Les Quennevais estates, St Aubin’s, First tower, Springfield, Town, FB fields, Gorey, Beaumont.

HDP Photoshoot

I’m an artist, educator, writer and Lecturer on BA (Hons) Photography at Kingston School of Art. My practice embraces autobiography, literature and reference-based thinking, to create narratives that question the relationship between the body and the photographic medium. I work with photography, writing, performance and sculpture, employing methodologies cultivated by the 1960s-70s Land Art movement, Performance and Arte Povera, to help question, or push, our understanding of the photographic.

Alexander Mourant is an artist, educator and writer based in London. His first publication, The Night and the First Sculpture, was published by Folium, 2024. Recent exhibitions include To Walk in the Image, Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland (2023), At the Farthest Edge: Rebuilding Photography, NŌUA, Norway (2023) and A Sudden Vanishing, Seen Fifteen Gallery, London (2023). Mourant is a recipient of grants from Arts Council Norway, Arts Council England and Arthouse Jersey. He has been commissioned by FT Weekend Magazine, Hapax Magazine and The Greatest Magazine, and included in BJP, The Guardian, Photograph, Photo works, METAL Magazine and Photo monitor. He won the Free Range Award and was nominated for the Foam Paul Huff Award. Mourant is a Member of Revolve Collective and Contributor at C4 Journal. He achieved BA Photography at Falmouth University, and MA Photography at Royal College of Art, London. He is a Lecturer in Photography at Kingston University.

New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. The photographers associated with New Topographics include Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, who were inspired by the man-made.

Composition. Centred, ‘matter of fact’ style framing, flat horizontal and straight vertical lines are all hallmarks of New Topographic photography. Composition is everything and what you exclude from your frame is just as important as what you include.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

It is a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams (born 1937) is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through his book The New West (1974) and his participation in the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975.

Adams Style – a spare formalism coupled with emotional depth.

Analysis

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Contextual (Photography in Relation to Its Environment & Purpose)

Robert Adams’ work in the New Topographics movement (1970s) responded to rapid urbanization and environmental change. Instead of romanticizing landscapes, his photos presented suburban expansion with a neutral, detached perspective. This image shows the tension between natural landscapes (the distant mountains) and human development (tract housing and roads), highlighting the spread of suburbanization in the American West.

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Conceptual (Ideas & Meanings in Photography)

This photograph challenges traditional landscape photography by portraying the human-altered environment rather than untouched nature. Adams doesn’t dramatize the scene; instead, he presents suburban sprawl as mundane yet thought-provoking. The image invites viewers to reflect on progress vs. loss, raising questions about how human expansion reshapes nature. The placement of the mountains in the background suggests an underlying contrast what the land once was vs. what it has become.

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Visual (Composition & Aesthetic Aspects)

Framing & Depth: Adams uses a straightforward, almost clinical framing with a balanced composition. The houses and streets lead the eye toward the mountains, subtly reinforcing the idea of encroachment.

Lighting & Tone: The use of black and white removes any romanticized colour, making the scene appear stark and factual. The tonal contrast between the light-coloured homes and the darker roads creates structure in the composition.

Repetition & Patterns: The uniformity of the houses and roads emphasizes suburban monotony and the lack of uniqueness in modern development.

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Textual (Photography & Language/Representation)

Absence of People: By not including human subjects, Adams shifts focus to the environment itself, letting the landscape tell the story of human impact.

Title as Context: “Colorado Springs, Colorado” is direct and unembellished, reinforcing Adams’ documentary approach. The neutrality of the title reflects the movement’s goal of avoiding subjective emotional influence.

Photographic Language: The image’s restrained, observational tone aligns with the New Topographics philosophy describing rather than judging.

Joint Analysis

Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print

Visual

The line across the horizon, squashed compressed loads of negative space in the top of the image

Technical

Clear sky no clouds, cold lighting, hard edged distinct shadows

Contextual

8 cars 4 pumps and 3 gas stations this photos about the cars and roads connecting places back together all about petrol cars and oil damaging the environment. sense of nationalism red white and blue colours same as the American flag.

Conceptual

The road leads back to the mountains and open air. leaving the squashed ruined land and going back to the beautiful open sky of California.

Rural Jersey:

During this photoshoot I explored Jersey’s rural farming landscape. I took my photos during sunset which heightened the dramatic lighting. The strong light of the sun reflected on the plastic sheets that covered the fields, this added light to both the top and bottom of the frame, creating more balance in the photo.

Exposure:

The strong sunlight allowed for a quick shutter speed. so the sky had a balanced exposure. This fast shutter speed meant that any areas in the foreground (not covered in plastic) were under-exposed, enhancing the dramatic outcome.

Angle / Perspective:

During the photoshoot, I tested different angles to adjust the perspective of the images. During this process, the aperture was adjusted to adjust the depth of field.

details about jersey farming

Jersey’s countryside is a place of beauty, recreation and culture. It is blessed with some of the deepest, most fertile soils, and our climate is perfect for growing most crops. Our beautiful countryside flourishes with wild flowers, and our famous Jersey cows graze on lush green fields for the majority of the year. We know that dairy farming in Jersey has a positive impact on the environment and countryside. And the dairy industry in Jersey is committed to adopting good environmental practice in its operational and capital investment decisions and to operate at the highest levels of efficiency. The total area of land under cultivation at around 36,500 vergées this represents 56% of the island area with its 10,000 farms.

Raw Photos:

Photoshoot 1

Photoshoot 2

Selection process:

as you can see I starred my favourite images these were images I thought had a great contrast between light and darks and the angle of them was perfect.

Strongest Photos:

Creative editing

Vignette:

Panoramic Edits

Photographers photographed a landscape in sections and lined their daguerreotypes side-by-side to create one long print, a panoramic photo. They used this technique to document history, and many antique landscapes are incredibly collectible today.

Daniel Wretham a panoramic photographer said:

shooting these ultra wide panoramic pictures really is a joy because they are such high resolution and really show off the image to its full potential, plus they are very forgiving for images in case you want to use different ratios and take sections of the image out to use as individual pictures, for want of a better expression it has the potential to be 3-4 different prints from one image.

joiner photos – David Hockney

David Hockney is an English painter and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Hockney is also gay he came out when he was 23 years old.

This photo is made up of over 700 separate photos showing all the details he missed on his first trip Hockney travelled up and down this road multiple times to get all these photos. he thinks of his photos as art work not just photographs.

My Photos

Exposure Compensation

Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.

Exposure Bracketing

when you bracket your shots you take exactly the same picture of your subject at several different exposures. This technique gives you a range of options to choose from when you’re editing. As a result, it’s much less likely that you’ll end up with a badly underexposed or overexposed photo.

HDR photos

HDR (high dynamic range) helps you get great shots in high-contrast situations. The iPhone camera takes several photos in rapid succession at different exposures and blends them together to bring more highlight and shadow detail to your photos.

My own photos

Merging the images

Final HDR image

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.

His childhood

Adams was a hyperactive and sickly child with few friends. Dismissed from several schools for bad behaviour, he was educated by private tutors and members of his family from the age of 12. Adams taught himself the piano, which would become his early passion.

Yosemite National Park

“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite”

The Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir.

1927

On the chilly spring morning of April 10th, 1927, Ansel Adams set out along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully to capture an image of the striking sheer face of Half Dome, one of Yosemite National Park’s most iconic natural features.

Nineteen twenty seven was the pivotal year of Adams’s life. He made his first fully visualized photograph, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, and took his first High Trip. More important, he came under the influence of Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts and artists.

Kings Canyon

The Sierra Club advocated for making Kings Canyon a national park so it could be better protected, and Adams was chosen to represent the club at a conference in Washington. To make his argument, Adams presented a selection of his own photographs before the assembled representatives.

Side Hobbies

During summer, Adams would enjoy a life of hiking, camping, and photographing; and the rest of the year he worked to improve his piano playing, perfecting his piano technique and musical expression. He also gave piano lessons for extra income that allowed him to purchase a grand piano suitable to his musical ambitions.

image with yellow filter image with red filter

Image Analysis

Technical

In Ansel Adams’ “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks”, the lighting is primarily natural daylight, likely captured during a time of soft sunlight, such as early morning or late afternoon. The high contrast between the bright sunlit rocks and the deep shadows of the crevices reflects Adams’ mastery over tonal range, using the Zone System to achieve precise exposure. The aperture is set for a deep depth of field, ensuring sharp focus from the foreground rocks to the distant sky. Adams likely used a wide-angle lens, allowing him to capture the expansive landscape. The ISO is low, contributing to a fine-grain texture with smooth tonal transitions, and the photograph’s fine details are rendered crisply. As the image is in black-and-white, the white balance is naturally neutral, focusing on the tonal contrast rather than color accuracy, highlighting the texture and form of the rugged rocks and sky.

Visual

The visual elements in “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” are dominated by high contrast, with dark shadows enveloping the jagged rock formations and light highlights on the sunlit surfaces, creating a dramatic effect. The texture of the rocks is highly pronounced, giving the photograph a tactile, three-dimensional feel. The spires, sharp and angular, create strong vertical lines, which dominate the composition, while the surrounding landscape, though equally detailed, serves to frame these towering forms. The space is carefully structured, with a deep foreground and background, adding depth and perspective. Adams’ use of the Rule of Thirds positions the spires slightly off-centre, drawing the viewer’s gaze upward. The resulting composition is harmonious, leading the eye naturally through the image and balancing the visual weight between light and shadow.

Contextual

“Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” can be seen within the broader historical context of the American environmental movement, which gained momentum in the early 20th century. As an advocate for wilderness preservation, Ansel Adams used his photographic work to promote the conservation of the American West, showcasing the beauty and grandeur of natural landscapes. This photograph is a testament to his personal connection to nature and his belief in its intrinsic value. The towering rock formations in the image are not just geological features but represent the unspoiled wilderness that Adams sought to protect from industrial encroachment. His work, including this photograph, played a crucial role in the establishment of national parks and the broader environmental movement, advocating for the preservation of these natural wonders for future generations.

Conceptual

The concept behind “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” is one of awe and reverence, drawing a parallel between the grandeur of the natural world and sacred spaces like cathedrals. The spires, reaching skyward, symbolize nature’s monumental and spiritual qualities, evoking a sense of the sublime, where the viewer feels both humbled and uplifted by the scale and beauty of the landscape. Adams captures not just a physical scene but the essence of nature’s power, presenting the rocks and spires as sacred forms worthy of reverence. The photograph is an exploration of nature’s dominance, its capacity to inspire awe, and the notion of wilderness as a place of deep, almost spiritual significance. This conceptual approach invites the viewer to reconsider their relationship with the natural world and recognize its importance beyond mere aesthetics.

john constable notes

The Hay Wain

6ft long weird length very big usually smaller. Where he grew up woman washing farmers working dog barking. fathers a land owner. industrial revolution taking jobs away photos relaxed and rural. classical landscape used to be called noon see no faces farmers in the back become nature his own personal experience the sound of water escaping from slimy posts and brickwork. these scenes made me a painter. lack of finish everything had to be smoothly painted he deliberately created a rough surface to feel the nature of the painting. carefully composed memory.

What does Landscape mean? ​

A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.

When did classical landscapes emerge as a genre?​

the Birth of the Classical Landscape was In the 17th century. These landscapes were influenced by classical antiquity and sought to illustrate an ideal landscape recalling Arcadia, a legendary place in ancient Greece known for its quiet pastoral beauty.

When did landscape emerge as a genre in western culture? ​

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the tradition of depicting pure landscapes declined, and the landscape was seen only as a setting for religious and figural scenes. This tradition continued until the 16th century when artists began to view the landscape as a subject in its own right.

When did landscape photography originate?

According to records, the earliest known evidence of a landscape photograph was taken between the years of 1826 and 1827. It was an urban landscape photo taken by a French inventor by the name of Nicephore Niepce.

What prompted the rise of Landscape Art during the late 18th / 19th century?​

Subsequently, religious painting declined throughout the rest of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. That fact, combined with a new Romanticism which emphasized emotion, individualism, and the glorification of nature promoted landscapes to a prestigious place in art that continues to this day.

Final 7 photographs in art steps

Evaluation

I think my photoshoot was successful, it was based on the photographer Clare Rae. I took a selection of photos, each one exploring different angles, lighting, and compositions. Out of those, I was able to narrow it down to 7 final pieces that I believe work well together and intertwine geometric structures with human form. As a group of photos, the diversity in the angles and shapes created by the human form and geometric shapes, creating a sense that these are human sculptures.

Clare Rae often discusses themes of being trapped in her work, and I was drawn to that concept as an inspiration for my own project. The idea of being trapped became a central theme in my photos, so I incorporated picture frames to symbolize this feeling of confinement as well as the idea of the human sculpture. By framing my model in various ways, I was able to visually represent the idea of entrapment, as if the frames themselves were a boundary the model was trying to escape.

For the editing process, I decided to convert the photos into black and white, as I wanted to emulate Clare Rae’s distinctive black-and-white identity photo style. The black and white removes any distractions on colour, putting more focus on the shape and form.

Looking back, if I were to do the photoshoot again, there are a few changes I’d consider making. I would experiment with a wider range of angles to capture more diverse perspectives. I think there’s potential to push the composition further and bring even more variety to the images and shapes. Additionally, I would encourage my model to experiment with a greater range of poses and shapes within the frames, exploring more dynamic and unexpected positions. This would add even more depth and complexity to the overall concept, helping to tell a more unique story about restriction, freedom and the geometric shape of the body with the frame.

Portraiture

I also printed out my environmental and studio portraiture photos along with my identity ones.