The Environment- Review

The Environment 

For this environment project I became interested in how humans have intervened with the natural landscape. Robert Adam’s, ‘On signal hill overlooking Long Beach, California’ appealed to me for the pastiche as I liked the way he captured human’s intervention upon nature by capturing tree’s surrounded by an urban area. In my three images I wanted to represent the same issue as the pastiche symbolises. I also want to show how the landscape has been changed by humans which has caused a divide between the nature and man made subjects.

Edward Burtynsky

Robert Adam's

Thomas Misrach

First I decided to research in to the history of landscape photography to gain inspiration for my three final images. William Henry Fox Talbot inspired me to include tree’s in my final three photo’s because of how they symbolise power, stability and strength. By photographing tree’s in a landscape that has bend damged by humans will symbolise the strength of nature. As I was focusing on the relationship between nature and humans I researched into photographers who focus on that theme in there work. I came across Edward Burtynsky who captures the damaging effects humans have done to the natural landscape, his work inspired me as it captures the way the natural landscape has had to suffer. 


After I took digital test photo’s of natural areas that have been changed by humans, I became interested in how we have created a divide between natural and man made. I began to look in to photographers that capture man made paths cutting through a natural environment such as the photographer Thomas Misrach who looks at mans relationship with nature and doesn't just look at the damage but also what effect we have had on the natural landscape intentionally or accidentally. Thomas Struth is another photographer who inspired me with his images of paths or roads cutting through natural environments, his work captures the relationship humans have with the environment and uses pathways cutting through the landscape to symbolise the way human’s have cut through the land and damaged it. For the pastiche I researched further into Robert Adam’s to find out what made his images and how I could pastiche one of them. I first took some digital test shots of a location I thought would be ideal for the pastiche, as it was a hill that overlooks a town which is very similar to Adams pictures.

Thomas Struth

William Henry Fox Talbot

When I took my pastiche I made sure it was a very overcast day as the sky was very overcast in Adam’s picture. I also photographed two tree’s and included the foreground to make it as similar as I could to Robert Adam’s picture. My pastiche translates the same theme that is represented in ‘On signal hill overlooking Long Beach, California’ as it captures nature surrounded by an urban landscape. I photographed tree’s that were very bare to symbolise the damage humans have had on the landscape. The visual choices I made for my final three images include photographing pathways or roads that run through a natural environment to show the divide that has been created between nature and man made, and to symbolise the damaging effects humans have had on the environment. I photographed three different pathways to show different ways a landscape can be damaged, one of the images subtly show the way a landscape has been ruined whereas the other two clearly show pathways cutting through a beautiful and natural environment. When I took my images I made sure to stand on the path way to emphasise the fact that is us that it is us ruining the landscape, I also made sure I included tree's in the image to symbolise the strength of nature and how there is hope in keeping the natural environment as it is. The most challenging part’s of this unit was finding a location similar to the pastiche that had two large tree’s overlooking a urban town. 

My Pastiche

The City
My idea for the ‘The City’ project is to capture modernisation within the city. I came up with the idea from researching into the photographer Brassai for my pastiche. I decided to use Brassia for my pastiche because of how he captures the nocturnal side of the city and with how he uses light from street lamps, shop signs and windows to illuminate his pictures. Modernisation is going to be represented in my images through taking photo’s of large buildings using a low camera angle to emphasise the scale of them and how the city is always growing and modernising. I'm also going to capture windows of buildings as there repetitive pattern can symbolise the control and structure of the city. 

Robert Vizinni

Brassai

Bill Brandt 

For the pastiche section of this project I chose Brassai, I first began to research in to the photographer to get an insight into his idea of the city and why he choose to photograph at night. Next I decided to search for locations that look similar to the one in the pastiche, I looked for narrow street’s that have cobbled roads and lights on either side of the street as I felt they were the main focal points of the photograph. When I took the photograph I made sure that I included some of the path in the foreground, I also made sure the main light was in a similar area to where the hotel sign is in Brassai’s picture. 


To gain inspiration for the second part of the project , I began looking into night time photographers such as Bill Brandt and Robert Vizinni. Both Brandt and Vizinni inspired me with how they photograph large buildings and emphasise the scale of them which represents the growth of the city and how its always modernising because of the way the buildings are towering above the rest of the city. The way they photograph at night also inspired me as I felt it empathises the modernity of the city because of all the light illuminating from buildings windows, street lamps and shop signs. Another visual reference for my three images was photographer Ori Gersht, his formal pictures make the city appear very structured and controlled because of the symmetry of the buildings and the repetition of the windows, however if you look closely you notice how some of the buildings have actually been damaged. Michael Kenna was my main visual reference for this section of the project because of how he emphasises the buildings scale, by using low camera angles. I also like how he makes you see the city in a very different way to how you normally view it as he photographs parts of the city that are normally over looked by looking above the street level.

Michael Kenna

At the beginning of this project I researched into modernisation, on the BBC webiste I found a map showing urban growth from 1955 to 2015. From looking at the map it made me realise the major difference in urban growth between this period of time, I also found that North America and Europe were the most urban areas. This research made me want to look into modernisation especially around the area I live, as I have lived there my whole life and have personally seen the town change and grow. When I took my three images I made sure I captured modernisation by showing large buildings that tower over the rest of the town to represent the growth of the town. I also took close ups of the windows on buildings as the repetition of the windows symbolise how the town is being controlled, I used the light illuminating from the windows to symbolise the modernisation and the windows that were not lit up broke up the repetitive pattern which symbolises the way the control of the city is becoming much less. For my three images I decided to use a film speed of ISO 400 to give the images a very controlled feel to represent modernisation so there isn’t any harsh shadows to make the pictures look very even. When I took the pastiche I used an aperture of F8 to make sure everything was in focus, I then used a shutter speed of eight seconds as the location was dimly lit. The most challenging part of the project was when I had to print my three images, I decided to uses a film speed of ISO 400 for the first time and they came out a lot softer then I expected so I found them difficult to print because of how flat they looked.