun was glaring and high in the sky. The natural light adds an authentic, unmediated quality to the image, free from shadows an fake lighting.

The photo being in black and white was not by choice, in 1930s you could only take photos in black and white and so he was limited to that but the photo looked better in black and white than colour anyway, so in a way it helped Bresson. Without colour, it makes the viewers focus more on the subject and what’s happening in the photo and makes the texture become more pronounced. You can feel the environment from the surroundings for example, worn-out posters on the walls, waters surface and the grainy quality of the wet ground. Typically, photographers don’t like taking photos during midday sun due to the amount of glare, harshness and the strong shadows it can create. However, Cartier-Bresson embraced this photo with the sharp shadows to create geometric shapes and add depth. The sun’s angle and position created the vivid reflection’s in the puddle of the buildings, man and other objects.

Introduction:  Henry was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film but preferred the 50mm lens.

He was known for humane, spontaneous photographs helped establish photojournalism as an art form.

His background: He was born into a wealthy family in France, and was introduced from an early age into arts. He started off with painting, but quickly realised he has a passion for photography which he saw as an add-on from painting with an extension of his eye.

Henri realised he could interact with the world using this tool/camera and travelled frequently from Europe to Africa to see and take in each different culture.

“Photography isn’t just about images; it’s about capturing the essence of existence.”

‘The Decisive Moment’
This means a visually pleasing image is combined with deeper meaning by capturing the very essence of what was happening when the shutter is pressed.

Henri Cartier Bresson was known for using a Leica rangefinder with a 50mm lens because:
These cameras were compact, reliable and their design was very discrete and more hidden to the naked eye than other cameras of the era. This allowed him to take quick snapshots with using an unobtrusive shooting style which is ideal for street photography.

Another main reason he used the Leica rangefinder was because of it’s stealth, quiet shutter which allowed sneaky photos to be taken without drawing attention, allowing life to unfold naturally through his lens. This silent tactic was crucial for someone who believed in capturing natural, realistic, authentic, unstaged moments. It also allows a new field of view to his photos.

One of the standout features is the use of leading lines/rule of thirds.

The railings are in line with the top line for the rule of thirds, both physical and shadowed, act as arrows, pointing directly at the main subject. Even the subtle lines in the water and the contours of the puddle help direct the viewer’s gaze towards the man. Also, the use of negative space with nothing going on in the top third of the photo and not really the bottom left area, helps direct our eyes towards the subject in the middle and where all the action and focus is.

Balance – The reflection from the man onto the puddle creates an almost yin-yang feel where the reality and its reflection coexist and perfectly are in opposite which creates a better look and a more natural look for the photo.

Anthropocene

For Anthropocene, I have gone with this photo because it represents the nature in the photo but also shows the destruction and human killings including the smoke entering the atmosphere in the background at the top of the energy station.

Topographic

Landscape

First try using AI on my photos.

Past- Havre De Pas but in an idea of how it would of looked in the past with the old street lamps, the main building not finished building yet and the sky being very bright.

Present – The building has been made now and it has new changed windows with different newer street lamps, but same pillars and main circular stone wall.

Future – The stone building has now been flattened and turned into more of a blue building with more different windows, again different newer street lamps, with new white pillars also, to match the bridge. Also, there is a lot of rubbish and plastic scattered all over the beach to show how the world is getting destroyed by people littering/killing animals.

Second try using AI with my photos.

Past – Anchor.

Present – Anchor.

Future – Anchor

I started with this photo because I really like how it looks and matches with Nicholas’ style.

Now that I have done both parts for one photo, I will blend them together to create Nich’s style.

That was my first attempt trying to blend the two photos into one, and I will do more attempts to blend them using my different photos and styles. But I started by adding the main edited photo on the left in full frame with the other objects in the background. Then for the right side, I cut out the circular metallic object put it centre on a black canvas like Nicholas Gallery does, but I also noticed he blends the outside into the background so I added a light 10% black brush around the outside and went over it again until I liked the blend/eyeball look.

Nicholas used a nice style by having a photo full framed on the left and then on the right, cut out in a circular shape. Also, he will use a photo of a lighter for example on one side, showcasing the evil and what’s killing us and then on the other side something that is helping and saving us like an inhaler.

I really like this concept and I will be trying to take and edit some photos like his with the side by side effect meaning good and bad and also just cropped into a circle. But I will also add my own touch onto my photos by changing the shape of the cut out or maybe opposite colours on each side to showcase opposites.

For my first photoshoot, I went around the harbour when the water was out taking multiple different photos of boats and how they have been affected by the ocean, corrosion and oxidisation. Didn’t get as many photos as the second photoshoot, but still got some good worthy photos I will be using from it.

For my second photoshoot, I explored the dump/recycling area near Havre Des Pas to take photos of all the different recycling sections from glass, metal, plastic and the burned materials turned into dirt. With also seeing a lot of abandoned vehicles just left to rot.

I started with this photo which I really liked with the bricks all placed down in a straight line, directing the attention towards the broken down/abandoned fire truck. But, I wanted to create more with the photo and focus on the straight line. So, I started by adding some AI rubbish on the left and right on the floor to create more of a dump/abandoned theme to match the whole photo. Then masked out the entire background apart from the bricks and the fire truck, and did (Filter – Blur – Motion blur – 30) which created a blurry/non-focus look to the photo but when you look closely and realise the bricks and fire truck are focused that’s what draws the viewers attention. Then, after that, the photo looked good but I didn’t quite like the sky and top half of the photo, so I told AI to add a sky, which gave me two boring/bad generates, but the third matched the theme with the power cables connection across the screen as you can see and so I kept that one. But then, asked AI to create a sunset as well, which came out exactly perfect as I imagined it, giving us the final result.

Burtynsky was a Canadian Photographer, who was famously known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. He has multiple locations all over the globe that represent the increasing development of industrialization and the impacts it has on nature and humans existence.

Burtynsky’s photographic style is characterized by the sublime nature of the scale of his photographs. He takes photos very far away from buildings, objects and environments with a large-format view camera, which shows humanity’s scarring on the landscapes which he makes his subject by always focusing on the consequences of global consumerism.

Some techniques Burtynsky uses is that he will get a variety of technology to achieve different perspectives, including traditional helicopters, fixed-wing planes, remote controlled drones, lifts and a fifty-foot pneumatic pole. He uses these methods in his photography to help with the Anthropocene look, with the plastic/metal and other materials affecting the environment and earth.

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.

The Anthropocene Epoch is when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems using a unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history. So, basically when humans had an effect on the earth’s nature and shows the negative impact humans had on it.

Mind map/Mood board:

What are some of the issues explored?

Some issues explored in Anthropocene photography are that it mainly focuses on humanity which believes that humans are responsible for everything that happened towards nature and the environment, such as fossil fuels making the air more polluted which is worse for our lungs and animals. Another example would be how much plastic there is in the sea which is due to humans littering and it ending up in the sea, then fish, birds and other sea animals would end up eating this plastic we deposited and then would end up dying and/or when we catch the fish and cut them up to eat, we can see all the plastic they have eaten in their body.

Are the Photos Beautiful?

Some of the photos we see from Anthropocene photographers are very stunning to look at ascetically of the big distances or landmarks like mountain ranges or fields/rivers. But, a lot of the photos they take are not helping the bad ecosystems or climate change, but they are spreading awareness for other people to react and start fixing the world.

Do you think that these photographers are solving the problem?

These photographers are not aiming to solve the problem of the litter in the ocean and animals and any other problems humans have done. But, what they are trying to achieve, is to spread the awareness of the litter and show normal people who may be the reason for the littering how bad it is and what it actually does to animals and the earth. Also, shows their way of caring for the animals and planet by showcasing all the negatives towards the public.