Introduction
What I am going to be focusing on for personal investigation (part 2) is how lifestyles involving pollution and contribution to global warming has become an everyday norm for a majority of people in the world. I will be focusing my investigation on the city of London as this is where I live and I have most access to. I decided to make this my theme because for a long time now people have contributed to pollution, not necessarily individually but as one large machine, the effects of this to our planet will soon be irreversible and potentially life threatening to the human race.
During this investigation I will be focusing my photography on threshold concept number 7 and number 10. Threshold concept number 7: Photographs are not fixed in meaning; context is everything, I can take a picture and the true meaning of it is only known to me, I could reveal the meaning of the photograph for others to know but unless I do this there is no proof as to what it means. Threshold concept 10: photographs are images containing a moment which has passed and can never again be returned to unless an image has been taken, images are one of the few ways of glimpsing into the past.
During this investigation I will be focusing my photography on threshold concept number 7 and number 10. Threshold concept number 7: Photographs are not fixed in meaning; context is everything, I can take a picture and the true meaning of it is only known to me, I could reveal the meaning of the photograph for others to know but unless I do this there is no proof as to what it means. Threshold concept 10: photographs are images containing a moment which has passed and can never again be returned to unless an image has been taken, images are one of the few ways of glimpsing into the past.
My image
I think that this image represents me as a photographer in a way that I like because right now and for a while now this is the style that I have been trying to achieve and use in my photography practice. What I like most about this image is that first of all it is in black and white, I feel strongly that my style as a photographer is always developing and changing, this image is a good representation of what my style looks like at this point in time and what it has looked like for a while now. Another aspect of this image which I liked is the way the blacks and the whites mix together and contrast in such a way, the blacks are really dark and the whites are supposed to match the smoke coming out of the chimney.
Simon Burstall
This image is from the book 93: Punching The Light by Simon Burstall, this I found to be similar to my image in multiple ways. The image is in black and white, and was taken on film, while mine isn't taken on film, it was taken on a dslr camera, I then edited it after so that it would look as if it was taken on a roll of black and white film. The second main part of this image which I found intriguing and could relate back to my image is the spacing of subjects in frame, the way in which there is a lot of free space but it is almost filled up at the same time. I enjoy this photographers work regardless but this image in particular reminded me of the image that I took above.
The threshold concepts which I found to be immediately apparent number one, photography has many genres, some old, some borrowed, some new. One of the images was taken in 1993 and the other was taken in 2020, the style is still similar and it would be difficult to tell without context which is old and which is new, this leads me to the second threshold concept which I believe is apparent between these two images, number 7, photographs are not fixed in meaning; context is everything. This threshold concept may be less obvious but the reason for my thinking it relates is for similar reasons, without context, both these images could have been taken on the same day, for the same reason/cause, by the same person.
Paul Graham Interview
What is "easy" about photography and what is "difficult" ?
For me, photography can be easy when I don't think too much about it whilst photographing. I feel that the best way to be a photographer is to have a plan but to also be open to mistakes and embrace the unexpected, otherwise what is the point in photographing, not everything will go as planned.
What does Paul Graham value about photography ?
I think that Paul Graham values that photography is subjective, he values that it means different things to different people and can change/vary from person to person. Another thing which I think he acknowledges is that people over think their own photographic practice frequently.
What advice does Paul Graham give us about what to photograph ?
Paul Graham describes photography as being like seeing, he states "it’s right there, across the room – there… and there. Then it’s gone. You didn’t photograph it, because you didn’t think it was worth it", his opinion is also that photography is easy, it is obvious why after he says this outlook, what he is getting at I think is that photography has potential in everything that you can see which is why it is so easy. The advice here in my opinion is that you should take loads of pictures of everything and the more you do so, the better your personal photographic practice will become.
How much planning should we do before getting started ?
I think that it is up to the individual because if you try too hard to get exactly what you want, you won't get it. Practice makes perfect so the more you practice the more you will understand your own photographic practice, relying entirely on premeditated photography isn't the most trustworthy route to take as the world isn't trustworthy, nothing will happen the exact way you want it to and nothing will look the exact way you wish it would so there isn't much point to starting with only specifics.
What makes photography 'beautiful'
The variety of photography is what makes it beautiful. The endless possibilities of visual creation is amazing and the reaon which it pleases people is because those endless decisions are up to the individual photographer to make.
Alec Soth interview
Alec Soth speaks about his personal experience of becoming a photographer. How he describes it makes it sound a lot more like a journey than a job. He didn't start photography until he was twenty-one. Having come from 'a fine art perspective' as he says it, he always thought of it as a hobby and never imagined taking pictures for a living. One thing which caught my attention about what he said was that he is glad that some of his old work wasn't put up in a gallery-like MoMA because he wouldn't want to be famous or known now for some of the work he was doing in the past, an example which he used was portraits of sheep, as he wasn't living in a big city. Despite what he said about not wanting to be known for his old work, he does also say that there are interesting things with photographic potential everywhere no matter where you are.
Alec Soth describes photobooks to be like vinyl for music fans, viewing images on social media and the internet as being like streaming music and exhibitions as being like live music. I think that this is a very good comparison, I also felt that in this day and age that is needed, people might soon slowly stop looking at photobooks but when you look at it from that perspective it seems a lot better
I feel that this interview has influenced me in that I don't really need to think about photography as such a race against myself to get really good and at a level where I am entirely content with the type of photography that I make or that I will ever even be fully content at all and that maybe people might not every reach that point.
One way in which it has influenced my work on the personal investigation part two is that I am going to start thinking my work through as in the theory and ideas behind the images a bit more and making sure that I am entirely happy with it before starting a small project on that particular idea.
Alec Soth describes photobooks to be like vinyl for music fans, viewing images on social media and the internet as being like streaming music and exhibitions as being like live music. I think that this is a very good comparison, I also felt that in this day and age that is needed, people might soon slowly stop looking at photobooks but when you look at it from that perspective it seems a lot better
I feel that this interview has influenced me in that I don't really need to think about photography as such a race against myself to get really good and at a level where I am entirely content with the type of photography that I make or that I will ever even be fully content at all and that maybe people might not every reach that point.
One way in which it has influenced my work on the personal investigation part two is that I am going to start thinking my work through as in the theory and ideas behind the images a bit more and making sure that I am entirely happy with it before starting a small project on that particular idea.
Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz became a photographer from being an artist to wanting to become a photographer after one journey out to visit photographer Robert Frank because he was making some sort of print for Joel Meyerowitz. Robert Frank was taking pictures in his studio when he arrived. He apparently was very focused and looked as if he knew what he was doing, his two models were two children who were playing and doing random activities, every time something specific happened, he would take a picture, if the girl flicked her hair, if she did something or something happened then another image would be taken. Joel Meyerowitz said that he loved the technique of the way Robert Frank was taking the images and wanted to start photography, when he left the studio, everything he saw in the street to him looked like it had loads of photographic potential, everything he saw he was thinking about how he wanted to take an image of them, so much so that he walked home instead of getting the bus or a cab.
I think that this is a really interesting way of getting into photography and defiantly I can tell that it is taken from a previous artists perspective, it is also very interesting that after one journey, he became a photography, this is how important journeys are in life, he left his work place an artist and came back a photographer.
I think that this is a really interesting way of getting into photography and defiantly I can tell that it is taken from a previous artists perspective, it is also very interesting that after one journey, he became a photography, this is how important journeys are in life, he left his work place an artist and came back a photographer.
Lu Guang
Lu Guang is a Chinese photographer who is based in New York. He is a multi-award winning photojournalist who's photography practice focuses on pollution and underworld related themes. Subjects which he has explored are: air pollution in china, water pollution in china, disease, poverty/workers. Most of his work takes place in China and he tries to reveal things that maybe the Chinese government don't, so much so that he was taken away in late 2018 by the Chinese government and put in a 're-educating camp', he was reported missing for about a year until he was allegedly reported as being home with his wife, I only felt that this was relevant because this is the sort of attitude which the Chinese government has that he strides to expose and make more widely known.
gallery of Lu Guang's images which most interested me
Here are six of Lu Gueng's images which interested me most out of the ones which I saw. These images are mainly focused on pollution in the air/how pollution effects people, this is similar to what I want to be investigating, the similarity between my investigation and his practice lies more behind the visual side of his work/the ideas which influence the visual side of his work.
Lu Guang response images
As a response to the images and work by Lu Guang which I had researched, I took these 20 images.
I was trying to keep certain concepts and ideas in mind whilst taking the images. To begin with, on the subject of pollution, capturing the unclean/unnoticed part of everyday pollutants, this consisted of mess which is left behind from daily activities like littering, when people leave rubbish in a bin or on the floor people mostly fail to think about where the waste will end up going, but on a larger scale this is a slow but sure contribution in damaging the earth. This relates more to Lu Guang's work in that I photographed what is commonly left unseen but at the same time tried to highlight the grander scale of damage.
The second idea, relates more to my project in the way that the theme focuses especially on the lack of caring from society as a whole, this is highlighted in all of the images and can also be linked back to the previous theme of these images because again it relates to the larger damage being done.
WWW: I feel to an extent that I achieved the themes which I desired to achieve in these images, the style of the images combined with the ideas is what I think worked best, the ideas gave me a lot of freedom to make choices after having researched Lu Guang.
EBI: What I think could have worked better is trying to keep the images more consistent with what was in frame, this is because what was in the image highly changes the theme and idea of what the image relates too.
I was trying to keep certain concepts and ideas in mind whilst taking the images. To begin with, on the subject of pollution, capturing the unclean/unnoticed part of everyday pollutants, this consisted of mess which is left behind from daily activities like littering, when people leave rubbish in a bin or on the floor people mostly fail to think about where the waste will end up going, but on a larger scale this is a slow but sure contribution in damaging the earth. This relates more to Lu Guang's work in that I photographed what is commonly left unseen but at the same time tried to highlight the grander scale of damage.
The second idea, relates more to my project in the way that the theme focuses especially on the lack of caring from society as a whole, this is highlighted in all of the images and can also be linked back to the previous theme of these images because again it relates to the larger damage being done.
WWW: I feel to an extent that I achieved the themes which I desired to achieve in these images, the style of the images combined with the ideas is what I think worked best, the ideas gave me a lot of freedom to make choices after having researched Lu Guang.
EBI: What I think could have worked better is trying to keep the images more consistent with what was in frame, this is because what was in the image highly changes the theme and idea of what the image relates too.
Lu Guang refined response images
In response I also took a second photo-shoot where I tried to change the images slightly and take a different sort of approach to the images themselves. I tried to stay along the same lines as the previous twenty images but change/refine some of the ideas and concepts behind the images.
The images in this photo-shoot were much more focused on the industrial pollution, things like buildings, cars, us inhabiting a natural environment instead of the natural environment inhabiting us, which is easy for people to forget when they live in very industrialised areas.
By industrial pollution, I mean very everyday things like cars, buildings, general urbanisation of an area, essentially this is what London is, this has just taken many years to develop into the huge city that it is. When people go out in their cars of live their lives in a city like London, they are exposed to pollution like this every day, everyone knows that there is something wrong with what is happening but because of the nature of society and the way in which past generations were ignorantly taught that this was a healthy way to live, people now chose to ignore just like everyone else instead of taking a stand and making a change.
WWW: I think that the idea behind these images was much more specific whilst also being similar enough to the last set of images to be considered 'refined'. Something which I felt I did differently whilst taking these images is that before every image I took a second more to think about how it could be framed, instead of largely thinking about the subject matter.
EBI: Perhaps the images could have had more of a variety to what was in the image and what I took images of.
The images in this photo-shoot were much more focused on the industrial pollution, things like buildings, cars, us inhabiting a natural environment instead of the natural environment inhabiting us, which is easy for people to forget when they live in very industrialised areas.
By industrial pollution, I mean very everyday things like cars, buildings, general urbanisation of an area, essentially this is what London is, this has just taken many years to develop into the huge city that it is. When people go out in their cars of live their lives in a city like London, they are exposed to pollution like this every day, everyone knows that there is something wrong with what is happening but because of the nature of society and the way in which past generations were ignorantly taught that this was a healthy way to live, people now chose to ignore just like everyone else instead of taking a stand and making a change.
WWW: I think that the idea behind these images was much more specific whilst also being similar enough to the last set of images to be considered 'refined'. Something which I felt I did differently whilst taking these images is that before every image I took a second more to think about how it could be framed, instead of largely thinking about the subject matter.
EBI: Perhaps the images could have had more of a variety to what was in the image and what I took images of.
Cristina Mittermeier
Cristina Mittermeier is a conservation photographer, her photography focuses on wildlife and nature. As a conservation photographer, she only focuses on the conservation of not only the wildlife within her work but the earth itself, the way in which she works is an interesting way of spreading awareness and being an activist of not hurting the earth or other animals. On her website there is a photo album called 'Wild Things', where there is a piece of writing which states, “I want to make photographs that coax us from comfortable routine" and "conjure a solution for our ailing planet." this quote helped me to relate her work to mine and finding the link which is to try and highlight what people try and ignore or don't think about. The subject of her images are usually still, vibrant shots of an animal in its natural habitat, the images make the unordinary seem ordinary by making the images casual and using interesting camera/photography techniques.
I started applying some ideas as a response to my work. I can't go to tropical places and take images there but my work specifically is focused in London which is a very urbanised area where pollution and society almost takes over other animals and their habitats, forcing them to adapt to living amongst urban areas.
In my response I want to highlight
I started applying some ideas as a response to my work. I can't go to tropical places and take images there but my work specifically is focused in London which is a very urbanised area where pollution and society almost takes over other animals and their habitats, forcing them to adapt to living amongst urban areas.
In my response I want to highlight
Gallery of Cristina Mittermeier's images which most interested me
The most obvious difference between her work what I can do is that most of these images are taken in tropical places and this isn't an accessibility which I have but I can still take images of the urban wildlife in London, foxes, birds, cats, dogs, etc. all of these animals have adapted or been forced to adapt over years in one way or another to live amongst the city/people.
My Christina Mittermeier response
This is my response to Cristina Mittermeier, the main ideas being kept in my mind during the process of taking the images was animals in London, how they have maintained their lives in an unnatural type of habitat, society killing the small amount of natural environments that are left.
I started by deciding that I wanted to make these images black and white as well, this doesn't visually related to Mittermeier's work, the black and white simply adds to the mood of the images and I felt that they wouldn't have been able to convey my work as well had they been in colour.
I tried to focus the subject matter largely on animals and wildlife as well as domestic animals which have adapted well to living amongst people and their habitats. Another reoccurring subject matter was the habitats which they live in is just being invaded all the time, I conveyed this as well as I could in some of my images, mostly with landscapes of the wildlife contrasting with industrial buildings, litter, artificial nature, cars , etc.
WWW: I think what went well with this whole set of images was that each image has some sort of meaning which entirely relates to wildlife and their habitats and how the blanket term of pollution effects animals in London.
EBI: This could have been better if I had more of a chance to get close to animals and have more time to refine the image before having taken it.
I started by deciding that I wanted to make these images black and white as well, this doesn't visually related to Mittermeier's work, the black and white simply adds to the mood of the images and I felt that they wouldn't have been able to convey my work as well had they been in colour.
I tried to focus the subject matter largely on animals and wildlife as well as domestic animals which have adapted well to living amongst people and their habitats. Another reoccurring subject matter was the habitats which they live in is just being invaded all the time, I conveyed this as well as I could in some of my images, mostly with landscapes of the wildlife contrasting with industrial buildings, litter, artificial nature, cars , etc.
WWW: I think what went well with this whole set of images was that each image has some sort of meaning which entirely relates to wildlife and their habitats and how the blanket term of pollution effects animals in London.
EBI: This could have been better if I had more of a chance to get close to animals and have more time to refine the image before having taken it.
Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier was a street photographer who lived in America and worked as a nanny throughout her life. Whilst working as a nanny she also did photography despite being entirely unknown in her life until after her death when her images were auctioned and bought multiple times until they made their way to mainstream media and became widely known.
She took pictures on a Rolleiflex camera in the 1950s and this added to her style of taking pictures which was street photography. The subject of her images were often portraits of people on the street who may have not entirely known that she was taking pictures of them because the Rolleiflex cameras were very easy to hide and take pictures as you don't hold them up to your face, you look down into them. The unique style and techniques used in her photography stand out and are very individual and tailored to herself, a big part of this would be that she wasn't known at all and only really discovered by chance and could have remained unknown for a years, if not, forever.
The way in which her photographs looked like a small shot taken from everyday life and bringing out the detail in the things you might see but never notice. Her images (in my opinion) wake you up to needing to pay attention more and look around more, her images are very truthful and straightforward, this is how I am going to relate my work to hers and try to make a response using what I have learnt about her work.
She took pictures on a Rolleiflex camera in the 1950s and this added to her style of taking pictures which was street photography. The subject of her images were often portraits of people on the street who may have not entirely known that she was taking pictures of them because the Rolleiflex cameras were very easy to hide and take pictures as you don't hold them up to your face, you look down into them. The unique style and techniques used in her photography stand out and are very individual and tailored to herself, a big part of this would be that she wasn't known at all and only really discovered by chance and could have remained unknown for a years, if not, forever.
The way in which her photographs looked like a small shot taken from everyday life and bringing out the detail in the things you might see but never notice. Her images (in my opinion) wake you up to needing to pay attention more and look around more, her images are very truthful and straightforward, this is how I am going to relate my work to hers and try to make a response using what I have learnt about her work.
Gallery of Vivian Maier's images which most interested me
My Vivian Maier response
In my Vivian Maier response, the main correlating idea had to be that I wanted to make the images focused on the small moments throughout peoples day to day life which they probably wouldn't remember, photographing things/scenes which don't seem important but have a large visual and conceptual potential. Once I had the main concept behind the whole gallery of images it was a lot easier to start to relate it visually to the theme of my investigation.
The first decision I made was to make the images black and white, I don't think that colour really plays a part in the images themselves, the subject of the images aren't happy or upbeat, the emotion is a lot gloomier, black and white also makes images look more gritty and real which is exactly what I felt was needed in this gallery. The second decision I made was to have a solid idea/correlation between the images and Vivian Maier's work beforehand, I felt that a detailed theme was required for this photoshoot as I see it as the most important so far.
The largest cause of pollution is man-made, lots of things which are much bigger and obvious participants in the deterioration of the earth are more widely known and acknowledged such as, burning fossil fuels, forest fires, etc. What people need to wake up to is their participation in their everyday life, this gallery of images is trying to highlight the small actions and lifestyle choices people take in their lives to contribute to the larger issue.
Smoking, littering, driving, people mindlessly indulge in these activities without thought because of the years of systematic and ritualistic norms that have been created through a huge cycle of ignorance.
The systematic lifestyle and highlighting the flaws in today's society as a whole can also be linked to pointing out the smaller things which we do in our everyday life, people don't think about what they do because they have never been taught otherwise and this concept was a very big part of my inspiration whilst taking these images and also made the images feel more natural and easy to take.
A lot of people, however, have come to the realization of what is happening and want to stop the destruction of earth and more importantly human life. People have protested all over the world and come together to make movements which stride towards fighting the ignorance of today's society. Because of how long our world has been polluting itself, it is hard to live life in the modern world without 'contributing' in one way or another, this is why it is a group effort to change before it is too late.
WWW: The images themselves link entirely in the way in which I wanted them to, I think that each image shows a different side of society and someone could relate or understand the images.
EBI: I think that a few images involving more people would have improved the gallery as a whole as a larger theme was the societal side of these images was pretty much the biggest part.
The first decision I made was to make the images black and white, I don't think that colour really plays a part in the images themselves, the subject of the images aren't happy or upbeat, the emotion is a lot gloomier, black and white also makes images look more gritty and real which is exactly what I felt was needed in this gallery. The second decision I made was to have a solid idea/correlation between the images and Vivian Maier's work beforehand, I felt that a detailed theme was required for this photoshoot as I see it as the most important so far.
The largest cause of pollution is man-made, lots of things which are much bigger and obvious participants in the deterioration of the earth are more widely known and acknowledged such as, burning fossil fuels, forest fires, etc. What people need to wake up to is their participation in their everyday life, this gallery of images is trying to highlight the small actions and lifestyle choices people take in their lives to contribute to the larger issue.
Smoking, littering, driving, people mindlessly indulge in these activities without thought because of the years of systematic and ritualistic norms that have been created through a huge cycle of ignorance.
The systematic lifestyle and highlighting the flaws in today's society as a whole can also be linked to pointing out the smaller things which we do in our everyday life, people don't think about what they do because they have never been taught otherwise and this concept was a very big part of my inspiration whilst taking these images and also made the images feel more natural and easy to take.
A lot of people, however, have come to the realization of what is happening and want to stop the destruction of earth and more importantly human life. People have protested all over the world and come together to make movements which stride towards fighting the ignorance of today's society. Because of how long our world has been polluting itself, it is hard to live life in the modern world without 'contributing' in one way or another, this is why it is a group effort to change before it is too late.
WWW: The images themselves link entirely in the way in which I wanted them to, I think that each image shows a different side of society and someone could relate or understand the images.
EBI: I think that a few images involving more people would have improved the gallery as a whole as a larger theme was the societal side of these images was pretty much the biggest part.
Conclusion
In conclusion of the past three photoshoots, I think that the main things which I have learnt is that personal human actions, smoking, littering, walking, buying certain brands, driving, etc. they all have a big effect even on your own and when everybody is doing it, there is a profound effect on the health of our earth. People don't tend to go out of their way or want to look at what they are doing so I learnt throughout these galleries to photograph what you wouldn't spend too much time to think about, to go out and try to photograph a fox, even though they are the dirtiest animals, or to photograph someone sitting in their car.
To visualise my conclusion I have made a short film focusing on shots, the shots are similar to that of the shots in each of the photoshoots, I have also kept in mind the ideas from each gallery.
To visualise my conclusion I have made a short film focusing on shots, the shots are similar to that of the shots in each of the photoshoots, I have also kept in mind the ideas from each gallery.
I think that making this video brought together all of the different ideas and themes of each gallery together and really helped to conclude/visualise it. The shots were easy to get as I had already gotten some of them in my previous galleries and all it took was taking some of my knowledge on making videos and bring together a short film focusing on industrial pollution, how pollution effects animals and what exactly people do individually to contribute to pollution.
Lockdown walk
Throughout Covid-19, going on walk is the only head on contact with the world that some people have. One walk a day fpr exercise is a very big difference from the freedom of being able to go out when you want to meet as many people as you want wherever you want for however long you wanted too. I think that adapting to this new lifestyle change has been difficult for every single person around the world who have had to go into isolation.
originally I took forty images but I thought that it would be better to hand pick the best images from the forty, I managed to narrow it down to twenty four images.
On my walk I didn't want to premeditate exactly what I was going to photograph as I wanted to just walk and find things and not plan where I was going to walk, I considered this cheating, all I knew was that I was going to photograph abnormalities, things which people don't notice but are there, man made constructions mixed with the natural world. Things which you might glance at quickly but never noticed for more than a couple of seconds. One thing which became obvious after this photoshoot was the pure vastness of human clutter there is in urban society, rubbish, buildings, signs, doors, cars, bins, fences, bottles, paint, bus stops, etc.
This is my favourite image from the gallery, mainly because of how contrasting it is, on the right hand side you have a beautiful house painted white, pink roses growing off the front from fences which go up the side of the house, with a petite side alley to go to the garden. On the other side is the corner of a construction side, there is a fence with a cover over the top of it and three multicoloured danger signs. The reason the contrast draws me to this photograph so much is because it is a perfect example of modern society in a strange sort of way, people don't care about what they might be doing to ourselves. As long as it looks nice.
What is the biggest pollutant ?
Whilst burning fossil fuels is considered the biggest form of pollution but in actual fact people are the biggest polluters in the world.
The modern world is riddled with different ways in which people pollute themselves, their lives, minds and environment. Roughly sixteen percent of the worlds population drive, just over half of the UK and about ninety percent of American citizens live in a household with a car, which means, obviously that a vast amount of people rely on driving cars/other people driving them to get around. Roughly three hundred tonnes of plastic is produced every year by the world as a whole and half of which is only used for moments whilst staying for hundreds of years on the planet. Another type of pollution which isn't necessarily the direct fault of people is cows, cows produce a lot of methane, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, the reason which this is to blame on humans is because the reason that there is so many cows is because our planet consumes a lot of beef.
So essentially these three examples of man made pollution are down to humans making the earth unbalanced in its natural ecosystem, releasing to much gas and making unnatural products which cant be destroyed without making yet again even more pollution, so all together society is very good at accepting things to be the way that they are even if it means accepting something which is bad.
The modern world is riddled with different ways in which people pollute themselves, their lives, minds and environment. Roughly sixteen percent of the worlds population drive, just over half of the UK and about ninety percent of American citizens live in a household with a car, which means, obviously that a vast amount of people rely on driving cars/other people driving them to get around. Roughly three hundred tonnes of plastic is produced every year by the world as a whole and half of which is only used for moments whilst staying for hundreds of years on the planet. Another type of pollution which isn't necessarily the direct fault of people is cows, cows produce a lot of methane, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, the reason which this is to blame on humans is because the reason that there is so many cows is because our planet consumes a lot of beef.
So essentially these three examples of man made pollution are down to humans making the earth unbalanced in its natural ecosystem, releasing to much gas and making unnatural products which cant be destroyed without making yet again even more pollution, so all together society is very good at accepting things to be the way that they are even if it means accepting something which is bad.
Where/when did pollution begin ?
Pollution was created out of ignorance and lack of scientific knowledge. It began in Britain in the late eighteenth century, when the new idea of steam engines and power, obviously this started releasing gasses into our atmosphere, at the time people didn't have a single clue that it was doing what it was doing, so naturally, power plants, engines, trains, factories, etc. started being built everywhere over Britain. The process was still gradual, over about eighty years, the period was considered the 'industrial revolution'. People continued to become more industrialised and change their lifestyles as the world developed, the rate of pollution has become worse because of the population of the world and how many people contribute, however, the pollution itself, for example, cars, trains, factories, power plants, they have become less bad for the earth themselves as we have more scientific knowledge on the subject and know how to make the pollution less harmful. This still doesn't take away from the fact that it is still very harmful and more so than a lot of people might think.
In today's society we are starting to make new technology to run our earth instead of burning things like fossil fuels and coal, these are not renewable resources and we could be using renewable resources like wind and electricity, windmill farms, this in a way is still pollution but in a different way, not in a way which threatens us or the earth but visually, visual pollution is when the earth gets more and more industrial and 'ugly', essentially disrupting the view of the natural world. So essentially the world is entering the future and has potential to save ourselves and the earth.
In today's society we are starting to make new technology to run our earth instead of burning things like fossil fuels and coal, these are not renewable resources and we could be using renewable resources like wind and electricity, windmill farms, this in a way is still pollution but in a different way, not in a way which threatens us or the earth but visually, visual pollution is when the earth gets more and more industrial and 'ugly', essentially disrupting the view of the natural world. So essentially the world is entering the future and has potential to save ourselves and the earth.
David Lynch
David Lynch is an artist of various medias but he is best known for his work in the film industry and film making. His style is recognised with surrealism and industrialism, this is the same for the ideas behind his films, this is one of the reason that has caused him to have a popular and well known career. Visually, the work which he makes is very gritty and mysterious, usually quite dark and very contrasted, often in black and white, especially in his older work. I think that surrealist film making or surrealism based in any camera based art is a very hard and interesting route to take.
Links with David Lynch's work
David Lynch's work is very industrial and makes everything modern and not natural look very dirty and grimy, this is how I think that his work will relate to mine, my work focuses on pollution and society in the modern world and people as a whole, David Lynch takes a lot of inspiration from the modern world and society. If I could describe how he uses the modern world I would most likely say that he uses it to his advantage and bends what you everyday to be surreal and highlights the actual truth of what society can be like a lot of the time. This is a big drive for me because all of world wide pollution can be traced down to one thing and that is people, mostly people who weren't as knowledgable as to what the extremely damaging things that they were doing to the planet, however, the modern man, woman and child have a big part to play in the destruction of our planet, I want to highlight that in my photographic practice because nobody sees it in the correct point of view because pollution is all anyone has known for their whole life.
Outcome
With these images I took a film camera and a roll of black and white film and decided that the main theme of the photoshoot would have to be everyday life in the urban/industrial lifestyle. I also had to relate my work at least the slightest bit visually to David Lynch's work, I knew that entirely trying to make my work look exactly like his would be useless because then it isn't really my work, so I decided that black and white film and the subject matter/concept was enough. The types of images I wanted to take were contrasted portraits of people doing everyday things but stoping for the camera and landscapes that are very bright but opposing it is the grimy streets which seem as if they should be much darker.
The images highlighted exactly what I needed them to, I am going to refine this case study into Dvid Lynch but I feel that this work has matched the concepts whilst also keeping to my own work effectively.
One thing I am going to do to refine is, be more creative with the types of pictures I take, more of different places, spaces, people, subjects, etc.
The images highlighted exactly what I needed them to, I am going to refine this case study into Dvid Lynch but I feel that this work has matched the concepts whilst also keeping to my own work effectively.
One thing I am going to do to refine is, be more creative with the types of pictures I take, more of different places, spaces, people, subjects, etc.
10 words photo-shoot
I took the images below after thinking of ten words to sum up my photographic practice, I decided to make the images similarly to the way that I had been taking all of my images recently, using the same concepts, the same style, similar subject matter in each image.
So this gallery of images is just an example of my photographic practice at the minute, while I may not like them as much as my other images, they are still very good and visually representing the sort of photography I have been doing over the past months.
So this gallery of images is just an example of my photographic practice at the minute, while I may not like them as much as my other images, they are still very good and visually representing the sort of photography I have been doing over the past months.
TEXTURE
TONE
CONCEPT
GRITTY
SHADES
CONTRAST
TRUTH
RAW
STARK
BLACK and WHITE
TONE
CONCEPT
GRITTY
SHADES
CONTRAST
TRUTH
RAW
STARK
BLACK and WHITE
Juan Orrantia
Juan Orrantia is a Colombian photographer who has an obvious interest in colour. He moved to South Africa and made a photobook about adjusting to an entirely new society and culture.
Images from 'like stains of red dirt'
He appreciates colour in his images and uses it in a metaphorical way multiple times in the book as a whole/concept. The book itself is very wholesome in that it has a very good reason and drive for its creation and is a very good subject to make the photo about and to take photos having the subject in mind.
These images specifically I find to be a very good example of an effective way to use colour in photography in a stylised way instead of it being tacky or being used in a way that everybody has seen before.
Something I noticed as a reoccurring feature throughout the images other than colour is that they are all for one taken from strange angles, the viewpoint of the camera is unusual in all of the images and it can be seen in every image above, this I think is very effective in that it doesn't make the images look normal and average, it makes them look a lot more abstract than anything. I also noticed that they are all very zoomed which I think ties in with the strange angle in abstracting each image, however, they all seem linked in a way, they all have the same style and composition and immediately as soon as someone sees the images they would be able to tell that they are all taken by the same photographer and probably all in the same set of images.
Something I noticed as a reoccurring feature throughout the images other than colour is that they are all for one taken from strange angles, the viewpoint of the camera is unusual in all of the images and it can be seen in every image above, this I think is very effective in that it doesn't make the images look normal and average, it makes them look a lot more abstract than anything. I also noticed that they are all very zoomed which I think ties in with the strange angle in abstracting each image, however, they all seem linked in a way, they all have the same style and composition and immediately as soon as someone sees the images they would be able to tell that they are all taken by the same photographer and probably all in the same set of images.
Rut Blees Luxemburg
Rut Blees Luxemburg is a german photographer who's photographic practice is, similarly to mine, frequently at night, she uses light that she hasn't put there, like street lights, or car lights, and she will do this mostly around urbanised places, for example she has done a photoshoot on the streets of London.
The first thing which I noticed is that to emphasise that it was focused on the streets of London she made sure that nobody was around at all, there isn't anyone directly in the images or even in that background, all we can see is hints that people are there, for example in the third, fourth and sixth images, a few of the windows are lit up with light, which implies people but no direct contact between the camera and the people.
I find this particular set of images interesting because of the fact that they are based in the city that I am focusing on and portrays London similarly to what I want to portray the city I live in as being/looking like. This photoshoot perfectly highlights the empty/quiet yet intimidating streets of London, especially because they aren't taken in very middle to upper class areas, which is a very large amount of London.
I feel that this work relates to my own in that this has a sense of gritty realism and underworld themes, that is exactly what I try and make my images look like, the same concept, with my own style, that is why these images have made me think of a way in which I can try and use colour in my images, because I use black and white so frequently.
I hope to take one set of thirty pictures using just street lights to light up the images. The images will be taken on a DSLR because I want to be able to control the manual settings easily and set the images up to be edited slightly better. The photos will be taken around London and my area/surrounding areas where I live at night when nobody is around.
I find this particular set of images interesting because of the fact that they are based in the city that I am focusing on and portrays London similarly to what I want to portray the city I live in as being/looking like. This photoshoot perfectly highlights the empty/quiet yet intimidating streets of London, especially because they aren't taken in very middle to upper class areas, which is a very large amount of London.
I feel that this work relates to my own in that this has a sense of gritty realism and underworld themes, that is exactly what I try and make my images look like, the same concept, with my own style, that is why these images have made me think of a way in which I can try and use colour in my images, because I use black and white so frequently.
I hope to take one set of thirty pictures using just street lights to light up the images. The images will be taken on a DSLR because I want to be able to control the manual settings easily and set the images up to be edited slightly better. The photos will be taken around London and my area/surrounding areas where I live at night when nobody is around.
Response
These images are focused on street light. Mainly attempting to use street lights as lighting for my images, instead of using the flash on my camera. As I live in London finding light in the street wasn't a hard task, there are street lights and light sources everywhere but the harder part of this photo shoot was finding what looked good to take an image of, especially around my area. To the best of my ability I found lots of light sources to use in an image and tried my best to make them look good.
I don't particularly like the images themselves or how they look, I think that they could have looked a lot better than how they turned out. One thing that I did like about them is that it had the right dark gritty realism look to it.
I don't particularly like the images themselves or how they look, I think that they could have looked a lot better than how they turned out. One thing that I did like about them is that it had the right dark gritty realism look to it.
Refine
I think to refine this photo shoot I need to focus more on subject matter, colour and light, the lighting and the colour are very important and play hand in hand. The use of subject matter completely changes the images as to wether they are a response to Rut Blees Luxembourg, so for the next photo shoot, it may be fewer images and I will be thinking through each image a bit better and so that I can do this, I will be using a digital DSLR camera.
Second response
In this response, I went to the south bank, I chose the Southbank because it has lots of different types of buildings with different types of lights, Rut Blees Luxembourg contrasts the industrial landscapes of places like London with the lights that are contained within, I felt that Southbank had a lot of industrial modern architecture with bright lights as well that have lots of potential for images in response/refinement.
I think that in these images, the
I think that in these images, the
Questions
- Growing up in London, do you think that this has strongly effected your photography? Or has other people/places influenced the direction it has moved towards?
- The use of black and white comes across very prominently in your work, is photography your sole background, or do you have other art influences?
- What inspires you to shoot?
Ethics and Photography
Ethics can be very complicated and opinionated, especially in photography, what boundaries do people have and do they ever cross their personal photography morals ?
My main moral in photography is to not photograph someone at a disadvantage to me or everyone else, unless of course the image is trying to help them instead of help myself, that's a line I wouldn't want to cross, other people would and other people would be even more moral about it.
Avery common example of ethics and right and wrong in photography is homeless people. It isn't illegal to photograph people on the street, homeless people are people as much as anyone else, however, the issue here isn't to do with the law, it is to do with morals. People walking down the street have the option to go back to a private setting where they aren't putting themselves in the public space for everyone to see the, homeless people don't have a private area to be in, their home is the streets, the public walk ways, so it isn't right to photograph homeless people in the street out of respect and morals. Homeless people to me seem to be at a disadvantage not to me, but to everyone, most people are fortunate enough to have a place to go instead of the street, so photographing them where they live is wrong because they have such a disadvantage to you that they probably would never see the image and if they could, wouldn't have the power to do anything about it so in conclusion to that point, it is better to leave homeless people out of images.
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus was an American photographer who lived in New York the whole of her life, she focused on photographing groups of people, examples being: mental patients, people from freak shows, people with mental and physical difficulties/handicaps. She walked a thin line of trying to make these types of vulnerable people be seen by society and representing them in a better than light than they usually were and exploiting these people. People thought that it wasn't right that she was doing what she was doing because, she was raised in a very wealthy, rich family, without many problems growing up and when she was taking the images and using the images to make money and show people, she wasn't doing anything to help these people. Diane Arbus was still singling these people out from society as they already had been accept taking pictures of them for people to look at and admire, almost like a freak show, which was in fact one of the groups of people she would take images of, people who could only make money working in freak shows.
It is for these reasons that, morally I think that what she did was entirely wrong and uncalled for.
Susan Sontag
My main moral in photography is to not photograph someone at a disadvantage to me or everyone else, unless of course the image is trying to help them instead of help myself, that's a line I wouldn't want to cross, other people would and other people would be even more moral about it.
Avery common example of ethics and right and wrong in photography is homeless people. It isn't illegal to photograph people on the street, homeless people are people as much as anyone else, however, the issue here isn't to do with the law, it is to do with morals. People walking down the street have the option to go back to a private setting where they aren't putting themselves in the public space for everyone to see the, homeless people don't have a private area to be in, their home is the streets, the public walk ways, so it isn't right to photograph homeless people in the street out of respect and morals. Homeless people to me seem to be at a disadvantage not to me, but to everyone, most people are fortunate enough to have a place to go instead of the street, so photographing them where they live is wrong because they have such a disadvantage to you that they probably would never see the image and if they could, wouldn't have the power to do anything about it so in conclusion to that point, it is better to leave homeless people out of images.
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus was an American photographer who lived in New York the whole of her life, she focused on photographing groups of people, examples being: mental patients, people from freak shows, people with mental and physical difficulties/handicaps. She walked a thin line of trying to make these types of vulnerable people be seen by society and representing them in a better than light than they usually were and exploiting these people. People thought that it wasn't right that she was doing what she was doing because, she was raised in a very wealthy, rich family, without many problems growing up and when she was taking the images and using the images to make money and show people, she wasn't doing anything to help these people. Diane Arbus was still singling these people out from society as they already had been accept taking pictures of them for people to look at and admire, almost like a freak show, which was in fact one of the groups of people she would take images of, people who could only make money working in freak shows.
It is for these reasons that, morally I think that what she did was entirely wrong and uncalled for.
Susan Sontag
Image analysis
The Studium of this image is generally what is going on in the image, there are two men standing at the top of a very tall phone tower and looking at each other from either side of it, why are they up there?, what job are they completing?, how high up are they?, the image raises questions in my head.
The Punctum is the part of the image that stands out to me is that one of them is climbing a ladder that is built onto the outside and has casing around it, the other man is climbing up the side of the tower without a ladder, I can't quite tell for certain but I don't think that they are wearing harnesses. The Connotation of this image could be many things, it could have some sort of relation to the modern world and pollution, it could also have a relation to religion and the modern world, I would say the most likely symbol in this would be related to the modern world an d how small we are, especially in comparison to the huge sky that is behind them, I framed this image so that you could see enough of the tower so that the people looked small and as little of the tower so that it made the sky seem huge and endless, thats why I would say the image is most likely trying to put things in perspective.
Denotation is the tower and the people and the sky, from what we know, as little as general knowledge, we can tell that this is modern technology, we wouldn't have so commonly seen this one hundred years ago, however, we are still exercising primal skills, like climbing up the outside of this tower, using our ape like bodies to fix things that we can't reach easily with twenty first century equipment. |
Roland BarthesRoland Barthes was a French partial photographer who believed that there is a certain code to photography that helped us subconsciously to understand the image. Studium and Punctum. Studium means what we know about the image, the symbolism, meaning, cultural aspects of the image, being applied from what you know. The Punctum is what we look at in the image that sticks out to us and doesn't nessicarily have meaning or a reason to be distinct in our brains, this part is more personal to each person who looks at an image
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Instinctive portraits
Hicham Benohoud
Hicham Benohoud is a Moroccan photographer who lives in France. His old profession was being a teacher in France but decided to go on to a job in visual arts.
Specifically I am looking at his series of images called 'classroom'. In this series he has gone to a classroom in Morocco and borrowed items from the classroom and decided to use the children in the classrooms for models in a physical/performance photography, art piece. In the images, the children are shown using the items which he gave them to present their physical sculpture to be photographed.
The images are very abstract, especially without context as to what the children are doing, I thought that the series as a whole worked very well and gave him an opportunity to have some models who would be very creative and original in their ideas, it also gave the school children in Morocco a chance to be in a series of images published by Hicham Benohoud himself and to express their creativeness.
Specifically I am looking at his series of images called 'classroom'. In this series he has gone to a classroom in Morocco and borrowed items from the classroom and decided to use the children in the classrooms for models in a physical/performance photography, art piece. In the images, the children are shown using the items which he gave them to present their physical sculpture to be photographed.
The images are very abstract, especially without context as to what the children are doing, I thought that the series as a whole worked very well and gave him an opportunity to have some models who would be very creative and original in their ideas, it also gave the school children in Morocco a chance to be in a series of images published by Hicham Benohoud himself and to express their creativeness.
This specific image from the series is one that caught my eye and I decided to have a closer look at this one in particular. I think that the general genre of the image and rest of the images is performance photography, he has gotten these school children in Morocco to perform a piece to the rest of the class and him, whilst he photographs it.
I think that the fact that everybody in the background is taking no notice of the child in the foreground is odd, they seem to be getting on with their school work without blinking an eye at the human sculpture, although, they are in frame, why has he made them in frame? he could have done this to emphasise the effect of the classroom in environment where the children work regardless of what is happening, having told them to work, or are they just working seamlessly?
The relationship between the foreground and the background is disconnected, almost like the foreground doesn't know that the background is there and the background doesn't know that the foreground is there, which is surprising as the foreground is very out of the norm for a class room environment.
The photograph makes me feel confused, I feel like there is something not quite right about the image and place it is taken in, the fact that it is school children puts me at ease as there is a sense of innocents in the picture, however, naturally if someone is wearing something over their face like a mask, it makes a human more tense and aware, the mask hides the true emotions and intentions of the person wearing it. After having found out the origin and context of the image, it makes me feel more intrigued and interested by the children who have very individual ideas.
I think that the main themes and ideas explored in this photograph are to do with performance and props, how props can change the picture from a very normal everyday image to being very abstract and makes your brain want more context and explanation as to what
the image means. The idea of performance is definitely explored in these images and especially in the context that using people can sometimes abstract an image more than anything, putting something which people always see and even see as innocent, in an image meant to be abstract, it can have a large effect on people who are looking at it.
I think that the fact that everybody in the background is taking no notice of the child in the foreground is odd, they seem to be getting on with their school work without blinking an eye at the human sculpture, although, they are in frame, why has he made them in frame? he could have done this to emphasise the effect of the classroom in environment where the children work regardless of what is happening, having told them to work, or are they just working seamlessly?
The relationship between the foreground and the background is disconnected, almost like the foreground doesn't know that the background is there and the background doesn't know that the foreground is there, which is surprising as the foreground is very out of the norm for a class room environment.
The photograph makes me feel confused, I feel like there is something not quite right about the image and place it is taken in, the fact that it is school children puts me at ease as there is a sense of innocents in the picture, however, naturally if someone is wearing something over their face like a mask, it makes a human more tense and aware, the mask hides the true emotions and intentions of the person wearing it. After having found out the origin and context of the image, it makes me feel more intrigued and interested by the children who have very individual ideas.
I think that the main themes and ideas explored in this photograph are to do with performance and props, how props can change the picture from a very normal everyday image to being very abstract and makes your brain want more context and explanation as to what
the image means. The idea of performance is definitely explored in these images and especially in the context that using people can sometimes abstract an image more than anything, putting something which people always see and even see as innocent, in an image meant to be abstract, it can have a large effect on people who are looking at it.
My response to Hicham Benohoud
The instructions for this photoshoot were to be in a group of two people, to each pick up a camera and to take three portraits of the people in the group and the props in some sort of way.
WWW
I think that the images are very individual and need context and don't make any sense without context. One aspect of the images which I decided to entirely control was the framing, I wanted the framing and depth to be similar in all of them, one technique I wanted to use was to make the prop come into the image without where the prop was coming from in frame.
As you can see in the first two images I exercised control in the framing and abstracting the origin of the prop, and in the third image I used the technique of changing the depth by making the images have an item come all the way to the front of the camera, almost touching the lens and it is being held in the background of the image.
EBI
I think that these images would have been better if more images were instructed to be taken, I think that this would have been a much more free task. If more time had been given to take the images, therefore allowing to take the images outside of school, giving again even more freedom. Finally I also thought that being able to choose more props of our own instead would have made the task and images a better outcome
I think that the images are very individual and need context and don't make any sense without context. One aspect of the images which I decided to entirely control was the framing, I wanted the framing and depth to be similar in all of them, one technique I wanted to use was to make the prop come into the image without where the prop was coming from in frame.
As you can see in the first two images I exercised control in the framing and abstracting the origin of the prop, and in the third image I used the technique of changing the depth by making the images have an item come all the way to the front of the camera, almost touching the lens and it is being held in the background of the image.
EBI
I think that these images would have been better if more images were instructed to be taken, I think that this would have been a much more free task. If more time had been given to take the images, therefore allowing to take the images outside of school, giving again even more freedom. Finally I also thought that being able to choose more props of our own instead would have made the task and images a better outcome
Nicholas Gooden
Nicholas Gooden is a photographer based in London who photographs the streets of London around very industrial/urbanised areas like Kentish Town, Camden, oxford street, etc.
I think that the black and white images he takes are relevant to my investigation in that it is very intriguing in style instead of concept, him as a photographer isn't very conceptual in his work but his images are taken in a style which I want to make a response to because I think that a series of images taken similarly could contribute to my wider knowledge and investigation.
Primarily I am going to use his images to help me make a monochrome, portraiture based response and contribution to my page. I will also make the images based on the subject matter of this page, ie, pollution in London and society/society based pollution.
I think that the black and white images he takes are relevant to my investigation in that it is very intriguing in style instead of concept, him as a photographer isn't very conceptual in his work but his images are taken in a style which I want to make a response to because I think that a series of images taken similarly could contribute to my wider knowledge and investigation.
Primarily I am going to use his images to help me make a monochrome, portraiture based response and contribution to my page. I will also make the images based on the subject matter of this page, ie, pollution in London and society/society based pollution.
There is a certain atmosphere to his images, they are very anonymous and as if the camera isn't there, quite similar to Vivian Maier's portraits, accept in modern day London. His images, in this photoshoot specifically portray the society and everyday of the streets of London
Response
In this photo shoot, I went to Central London, I chose this location as this is where I felt that people are separated from each other and everyone has many different reasons to be in the one place, this created a took away from the humanity that you can see in people you know. I photographed people in the least personal way that I could by capturing them in action, walking down the street, waiting in a line, looking at the sights. Every picture, the subjects are doing something different and yet none feel personal at all, I am satisfied with this photo shoot and I believe that I captured the atmosphere that I wanted to create using them.
Reflection
My photographic work has developed recently. I started with pollution, then I wanted to develop on that idea and become more specific with the subject about pollution, so pollution was very much a starting point and I believe also an underlying atmosphere throughout the whole investigation.
After I started with pollution I started looking at more aspects of it, who it effects most?, where it started?, is it getting worse?, what are the modern day results of pollution?, what is societies reacting to such a destructive way of life?, these are all questions which helped me to get to the answer that society, obviously, has a huge part to play in this, we live amongst items, areas and machines everyday which ruin the current state the earth is in for us and for pretty much anything that lives on the earth and we still haven't made world wide rules and regulations, why not? I am not speaking from the perspective of someone who thinks the extreme action should be taken, I am just furthering my investigation.
Because of society's role to play, more recently my investigation has turned towards urban landscapes and people, as a structure, the way that most people live life is very repetitive, whilst being individual at the same time, people will chose their own paths and live their own lives but when you look at a huge area like London and see what people are doing, it makes everything seem all so insignificant whilst we live and destruct.
The streets/urban landscapes specifically, this is a result of years of industrialisation and yet it has a very interesting aesthetic when photographing, even though when I look upon the urban landscapes, images of cities, especially my own city, I can't help but be amazed by the amount of unnatural development we have done in a small space of time, in the history of man kind and yet a huge implication of this development in technology and understanding, we are slowly killing ourselves. This is what I have been focusing on recently and what I want to focus on for a while as I think this is a key part of my investigation.
After I started with pollution I started looking at more aspects of it, who it effects most?, where it started?, is it getting worse?, what are the modern day results of pollution?, what is societies reacting to such a destructive way of life?, these are all questions which helped me to get to the answer that society, obviously, has a huge part to play in this, we live amongst items, areas and machines everyday which ruin the current state the earth is in for us and for pretty much anything that lives on the earth and we still haven't made world wide rules and regulations, why not? I am not speaking from the perspective of someone who thinks the extreme action should be taken, I am just furthering my investigation.
Because of society's role to play, more recently my investigation has turned towards urban landscapes and people, as a structure, the way that most people live life is very repetitive, whilst being individual at the same time, people will chose their own paths and live their own lives but when you look at a huge area like London and see what people are doing, it makes everything seem all so insignificant whilst we live and destruct.
The streets/urban landscapes specifically, this is a result of years of industrialisation and yet it has a very interesting aesthetic when photographing, even though when I look upon the urban landscapes, images of cities, especially my own city, I can't help but be amazed by the amount of unnatural development we have done in a small space of time, in the history of man kind and yet a huge implication of this development in technology and understanding, we are slowly killing ourselves. This is what I have been focusing on recently and what I want to focus on for a while as I think this is a key part of my investigation.
Current evaluation
As I have stated, currently I am looking at industrialisation and how it has photographic upsides as well as upsides to my investigation. I have been going out at night and taking images, I think that the two main aspects of the images I have been taking recently are, texture and lighting, these two are very important to convey my recent ideas, the texture of my images have two sides, I like them to be very plastic and almost fake looking to convey a point about society and how we act as a dysfunctional human community, or they can be very gritty, this is to try and give a sense of the industrial surroundings that I photograph. gritty realism is another genre that I try to convey through my images, this adds a very sad and hopeless tone to my images and I want to convey that. The texture of everything looking slightly plastic is very important, this also has depressing tones but in a very different way, in a way that makes you feel as if you aren't different from anybody else and that society itself is hopeless as oppose to you individually being hopeless.
Lighting. Lighting has been important as I have been photographing at night for almost all of my images, this is because there is a certain atmosphere at night that you can't capture at any other time, people aren't out, its cold, everything is unnaturally still, in the day there is always something moving somewhere purely because of the amount of people there are. At night the lighting lights everything up, again, in a very unnatural way so to experiment, over the coming weeks I will be experimenting with lights, lighting and camera settings focusing on exposure, in the industrial setting to link to my current investigation. Manipulating the urban landscape.
Lighting. Lighting has been important as I have been photographing at night for almost all of my images, this is because there is a certain atmosphere at night that you can't capture at any other time, people aren't out, its cold, everything is unnaturally still, in the day there is always something moving somewhere purely because of the amount of people there are. At night the lighting lights everything up, again, in a very unnatural way so to experiment, over the coming weeks I will be experimenting with lights, lighting and camera settings focusing on exposure, in the industrial setting to link to my current investigation. Manipulating the urban landscape.
John Berger
John Berger was an art critic who, in nineteen seventy two, wrote a book and made a television show that aired on the BBC about images/imagery and how powerful the visual language that images hold can be.
The show that he made was a show, exploring western culture and how images have a hidden way of telling people things, a way that is very manipulative when used by people of this nation and every nation that advertises. Propaganda, words with images, trying to convince you to do something and get their point across to people who may never had been interested or convinced.
People are obsessed with new items and products, and consuming what ever they think they 'need', to put it in John Berger's words, "This 'more', publicity persuades us, will make us in some way richer, even though we will be poorer having spent our money", this is an explanation as to why having more items and spending most of our money on these items, won't make you richer, you will simply become poorer in the process.
His overall point that he is making in the series and book is to emphasise the visual language that images have and how it can be manipulated to make people feel a certain way.
The show that he made was a show, exploring western culture and how images have a hidden way of telling people things, a way that is very manipulative when used by people of this nation and every nation that advertises. Propaganda, words with images, trying to convince you to do something and get their point across to people who may never had been interested or convinced.
People are obsessed with new items and products, and consuming what ever they think they 'need', to put it in John Berger's words, "This 'more', publicity persuades us, will make us in some way richer, even though we will be poorer having spent our money", this is an explanation as to why having more items and spending most of our money on these items, won't make you richer, you will simply become poorer in the process.
His overall point that he is making in the series and book is to emphasise the visual language that images have and how it can be manipulated to make people feel a certain way.
Jim Goldberg, Raised by Wolves short film
Jim Goldberg, is an artist who focuses on marginalized groups of people in his art. Jim Goldberg made a book called, Raised by Wolves, this book contains images focused on young runaways in the USA. The book itself stopped getting printed so there was a short film made that is seven minutes long and it presented the book in film form so that anybody could see it and appreciate the work.
lighting
I feel that the lighting has slowly become a large part of my investigation as it develops. The development began when I made the link between cities and pollution instead of writing about the history and build up of destruction, I focused more in societal pollution and peoples attitudes. When the link was made to cities and urbanised areas then lighting became a larger factor in play, urbanised areas give off one large, unavoidable pollution that is light pollution, I felt after this point that lighting was a very important part of my photography, this is why I am going to make a photo shoot about lighting and focusing and experimenting on its effects/impact on the images I take.
Practical lighting experiments
Fire based practical light being
used to light up an area
In this photoshoot, I used explosions (fireworks) to make light. This was different to making a photoshoot with the same principles using an electrical light source instead, this has a much wider horizon, because of the nature of fireworks and fire, I can't use these just anywhere
photo shoot using only street lights
For these images I wanted the images t come out very dark and contrasted, thus to highlight where there is and isn't light pollution being focused in the photo shoot. The lighter more reflective colours in the images is where the actual street lighting is reflecting, the dark parts are the much more absorbant of light and don't light up almost at all, this is why the images are so dark. I felt that there would be a few things that I might change about this, although being a small experiment, I would change the lighting settings, or possibly changing the angle so that more light is highlighted and more light could be in frame.
Aïcha Fall
Aïcha Fall is a young, female, African photographer, she grew up in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and studied languages in France.
Her images are majorily very colourful and vibrant, giving very saturated and sharp colours. Her interest is in presenting her culture and her portfolio of work contains a lot of images in Africa, showing the world her heritage and community. She considers herself a storyteller of photographs and this is clearly represented in her images.
Her images are majorily very colourful and vibrant, giving very saturated and sharp colours. Her interest is in presenting her culture and her portfolio of work contains a lot of images in Africa, showing the world her heritage and community. She considers herself a storyteller of photographs and this is clearly represented in her images.
In this image we see a woman in Korhogo in a motorcycle, she is in the city Korhogo which clearly has a very dry and saturated/vibrant landscape, Korhogo is located in Côte d'Ivoire where Aïcha Fall grew up before leaving to study in France. Something that this image represents to me is culture and how everywhere in the world had a different culture because of the culture that I have grown up in this image is slightly strange and out of place, however, in their culture this is perfectly normal, I feel that one of Aïcha Fall's objectives with this image is educating people on culture, specifically her home culture and how everybody should learn about and accept each other and our different cultures.
Something that stands out to me specifically is the fact that there is no helmet.
This image was taken along with three other images of other women on motorcycles also, who live in Korhogo. Initially, the images reminded me of London, there are lots of motorcycles and mopeds in London, which was the two types of vehicle the women were on in this specific photo shoot, in London, there will always be motorcycles on the roads and will often be stopped by the side of the road while the driver is talking to somebody which isn't an unfamiliar sight to see.
The image itself is very saturated, there isn't any clouds in the sky and the landscape is quite dusty, the bushes and plants in the back of the image are also orange, the same colour as the dirt on the floor, it is unclear as to wether or not the plants are covered in dirt or are just simply the same colour as the colour.
The motorcyclist is centre frame but not directly in the middle of the whole image, she is in the middle but lower down the portrait, above we can see a large chunk of the sky with vibrant green trees at the bottom on the horizon.
The space is used in a very clever way in that, it shows you, the driver on her motorbike and at the same time shows you enough of the background that you can see the obvious African landscape.
I think that what is happening in this image is, the lady on the motorbike is stopping which Aïcha Fall takes an image of her, she most likely isn't the only person that the photographer is with when the image was taken, so I think that the driver is talking to somebody whilst the image is being taken. The way that being in this photograph would feel, in my head seems, very hot and I feel as if there is a sense of community and welcoming because of the way that she is talking to somebody at the same time, multiple different women allowed Aïcha to take an image of them. Aïcha Fall I think took this photograph and the rest of the images from the same photoshoot to present the different culture and way of life, show the different landscape, the difference in norms in the everyday life and socially.
I think that this image is effective in that it surprised me to see, I feel that the image educated me slightly as well. So, in conclusion the image itself I think is very effective and also has interesting effect as well, one that educates us on cultures and also on differences between our culture and other peoples.
Something that stands out to me specifically is the fact that there is no helmet.
This image was taken along with three other images of other women on motorcycles also, who live in Korhogo. Initially, the images reminded me of London, there are lots of motorcycles and mopeds in London, which was the two types of vehicle the women were on in this specific photo shoot, in London, there will always be motorcycles on the roads and will often be stopped by the side of the road while the driver is talking to somebody which isn't an unfamiliar sight to see.
The image itself is very saturated, there isn't any clouds in the sky and the landscape is quite dusty, the bushes and plants in the back of the image are also orange, the same colour as the dirt on the floor, it is unclear as to wether or not the plants are covered in dirt or are just simply the same colour as the colour.
The motorcyclist is centre frame but not directly in the middle of the whole image, she is in the middle but lower down the portrait, above we can see a large chunk of the sky with vibrant green trees at the bottom on the horizon.
The space is used in a very clever way in that, it shows you, the driver on her motorbike and at the same time shows you enough of the background that you can see the obvious African landscape.
I think that what is happening in this image is, the lady on the motorbike is stopping which Aïcha Fall takes an image of her, she most likely isn't the only person that the photographer is with when the image was taken, so I think that the driver is talking to somebody whilst the image is being taken. The way that being in this photograph would feel, in my head seems, very hot and I feel as if there is a sense of community and welcoming because of the way that she is talking to somebody at the same time, multiple different women allowed Aïcha to take an image of them. Aïcha Fall I think took this photograph and the rest of the images from the same photoshoot to present the different culture and way of life, show the different landscape, the difference in norms in the everyday life and socially.
I think that this image is effective in that it surprised me to see, I feel that the image educated me slightly as well. So, in conclusion the image itself I think is very effective and also has interesting effect as well, one that educates us on cultures and also on differences between our culture and other peoples.
William Eggleston
William Eggleston is an American photographer who, in the 1950s started using colour photography as an art form even though it was only used at that time as a way of commercialising products mostly for sale. His images had a huge part to play for the people using colour photography as an art form as opposed to black and white and had a big impact on photography itself.
William Eggleston is known for the subject matter of his work being very everyday and of normal sights. The way that this relates to my work is that, he makes images of the everyday and tries to bring out the colour in it and I take images of everyday sights except I try to take them highlighting the almost disgusting behaviour of people and society. I feel that watching this film and looking at his work has helped mostly amongst my thought processes whilst I am taking my images and that when I am taking images of everyday things I shouldn't think too much whilst taking the images otherwise the images don't come across as 'everyday' because a big aspect of it is mindlessness and not thinking too much.
Light pollution/the city at night
Light Pollution is one of the most visible and common forms of pollution, if you live in a city or anywhere that has been urbanised then you will see light pollution everyday. Light pollution is where light is mass produced and wasted in one area, this causes visual issues, glare on the sky and also wastes energy. An example of a local issue involving light pollution is that the famous Royal Greenwich Observatory is now becoming slowly more and more useless due to light pollution, because of the light glare being produced by the city around it.
Light is a huge part of photography and is the basis of how they are made, I feel that at the moment in my photography work it is also what I am most interested in and want to experiment with most. Long exposures and using practical light sources to make new, light-based images of the city I live in.
The city in the day time and the city at night are entirely different places visually, in the day time, there is no need for artificial light across the city, however, at night, the city is illuminated by artificial light as to make the city a safer/easier place to live in and navigate around. But, the city changes at night and gains a sense of tension which isn't felt in the day, it is natural instinct to be afraid of the night and to have the knowledge that it is more dangerous than the day, especially in modern society. There are less people around and this makes people afraid to leave their house, giving people who thrive at night a place to be.
The city at night becomes a fleeting playground of artificial lights and colours, deeming it a reasonable place for experimentation with light in particular
Light is a huge part of photography and is the basis of how they are made, I feel that at the moment in my photography work it is also what I am most interested in and want to experiment with most. Long exposures and using practical light sources to make new, light-based images of the city I live in.
The city in the day time and the city at night are entirely different places visually, in the day time, there is no need for artificial light across the city, however, at night, the city is illuminated by artificial light as to make the city a safer/easier place to live in and navigate around. But, the city changes at night and gains a sense of tension which isn't felt in the day, it is natural instinct to be afraid of the night and to have the knowledge that it is more dangerous than the day, especially in modern society. There are less people around and this makes people afraid to leave their house, giving people who thrive at night a place to be.
The city at night becomes a fleeting playground of artificial lights and colours, deeming it a reasonable place for experimentation with light in particular
Black Country by Richard Billingham
Richard Bellingham's Black Country is a study of the town that he grew up in, Cradley Heath in the westmidlands, partially being known as 'Black Country' due to it's industrialisation in the industrial revolution. The photobook contains images from the streets of his hometown, focusing on light and colour, he manages to capture light in a way that makes a perfectly active town seem like a mystic ghost town, using lots of artificial light sources with artificial colour, green, blue and yellow.
I think that this photo book is very important as it shows how to capture an atmosphere which often goes unnoticed by most.
This is an interesting project to do outside of a city, cities give off the most light pollution but, this is an interesting contrast between cities and towns and how different the atmosphere seems.
I think that this photo book is very important as it shows how to capture an atmosphere which often goes unnoticed by most.
This is an interesting project to do outside of a city, cities give off the most light pollution but, this is an interesting contrast between cities and towns and how different the atmosphere seems.
In these images, although they are very industrial looking places, I can tell from the atmosphere and landscape that it is not a city, cities are often very formatted places, with lots of consistent light sources everywhere, the images seem to depict the light as being more fleeting but harsh. The main difference for me is that this town at night looks like a ghost town because of the extreme lack of people and the city looks more like an artificial metropolis of lights.
Response
This is my response to Richard Billingham's Black country as well as finding visual inspiration from Melanie King who did a photo shoot focused on the night sky and the light travelling from the sky to her camera. In order to make this response, I looked into Billingham's project and I took the idea of photographing less ubranised places at night and making them look scary whilst also using my style and the subject of light pollution.
Melanie King captured the sky in a way that showed the ground level also and displayed just how bright and intricate the sky is at night where you can see it, I took this into account in some of my images, with one even showing one structure that was releasing huge amounts of light into the night sky.
I made this response to Richard Billingham one main intention, I wanted to be able to compare the density and amount of light pollution, from London to even the closest areas of the country side. In the countryside the atmosphere is different due to the lack of light, I took pictures of the sky, the horizon and the streets to try and capture that atmosphere, as you can see in the images below, for a start the sky glow is significantly less, and the stars are much more visible on camera, if you look at the street lights, there will never be a grid of street lights, only one on their own to illuminate a potential danger alongside the road, this is a complete change of scenery from the images taken in London where there is nowhere left without light.
Melanie King captured the sky in a way that showed the ground level also and displayed just how bright and intricate the sky is at night where you can see it, I took this into account in some of my images, with one even showing one structure that was releasing huge amounts of light into the night sky.
I made this response to Richard Billingham one main intention, I wanted to be able to compare the density and amount of light pollution, from London to even the closest areas of the country side. In the countryside the atmosphere is different due to the lack of light, I took pictures of the sky, the horizon and the streets to try and capture that atmosphere, as you can see in the images below, for a start the sky glow is significantly less, and the stars are much more visible on camera, if you look at the street lights, there will never be a grid of street lights, only one on their own to illuminate a potential danger alongside the road, this is a complete change of scenery from the images taken in London where there is nowhere left without light.
Brassai's Paris by Night
Brassai's Paris by Night is a study, in the 1930s of the landscape of Paris at night. Interestingly the images are in black and white, this is a good way of experimenting with light, it captures the light at a very raw state, especially on film. This is a different sort of photobook as it captures the streets of a city, in a different country, almost a hundred years ago, it interests me to see these images as it reminds me more of Black country by Richard Billingham than for example Rut Blees Luxembourg's images of London at night, the images take on a very mystic, gothic feel, as if the people in the images are doing something wrong by being out in this environment, with dramatic contrasts of life in the night time, making the night feel like an inverted daytime.
Whilst the images are taken one hundred years ago in a different country, I can still see similarities between now and then, in the third image, you can see this light glare over the city's horizon, this is visible evidence of light pollution. You can tell that the air is of bad quality/the temperature is cold due to the misty air that picks up the light and shows us the path and glare that the light is giving off. The way that light has been captured in these images is different from any images I have seen taken under the same topic/issue, there is an atmosphere of mystery and irreality surrounding the images, almost making them feel more valuable, not just visually but the moment.
Response
In this photo shoot, I decided to take elements of Paris by night such as, contrasting light and dark, capturing the path of the lights in the images, this could be, the light reflecting on something or light travelling through mist/condensation, I also wanted to capture the inconsistent style and layout of London's streets. All of these elements I wanted to use to further emphasise the factor of mystery, also taken from Paris by night. Whilst taking the images, the main part of taking the images that was the most difficult was finding good subjects, instead of being reckless whilst taking the images, I mainly focused on taking images from the darker places in the areas I was in, I then tried to show good contrast between where the light was shining and where it was not, one way that I did this was by including lots of reflections in the images, some are small but is a good visual way of showing the light in the images. I tried to find interesting and unconventional light sources, this was partially to create diversity and vary the subject of my images but also to show the diversity of light pollution in the streets.
I think that the main thing that went well was the contrast in the images, this was what I am most satisfied with, I feel the the most distinguished part the images is the vast blacks and sharp whites. I also think that the images very obviously show the complexity of the city I am focusing on, London, everything in the images I tried to make seem as far away from being gridded and consistent as possible, I feel that I achieved this, I think that this is helped by the fact that you can't see a lot of things in the images because of the contrast.
I would change the fact that there is no wide shots, images showing the city as more of a whole functioning thing, this would add a grander element to the images, making them more obviously set on the light pollution. The grander images can become very stereotypical and repetitive, making them have a less intimate and personal feel. I believe that one benefit of me not being able to achieve this is that the smaller and more confusing the images are, the more of a tone of mystery is portrayed through the images, which was the main idea of the images.
I think that the main thing that went well was the contrast in the images, this was what I am most satisfied with, I feel the the most distinguished part the images is the vast blacks and sharp whites. I also think that the images very obviously show the complexity of the city I am focusing on, London, everything in the images I tried to make seem as far away from being gridded and consistent as possible, I feel that I achieved this, I think that this is helped by the fact that you can't see a lot of things in the images because of the contrast.
I would change the fact that there is no wide shots, images showing the city as more of a whole functioning thing, this would add a grander element to the images, making them more obviously set on the light pollution. The grander images can become very stereotypical and repetitive, making them have a less intimate and personal feel. I believe that one benefit of me not being able to achieve this is that the smaller and more confusing the images are, the more of a tone of mystery is portrayed through the images, which was the main idea of the images.
Snow
This photo shoot was to begin to explore how light , specifically in the street, interacts with different textures. The photos displayed below relate to that through visually studying the snowfall in the street and comparing to the way the light looks with and with out the snow.
The snow, I found, to be a useful way of visualising the pollution from light on a smaller scale, similarly to how clouds can reflect the pollution of light over cities, the snow reflects the light within the city, a blanket of white snow falls on everything making a perfect canvas for the light to reflect on.
The images themselves, I mainly focused on framing them in a way which highlighted the artificial light and the snow, by doing this, I clearly displayed the way that snow makes the streets look and take on an unusual, deserted tone. The way that I highlighted the way at which light is hitting the snow was by trying to capture dark spots in the snow, as well as the places where light is hitting the snow.
I think that the main thing that went well is the subject matter, I planned to takes these images after seeing the forecast for snow and the snow fell at the perfect time for me to take images. I think that the it relates to my investigation in that I am making a collection of experiments to be presenting as part of the whole portfolio of work. The images themselves I focused a lot on framing them perfectly and I believe that I framed them in a way that I entirely satisfied with.
I think that one of the main and only things that went wrong is the manual settings on a few of the images weren't exactly perfect, this for me brings the images down slightly and makes me less satisfied with some of them.
The snow, I found, to be a useful way of visualising the pollution from light on a smaller scale, similarly to how clouds can reflect the pollution of light over cities, the snow reflects the light within the city, a blanket of white snow falls on everything making a perfect canvas for the light to reflect on.
The images themselves, I mainly focused on framing them in a way which highlighted the artificial light and the snow, by doing this, I clearly displayed the way that snow makes the streets look and take on an unusual, deserted tone. The way that I highlighted the way at which light is hitting the snow was by trying to capture dark spots in the snow, as well as the places where light is hitting the snow.
I think that the main thing that went well is the subject matter, I planned to takes these images after seeing the forecast for snow and the snow fell at the perfect time for me to take images. I think that the it relates to my investigation in that I am making a collection of experiments to be presenting as part of the whole portfolio of work. The images themselves I focused a lot on framing them perfectly and I believe that I framed them in a way that I entirely satisfied with.
I think that one of the main and only things that went wrong is the manual settings on a few of the images weren't exactly perfect, this for me brings the images down slightly and makes me less satisfied with some of them.
The Palms
Password - thepalms
Response
This short film is a response for 'The Palms', which is linked above. The palms focuses on using live music to narrate a story by mixing sound with image. Sound is important in showing a narrative, mostly this is used for moving image, however, in 'the palms', the images are stills, which are sequenced in both obvious and confusing orders.
When I decided to make a film, I made the choice to make a film because video can carry narrative and narrative sense. The main aspects I took was the focus of sound and image and combining the mediums to make a short film with a sense of a narrative, I also noticed that 'The Palms' is a collaboration, I took this aspect and asked my friend who knows how to make music and soundtracks to help me make the sound track for the film, I requested that he helped me, as I have limited knowledge of how to make music, to make an ambience soundtrack, that took in samples from city and electrical noises to match the subject matter.
In 'The Palms', we can see that the sequencing isn't the prime aspect of the narrative atmosphere that it creates, I decided to make my images sequenced in a way that focused entirely on the subject of light pollution, thus making the sequencing of videos easier to piece together. The film in nature doesn't follow narrative norms, there is no dialogue and I am describing it to be a 'visual narrative', this means that there are no solid stories or events happening in the way a feature film might work, instead I am focusing on creating the sense of narrative and story telling through the visual sequences.
Most aspects of this film were successful, the sequence was ordered in a way that I was satisfied with, I feel that the music is one of the largest contributing factors in the film in creating tone and atmosphere, and I also believe that I managed to maintain a 'photographic style' although being a short film.
When I decided to make a film, I made the choice to make a film because video can carry narrative and narrative sense. The main aspects I took was the focus of sound and image and combining the mediums to make a short film with a sense of a narrative, I also noticed that 'The Palms' is a collaboration, I took this aspect and asked my friend who knows how to make music and soundtracks to help me make the sound track for the film, I requested that he helped me, as I have limited knowledge of how to make music, to make an ambience soundtrack, that took in samples from city and electrical noises to match the subject matter.
In 'The Palms', we can see that the sequencing isn't the prime aspect of the narrative atmosphere that it creates, I decided to make my images sequenced in a way that focused entirely on the subject of light pollution, thus making the sequencing of videos easier to piece together. The film in nature doesn't follow narrative norms, there is no dialogue and I am describing it to be a 'visual narrative', this means that there are no solid stories or events happening in the way a feature film might work, instead I am focusing on creating the sense of narrative and story telling through the visual sequences.
Most aspects of this film were successful, the sequence was ordered in a way that I was satisfied with, I feel that the music is one of the largest contributing factors in the film in creating tone and atmosphere, and I also believe that I managed to maintain a 'photographic style' although being a short film.
Mist short film/photo shoot
These two products were created for two reasons, the first reason is that I wanted to further explore how the recreational lights in the streets interacted with different textures, similarly to snow, using the heavy mist/fog is a good way to show the path and glow of the lights that I am photographing. The mist left the streets deserted and dark, light can't travel as far through the mist, so the night time is emphasised even more so and walking around the abandoned streets has an eerie atmosphere.
The images were primarily an experiment of texture and light. The way that the mist made the lights glow was interesting and helped me to further build my study into light and texture. I tried to go to open expanses of land, where many lights could be seen and framed easily, each image is framed in a way that you get the best view and perspectives of the lights themselves. The only challenges that arose whilst taking the images was, where to take the images from, the angles were the most difficult aspect as I didn't always immediately see what lined up well, however, I feel satisfied with the images, when compared to the film, the images feel more like a documentation of video and the journey around my area I took to make the short film. One thing that I would do differently is take more images related to the video instead of only being related to the journey.
With this short film I wanted to focus on making something that followed more of a visual structure than the previous short film. This film, The Mist, is a film relating to the subject of mist and light pollution, I wanted to not only explore how the light reacts and comes up on camera with the mist but also to see if I could make a narrative somehow involving those elements as well as external lighting. I feel that this film doesn't tell much of a clear, start to finish story which isn't what I would be aiming for, I want to focus on everything visual and the narrative can be inferred from the visual elements of the film. I brought a bicycle light with me, the light had many settings, one of which was a strobe, as soon as I saw the way the strobe looked in the mist on camera, I wanted to use this in my film to help me make more of an inferable narrative and clear visual structure. Whilst a lot of my film was focused on the strobing of the light, I also needed to focus on the continuous light pollution through the streets, which also were made all the more mystic/eerie by the mist in the air at the time. I felt that it was the perfect time to make a film about light pollution, the mist entirely covers and visualises the light that is being emitted from street lamps, signs, cars and the light being beamed from the city as one huge emission of light.
In the Shadow of the Pyramids by Laura El-Tantawy
Link to video
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Link to book
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In the Shadow of the Pyramids by Laura El-Tantawy is a piece that takes form of book and video and is the study of her experiences moving back to her home country of Egypt and having to start again after having lived in America for nine years. Laura El-Tantawy says that she felt it was almost a photographic study into her experience finding her way back into Egyptian society after having lived in America for so long and having completely adjusted there. What first was intriguing and noticeable was that she is showing completely different societies and communities that she has lived in her past, she contrasts that society with the society that people that live in the west know so well. This is a very personal study and she stated that having moved back to Egypt, the reason being that a close family relative unexpectedly passed away, she was finding photography to be itself more of a personal thing, she was a photojournalist in America and whilst watching/reading, the style and mindset that she developed in the West shows in her work now, although this particular project is a different type of project to be working on. In a way, this project is a type of interchanging into a new time in her work, similarly to how she changed back to living in her home country, so using both aspects, she created this book and video, she says that she only photographs things that interest her and that she feels something about.
These were the images that stood out most to me. I felt that all of the images were amazingly emotional, the images and videos all portrayed the emotions of a nation in a very harsh realistic way. The images that I have selected are images I felt that contained subject matter that made me think for a moment and look and I was able to sympathise with the subject matter. Finally I could appreciate where the emotion behind the camera was coming from, Laura El-Tantawy had moved to a country she hadn't lived in for almost a decade, she had to deal with the death of her Grandmother, she had to mover her way back into a society that she had previously left, all at the same time as her photographic style is completely changing and I think that these images were a complete channel of all of those factors.
My area
The Royal Greenwich Observatory
The Royal Greenwich Observatory is a museum in Greenwich Park that for centuries was used to observe and study the skies. The observatory was commissioned by King Charles the second in 1675, Greenwich at the time was a small town with a hill (which is where the observatory is located) this made it perfect at the time for observing the skies, London was nearby by Greenwich was far enough from all of the light and air pollution to be able to see into space. This became the prime place for astronomy at the time and for a long time after.
Over time, London expanded hugely, even going past and around Greenwich thus bringing the Light pollution and smog with it, rendering it mid way through the twentieth century, almost useless, people then moved onto different places to look at the sky. Whilst Greenwich used to be considered a vantage point for an observatory because of the hill, due to modern day light glare and pollution surrounding it for miles in each direction, its advantage was no longer existent.
Whilst The Royal Greenwich Observatory is now on a new course to being a completely working observatory again using modern technology. Tom Kerss, an astronomer at the Greenwich Observatory, said "We can recover the night, punch through the light pollution and make meaningful observations". The Royal Greenwich Observatory, although under restoration, is a prime example of the negative effects of light pollution, historical and important places made, some, like The Royal Greenwich Observatory that are the first of their kind, made hundreds of years ago can be rendered useless, which goes to show that light pollution has a much more profound effect than people might initially think.
Over time, London expanded hugely, even going past and around Greenwich thus bringing the Light pollution and smog with it, rendering it mid way through the twentieth century, almost useless, people then moved onto different places to look at the sky. Whilst Greenwich used to be considered a vantage point for an observatory because of the hill, due to modern day light glare and pollution surrounding it for miles in each direction, its advantage was no longer existent.
Whilst The Royal Greenwich Observatory is now on a new course to being a completely working observatory again using modern technology. Tom Kerss, an astronomer at the Greenwich Observatory, said "We can recover the night, punch through the light pollution and make meaningful observations". The Royal Greenwich Observatory, although under restoration, is a prime example of the negative effects of light pollution, historical and important places made, some, like The Royal Greenwich Observatory that are the first of their kind, made hundreds of years ago can be rendered useless, which goes to show that light pollution has a much more profound effect than people might initially think.
The night sky, London
The purpose of these photographs is to show what could be captured of the stars at night in London. Without light pollution and the glare over the sky that is created with it, we would be able to see the whole night sky, this is the cause for places like the royal greenwich observatory are not able to be used properly. The images looked the way I thought that they might which is a good thing because I wanted the images to look slightly more blurry and fuzzy than if I did this on a DSLR as that would make the images much more crisp and not highlight the glare of light so effectively.
interviewing People
I decided to ask people a set of four questions to random people in the street who were in Greenwich and presumably live there. The questions were designed to find out if people knew the nature and effects of light pollution and to see if people already did/believed that they could reduce their waste of light and improve their contribution to light pollution. The questions were, Do you know what Light Pollution is ? Are you aware of the effects of light pollution ? Does light pollution effect you in anyway through your day to day life ? Do you/will you do anything to change your impact on light pollution ?. Overall the people we spoke to seemed to have a reasonable understanding, from different perspectives, of what light pollution is and the effects of it, this shows me, from the people I asked, that people know what light pollution is and what it effects. People didn't seem to think that it effected them in their day to day lives as much as I would have thought, however, they do things to save power and reduce their contribution to the waste of light. The people that I asked were from different walks of life and had different benefits to their knowledge and perspective on the subject, someone was from Suffolk which has a much clearer sky at night to where I live, he was also a father and that seemed to effect his view on light pollution, relating to his sense of security and safety of his daughter. Another person was a retired astronomer who used to work at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, thus meaning he knew a fair amount of information on the matter giving him a helpful insight. I believe that this was a constructive way of researching my area and finding out informations from individuals who also live where I live.
-"I have a clear idea of the effects and definition of light pollution" -"The Royal Greenwich observatory was commissioned by Prince Charles II and it then became useless due to light and air pollution" -"I am a retired astronomer so I am weary of my contribution to light pollution" -"an example of where light pollution effects the sky is most lampposts in London, the design of older ones tends to send wasted light up at the sky instead of down at the road where it is supposed to illuminate" |
Facts and Statistics-Greenwich used to be the most admired place in England to observe the sky
- Royal Greenwich Observatory has been out of work as a fully working observatory for almost one hundred years due to the impact of light glare being emitted from London. - Greenwich is home to a large amount of parks that are home to wildlife, the wildlife in this area is being surrounded by unnatural conditions of light, this can confused the animals perception of night and day. - There are roughly eighty seven thousand street lights in Greenwich |
With this photo/text section, I wanted to use images from my area which I can relate to each other through emotions that I wanted to portray through the images when I took them. All of the images have multiple things in common, all of them are taken in my local area and all of them portray a peaceful atmosphere, I chose old and took new images that all abided by these two aspects. The main idea here is to focus on the text and image subject in my investigation, leading up to the final pieces, the statistics and facts, contrast and oppose the poetic images, although there are similarities, such as the fact that both focus on my local area, in nature they are both different in what they convey to the audience. In conclusion, this is a smaller study into my investigation into the relationship between text and image.
Commercial light pollution
Commercial light pollution is where lights are used for reasons other than the required practical use, for example, sky scrapers can often be seen with a light display being beamed over it, this is wasteful commercial lighting, lighting without practical use other than to attract people, these are possibly some of the worst individual forms of light pollution, often being made out of LEDs, spotlights and thick bulbs with no cover, this makes them fall into multiple light pollution categories. I decided to drive round my area and see what excessive light I could find, the first place I found was the fun fair, everything at the fun fair was covered in lights, there is no arguing that although this is a certain style and tradition of fun fairs, it is a lot of energy wasted and way to over illuminated. The second place I found was the shops, the brightest lights outside a completely closed supermarket were on even though it was hours past the closing time, there really is no requirement for this kind of excessive use of lights and energy in an area such as this. When you look at commercial lighting, it tends to be the most inconvenient and excessive form of outside lighting. The images themselves went well, I was trying to explore the bright and over exposed texture of the subject visually whilst also maintaining a conceptual idea as to why, I would have gone further round my area to find more of this type of lighting to improve it.
Light Pollution
Pollution being emitted from lights anywhere can be put into four categories, Glare, Clutter, over illumination and Light Trespass. Glow/Glare is where light is being emitted from something at a stark enough amount to become anywhere from uncomfortable (a lightbulb) to dangerous for your eyes (the sun). Clutter, this is what a city starts to do when it is big enough and bright enough, this is where a large amount of uncoordinated lights clutter together to make a large confusing light source, this can cause issues amongst wildlife and their seasonal processes. Over illumination is simply too much light being used to an excessive amount that it is wasteful, most countries that experience light pollution will experience this, some of the most wasted energy and money comes from lights. Light trespass, this is when unwanted light is finding a way to invade your privacy from it, for example a street light might shine straight through someones window and that person can't do much to help this.
Poetry
Poetry is a literal work presented to express feelings and ideas whilst still maintaining a flow and rhythm that is consistent. 'Poetic' is used to describe visual work as well such as photography, this is because, poetry is a way of representing something, almost always conveying emotion to whoever is reading it, images are similar in that they have the ability to convey and represent emotions whilst maintaining a minimal style, however, photography isn't always poetic and emotional. I did a photo shoot where I took photos of the last glimpses of light before the sun rose in the morning and the gridded lights would be turned off. I took a closer look at some of these images and in a sense they are poetic, the subject matter is taken at a small half hour slot of the morning time when nobody is out and everything is completely empty, like a calm before a storm, before everybody wakes up and goes out. I selected four images which I thought were compatible. I thought that the simplicity of one image with a poem written by myself would work much better than multiple images, the one that I selected, I chose because of the personal feel that I got from it, it captures almost every aspect perfectly, the sky is dimly lit in the background, not light enough to be considered daylight and not dark enough to be considered night, the street lamp is positioned perfectly that the light coming from it is dimly illuminating the house next to it, the poem also describes that the street is only welcomed by the nocturnal, this is very much a point of view of the nocturnal whoever it might be.
The main meaning of this poem is to convey the empty feeling that is gained from being out in a city at that time of day and how that particular time is only welcomed by nocturnal people and animals, a big question that I wanted to ask with this poem is, what kind of people are out at that hour and what is their reason to be out. The poem swiftly moves onto the light and dark side of the use of practical lighting, although light is considered naturally in our heads as a good thing and we associate the light to being something beneficial 'the final glows of light save us from the early shadows', thus meaning that our safety is kept, 'and yet our surroundings suffer' meaning that our safety being upheld is having more profound effects on our surroundings than we might think.
The main meaning of this poem is to convey the empty feeling that is gained from being out in a city at that time of day and how that particular time is only welcomed by nocturnal people and animals, a big question that I wanted to ask with this poem is, what kind of people are out at that hour and what is their reason to be out. The poem swiftly moves onto the light and dark side of the use of practical lighting, although light is considered naturally in our heads as a good thing and we associate the light to being something beneficial 'the final glows of light save us from the early shadows', thus meaning that our safety is kept, 'and yet our surroundings suffer' meaning that our safety being upheld is having more profound effects on our surroundings than we might think.
This particular poem is meant to represent human's constant chase for safety. As soon as one door closes another opens, people will forever crave the light for many reasons, largely safety and sanctuary, it is built into us to be slightly afraid of the dark and to relate the light to being safe, however, at what expense, if we get rid of the light, good things will happen, unnatural patterns will stop happening with birds, we will yet again be able to see into space much easier than we can now, however, this is much easier said than done living in a world where we have built our society and well being around things that harm the planet.
Greenery and light pollution
The final in the collection of photo shoots focused on light pollution and texture. One thing that every photo shoot in this topic has in common is that the 'textures' and subjects of each photo shoot, tend to reflect and highlight the light just as much as the light highlights them, the most solid and permanent object that would do this, that I could think of was greenery and nature, instead of natural processes which come and go intermittently, like rain, snow and fog.
Outdoor lighting, specifically, street lamps (one of the biggest causes of light pollution) is extended into the sky on average about 27 feet depending on what area of London you might be in, the lighting being this high up causes many street lights to become engulfed by trees and greenery, this causes the texture among the trees, leaves and branches to be highlighted with the light. However, the trees, highlight the light being casted from the street lamps, that is one of the main reasons I chose this as a texture to use, both can reflect different aspects of the other.
The images themselves went well, I was happy with the positioning of the camera and the level that I could access all of the street lights from, it allowed enough space so that there was a lot going on in frame when I took an image, however, I could also get close enough to see the details and texture on the surface of the nature and the light.
Outdoor lighting, specifically, street lamps (one of the biggest causes of light pollution) is extended into the sky on average about 27 feet depending on what area of London you might be in, the lighting being this high up causes many street lights to become engulfed by trees and greenery, this causes the texture among the trees, leaves and branches to be highlighted with the light. However, the trees, highlight the light being casted from the street lamps, that is one of the main reasons I chose this as a texture to use, both can reflect different aspects of the other.
The images themselves went well, I was happy with the positioning of the camera and the level that I could access all of the street lights from, it allowed enough space so that there was a lot going on in frame when I took an image, however, I could also get close enough to see the details and texture on the surface of the nature and the light.
Final piece No.1
a_photographic_study_of_the_illuminated_world_and_textual_narrative-compressed.pdf | |
File Size: | 1900 kb |
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This Final piece is a book focused on the overall subject of light pollution whilst taking on the aspect of Text and Image. The purpose of this book was to make a piece of work focused on and finalising the topic of Poetry, Text and image. Consisting of nineteen images, nineteen images and two poems, the book itself tries to influence and confuse the reader's view on the subject matter using words and poems.
At the beginning of the book, there is one by one, poetic peaceful image (all relating to pollution) followed by a harsh fact or statistic relating to light pollution, this shows the viewer two perspectives, the instinctive calming way to look at the subject and then the guilty, harsh facts. At the beginning of the book and the end, I decided to add two poems I have written, this is because, poems can be very metaphorical leaving room for the poems to blanket everything in the book with more open ended statements.
I am satisfied with the outcome of the book, I believe that it is an insightful and interesting way to play on someones opinions within a subject and ask them to try and conflict themselves over their instincts and morals.
At the beginning of the book, there is one by one, poetic peaceful image (all relating to pollution) followed by a harsh fact or statistic relating to light pollution, this shows the viewer two perspectives, the instinctive calming way to look at the subject and then the guilty, harsh facts. At the beginning of the book and the end, I decided to add two poems I have written, this is because, poems can be very metaphorical leaving room for the poems to blanket everything in the book with more open ended statements.
I am satisfied with the outcome of the book, I believe that it is an insightful and interesting way to play on someones opinions within a subject and ask them to try and conflict themselves over their instincts and morals.
Final piece No.2
The second final piece I have made, focuses on sound and image under the subject of light pollution.
This is to continue/finalise the previous two films I have made where I have focused the topic on sound and image. Whilst making the film, I tried to keep one thing, conceptually in my mind mind, that this final piece also had another focus, the streets of London, my work has been largely based around and focused towards the streets of London, video is also a good way to portray this.
I made the videos in a different sort of way to the processes of making the other two films. With the previous two, I decided to make moving image look more stereotypically photographic, still frames and making the subject matter look flat, thus meaning that the sound would carry the narrative as the shots weren't supposedly narrative based. This time, I went for something different, I tried to make something that could be seen as photographic, however, the frames aren't still, I decided that using my style with a shakier camera movement was a good idea as it gives the film more dynamic whilst still maintaining my style. The music for this one, entirely carries the narrative, there are no reoccurring characters or subject that could have caused this to become a narrative based film, the sound makes the film flow and make sense more than the shots do.
In conclusion, making the film flow was largely down to studying the relation ship between sound and image on screen.
This is to continue/finalise the previous two films I have made where I have focused the topic on sound and image. Whilst making the film, I tried to keep one thing, conceptually in my mind mind, that this final piece also had another focus, the streets of London, my work has been largely based around and focused towards the streets of London, video is also a good way to portray this.
I made the videos in a different sort of way to the processes of making the other two films. With the previous two, I decided to make moving image look more stereotypically photographic, still frames and making the subject matter look flat, thus meaning that the sound would carry the narrative as the shots weren't supposedly narrative based. This time, I went for something different, I tried to make something that could be seen as photographic, however, the frames aren't still, I decided that using my style with a shakier camera movement was a good idea as it gives the film more dynamic whilst still maintaining my style. The music for this one, entirely carries the narrative, there are no reoccurring characters or subject that could have caused this to become a narrative based film, the sound makes the film flow and make sense more than the shots do.
In conclusion, making the film flow was largely down to studying the relation ship between sound and image on screen.
Final piece No.3
This piece is an exhibition of work I have made over four seperate photo shoots relating to the title 'from the shadows'. Essentially, the exhibition is a display of images that are taken from the shadows looking at the light pollution, showing it and seeing the effects it has, as well as displaying being able to look at how much light is misdirected and wasted. The exhibition started by people walking into a dark room where there was minimal to no light at all, before this they are instructed to turn their phone torches on, this is because when they go into the dark room, they are going into the exhibition and they need to see the pictures using their phone torches. I think that it went well, two people came into see the exhibition and gave me feedback, they said it was good to have an exhibition based around the larger subject of light, whilst practically using light within the exhibition.
In conclusion, the exhibition could have been better laid out, however, it allowed for enough space that people would need to search for the images when they got into the room, the feedback I received led me to believe that they liked the exhibition and that it was of a good enough standard for an audience, and most importantly, they said the pictures were very well chosen.
In conclusion, the exhibition could have been better laid out, however, it allowed for enough space that people would need to search for the images when they got into the room, the feedback I received led me to believe that they liked the exhibition and that it was of a good enough standard for an audience, and most importantly, they said the pictures were very well chosen.
Images of the exhibition
Final piece No.4
This final piece is my second exhibition, this is made to conclude texture and light pollution as a major topic in my investigation. This exhibition displays approximately one hundred images, this is because each of the five photo shoots that I have made for texture and image is displayed in this exhibition, I wanted to show a large body of extensive visual work looking into a specific visual idea.
I originally planned to turn these images into a huge, physical exhibition, so I would print one hundred images and use specific lights to create what could be seen as street lighting. My first hurdle was that, the time it takes to print the images is not consistent, it can be very quick or take a whole half an hour, this, I did not consider before hand. As well as this, cropping the pictures also took a much longer time than anticipated. I managed to print and trim roughly 25 pictures before the printer started having issues. When this happened, I had to decide what I was going to do to move forwards, I thought about other ways to develop my exhibition, that would have more light involved as to match the subject of the investigation. I then realised that to display all of my images, I could use a slideshow on my computer plugged into a projector pointing at a different wall to the 25 images that I was displaying under the 'street lighting', I set up the images on one wall in a sequence that followed by what I was thinking when I took the images, I then turned the 'street lights' on and they did not seem the right colour, so I had to turn them to 50% brightness which simultaneously turns them more orange (the lights have about 20 big orange LEDs and 20 big white LEDs), this helped a lot as the more orange, which makes it begin to look like street lighting, it also became a lot dimmer which is how street lighting can be sometimes, this also helped because it reduced glare on the printed images. In the process, I was doing certain tests with the lighting and what I could do with the products I had made/could potentially make in the time I had. I then set up the projector so that I could display all of my images and the next issue I ran into was that the light from the 'street lighting' was glaring onto the projector screen, this meant that I needed to make the lighting more directional, to do this, I used A4 sheets of black card to block the light from hitting the part of the room that the projector was on. In conclusion, although the exhibition didn't go exactly as planned, it was developed into something that had more aspects to it and related better to my investigation as a whole.
I originally planned to turn these images into a huge, physical exhibition, so I would print one hundred images and use specific lights to create what could be seen as street lighting. My first hurdle was that, the time it takes to print the images is not consistent, it can be very quick or take a whole half an hour, this, I did not consider before hand. As well as this, cropping the pictures also took a much longer time than anticipated. I managed to print and trim roughly 25 pictures before the printer started having issues. When this happened, I had to decide what I was going to do to move forwards, I thought about other ways to develop my exhibition, that would have more light involved as to match the subject of the investigation. I then realised that to display all of my images, I could use a slideshow on my computer plugged into a projector pointing at a different wall to the 25 images that I was displaying under the 'street lighting', I set up the images on one wall in a sequence that followed by what I was thinking when I took the images, I then turned the 'street lights' on and they did not seem the right colour, so I had to turn them to 50% brightness which simultaneously turns them more orange (the lights have about 20 big orange LEDs and 20 big white LEDs), this helped a lot as the more orange, which makes it begin to look like street lighting, it also became a lot dimmer which is how street lighting can be sometimes, this also helped because it reduced glare on the printed images. In the process, I was doing certain tests with the lighting and what I could do with the products I had made/could potentially make in the time I had. I then set up the projector so that I could display all of my images and the next issue I ran into was that the light from the 'street lighting' was glaring onto the projector screen, this meant that I needed to make the lighting more directional, to do this, I used A4 sheets of black card to block the light from hitting the part of the room that the projector was on. In conclusion, although the exhibition didn't go exactly as planned, it was developed into something that had more aspects to it and related better to my investigation as a whole.
100 Images
Process
In the images below, you can see a few visual pieces focused on the process of making everything, this includes, testing ideas, trimming, printing, setting up lighting, sticking up pictures, setting up the projector and using my initiative to work around issues such as time.
Evaluation
In conclusion, these outcomes, I feel match my investigation to a high standard. The video, subject matter is what makes this so well focused towards the investigation. The two exhibitions I think best match the investigation through their creative nature and ability to match the investigation in ideas and physical appearance, for example, both of the exhibitions had a large involvement of light, physically they relate most to my investigation. The book relates best to my investigation through the actual conceptual meaning, the idea behind the book matches the investigation perfectly, it has the statistical facts within it that explain everything about light pollution and why people should care, but it also has the visual pieces that, although contrasting one another, display what the facts and statistics are stating. To conclude, the practical pieces I have made over this investigation have managed to relate perfectly, I think that the ending for this investigation has a perfect balance of the aspects that I looked into whilst studying light pollution.