The Contemporary Urban Environment

Rut Blees Luxemburg

http://updates.rutbleesluxemburg.com/

'Folly', 2003

Instantly this image makes me think of a horror movie and that something bad will happen around the corner. The handrail leads you down further into this disconcerting area, a space that doesn't look like it has been used for a long period of time. It is interesting that Luxemburg decides to show the shadow of her camera within this picture, it makes me feel as if this is my shadow and I am alone in this area.

Liebeslied

At first glance you see a stairwell, but when starting to deconstruct you notice things like: The graffiti along the wall and writing towards the left of the image, The lighting, how there are three different sources, one lighting the writing, another causing a rim light effect on the concrete and the last coming from outside the stairwell. Like 'Folly' this image has several lines for the eyes to follow, the handrails down the stairs lead you across the image but are broken by the vertical line of the concrete in the middle. The stairwell is a very public place and is generally used quite a lot by many different people which means that the writing on the wall will be viewed a lot. It isn't like the normal graffiti that is found because with this one you have to get very close to be able to read what it says, this makes it more personal as maybe only a few people using the stairwell will stop to read it. In an interview I found between Rut Blees Luxemburg and David Campany, Rut says "It looks like a very private form of communication, the opposite of most graffiti or street writing which might tend to be a disenfranchised citizen announcing something to the world in general". She also goes on to say that she is attracted to the privacy of a space in public and how a space can offer a moment of repose/rest.

http://www.union-gallery.com/content.php?page_id=653

'Piccadilly's Peccadilloes', 2007

This image shows possibly the whole idea and essence that Luxemburg was getting at, the idea of a space giving you that moment. It is likely that this part of the street does not still look like this and the puddle will not be there all the time and when it is it could be bigger or smaller. The colours of this image are very similar to the image above which give both the images this, quite weird and uneasy feeling about them.

Throughout Luxemburgs work you notice that she is very intrigued by the night time and areas that by day are not anything special but at night become something terrifying. These long exposed eerie images all have the same thing in common, that there are no people within them, only trails of people and the imagination of the viewer.

Richard Wentworth

'Tirana' from the series 'Making do and getting by' 1999

This image looks as though there are different pieces of plastic or glass propped up against a wall in an alley way. It is quite difficult to understand as there is not really anything in the image to supply context. The camera position on the boundary of 'personal space' it is not intruding on these objects but is still close enough to be observing. The lines of the pavement and wall draw you along to the objects which then leads you to question what they are and what are they doing in this place.

Bottlestick

Bottlestick comes across as one of those 'space offers a moment' type of image. In a way this links back to Rut Blees Luxemburgs work because this is not the sort of thing that will always be there, it is likely to be cleaned up after a certain amount of time. Due to the crop of the image it certainly makes you question the area in which this is and why this bottle is there. Wentworths work seems to show how the streets are a stage for social activity, how the people that use them give them meaning.

Vera Lutter

San Marco, Venice, XX: December 3, 2005

Vera Lutter in this series has a different approach to that of the previous two photographers in which she looks at the broader space or area of the city. She also uses a very different technique to the other photographers that I am looking at, this makes them more interesting and different to look at. She transforms a room into a 'pinhole camera obscurer chamber' this allows her negative prints to be directly exposed often over many hours onto photosensitive paper. So because these images take several hours to capture anything moving quite quickly like a person walking will not be captured. It seems that quite a large depth of field has been used as it appears everything is in focus, this allows the audience to look at all the detail within the image and suggests that the entire subject is important to view.

'333 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL', 2001

This image of Chicago has a higher vantage point from which it has been shot, we are looking slightly down on the city. Like the image above, a great depth of field has been used to keep the whole scene sharp and in focus. The road leads your eyes up the image, potentially into the heart of the city. This area becomes important because it is the main way that people can get into the city to work and make the city come alive with their daily 'goings on'.

Frankfurt Airport, VII: April 24, 2001

This image spans over three panels and has the most movement out of all of her works. It shows five or six aircraft that had come into that certain gate during a day. Again like the other images of Lutter's work I have looked at this one does not have any people in it. It is also noticeable that she does not shoot her images at eye level, they are all quite elevated looking down upon the subject.

The City - Deconstructing Environmental Photographers

 We have been asked to deconstruct 6 images of the Flatiron building in New York, noting the similarities and dissimilarities between all of the images and consider them in terms of aesthetics and concepts.


Edward Steichen, 'The Flatiron, New York', 1905

This image is quite dark and atmospheric due to being shot late evening after it had been raining, I can tell this because of the street lamps and the way the path in the bottom third of the image is very shiny. The building has been set in the background so it appears as almost a silhouette, the tree branches that are coming across the image seem to be the focal point. All of these things create a painterly effect that could push this image into the sublime. It could even become about the two figures that you can see walking in the park, the image here is not just about the Flatiron but also what goes on around it. The figures, trees and buildings to the right do show the enormity of the Flatiron that had only been finished two years prior to when this image had been taken. Due to the way this has been shot, we start to think that there could be a deeper meaning behind it. Maybe Steichen was making a comment at the growth of Human kind and the loss of nature. 

Alfred Stieglitz, 'The Flatiron', 1903

This image by Stieglitz has a different feel to it because it has been shot during a cold winters day, possibly early morning after snowfall. Steichen's image has a similar composition by having the camera set up in the park with the trees masking the building. Being shot in the winter and having snow on the trees could suggest that nature has had its time in this place and it is now the turn for modernisation and for a city to be born (the old and new). The building towers over the trees just in front of it emphasising this idea of modernisation. The camera has been set up so it is far enough from the building to get the whole thing in but close enough that the angle is still looking up at it dominating over the surrounding area. The tree in the foreground and the building have quite a bit of contrast which is the same for Steichen's and Coburn's images, the Flatiron almost blends in to the overcast sky.

Alvin Langdon Coburn, 'The Flatiron Building', 1911

Unlike the images above by Steichen and Stieglitz, Coburn has decided to capture the hustle and bustle of the city by including a lot of people. There looks to be some movement in the people (blurring) so a slow shutter speed is likely to have been used, this also gives the feeling that the city cannot live without this movement of people. The camera looks to be at eye level looking up at the building which shows the scale as the people are so small compared to it. Coburn has decided to capture the trees within this image like Steichen and Stieglitz, he could be suggesting the same comment about nature and humanity. The Flatiron is quite light and gray tonally compared to the black silhouettes of the trees and people, this makes it stand out and become more important than that around it.

Walter Gropius, 'The Flatiron Building, New York', 1928

A much closer camera position has been used this time and the Flatiron is almost the only thing within the image, this gives a documentary feel. A much smaller building can be seen in the middle which gives scale to the Flatiron as it was the first skyscraper to have been built in New York in 1903. Gropius has only photographed the building as he was an architect who must have been interested in this building. He has photographed the building during the day with barely any clouds, this allows us to see the detail of the building rather than it being quite a surreal subject.

Walker Evans, 'Flatiron Building seen from below, New York City', 1928

Quite a different shot compared to the others, the camera position is a lot closer than the others. This has meant that Walker's camera angle is also much more severe, like a tourist looking up at an attraction. Maybe Walker shot the Flatiron looking up to suggest that the modernisation and development of the city had begun and this would be the way you would have to view buildings, by looking up from the street. Like several of the images of the Flatiron building Walker has also decided to shoot when the sky is very clear with no distractions in it. The use of showing small parts of another building, lamp post and possibly the subway tracks could suggest that this is an area that is used a lot. 

Berenice Abbott, 'The Flatiron Building', 1938

This image is quite similar to Walter Gropius' image in the way that you can see a lot of the detail of the building and that there isn't really anything that takes your focus away from the Flatiron. Abbott has composed this image with the Flatiron just off centre and like the two images above has decided to angle the camera upwards to make this completely about the building rather than of its surrounding area like Steichen, Stieglitz and Coburn. Again like Gropius' image Abbott has used a great depth of field to make sure every part of the image is in focus, this is because she is suggesting that the whole scene is important to look at. So saying that we then look at the buildings to the right that give the Flatiron its domineering scale and with a flat sky that doesn't distract you from the buildings. There is little contrast within this image due to the lighting being quite diffused.

The Environment Task 2

For the second part of this brief we are looking at the urban space. We have to pastiche another image from below and submit a set of images based upon our own conceptual approach to representing 'urban space'.

Brassai, 'Paris after dark, No.27, 1933

Lee Friedlander, 'Albuquerque, New Mexico', 1972

Thomas Struth, 'Bukseo Dong, Pyongyang, North Korea', 2007

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The City

For this part of the brief I want to focus on the people within the city rather than the city itself. 

Harry Callahan - Chicago, 1950

This isn't quite the image you would expect to see when researching for an Environment project, but instead of just looking at the city I am interested in looking at what keeps the city alive. This is a very invasive shot by Callahan, when looking at it I feel that I am extremely close to this person and that I am walking against the flow of the people within the street. 

Martin Parr

Philip-Lorca DiCorcia - Heads

Similar to Callahan's work, DiCorcia with a flash set up on scaffolding photographs people unawares at a distance. This means that he is able to capture people when they are deep within thought, or within their own space.

Thomas Struth

This is an image from the series 'Museum Photographs' where Struth traveled to many different museums taking pictures of people looking at artwork. This shows how busy certain places can get with tourists and using a slow shutter speed shows some movement from the people trying to get across the room. 

Walker Evans

This is a very interesting series because Evans hid a 35mm camera under his jacket with a wired release up his sleeve. This meant that he was able to photograph people on the subway without being noticed. Due to these people being photographed unnoticed meant that they would be captured in their own space, thinking about their day to day lives or like the picture above deep in conversation. The candid style of shooting allows you (the viewer) access into a world that you normally would only have for a few seconds until the person that you are looking at notices you looking at them.

Over 60,000 businesses can be found in London

 but as little as 10,000 tourist destinations (according to Google).

This would suggest that there are more business people within London, but they are rarely seen, obviously because they are working during the day. Generally in the morning and evening the only time they will be still is when waiting for the train or tube. Tourists will spend quite an amount of time taking pictures and slowly walking around so they do not miss anything.

There are a few things that I would like to stay away from when photographing for this project, things such as street fashion photography and posed shots. I want to be able to capture the depth of the people not just what they want us to see when they are smiling down the lens. I am aiming to create a candid documentary I suppose, in the way that I don't want any of the people I am photographing to notice the camera but I will be documenting the stereotypes e.g. people in suits and people with cameras and maps.

Below are the types of images that I do not want to create, they are far too posed though still fall into documentary imagery because they are documenting what is being worn.

The use of the wall in the image above really helps to place where you are when viewing this image, this is something that I will be constantly thinking about when I go to shoot my own work because this series is about the urban space.

I had a go at shooting some candid type shots of some people that I felt were interesting to look at:

35mm scans

The shot above is very busy with people but this creates more of a narrative with the focus on the lone woman who appears to be waiting for someone, everyone else seems to be moving around and on their way to a destination. So even though we are at an observing distance from this woman there is still a connection, which is what I would like to get from the rest of the work from this series. This image is a bit too busy for my liking, it doesn't hit the tourism feel that I am after as no one can be seen taking photos of anything. But from this I have a better idea of the places that I want to go within London.

This image is almost verging on street fashion photography, which is not the way I want to take this series. I just think that this was good practice at photographing people without them noticing. 

I am quite interested at looking into the way that tourists and business people differ, the way that tourists take the time to look around (stop and stare) and business people rush around. There are a few aspects that I would like to use from the references above, like the way Struth has used a slow shutter speed, but instead of photographing tourists I will use this to photograph business people. This will hopefully emphasis my idea that they rush around and do not take the time to see what is around them. I am also drawn to Martin Parr's work, it will be interesting to be able to photograph tourists taking pictures of the attractions or even taking pictures of their friends.

Interim review

The Object

Our first brief being 'The object', where we had to make a still life image within the studio. This had to be shot using a large format camera and colour film.

When walking around Chatham I saw a lot of people smoking and drinking and wanted to try and represent this visually somehow. The more I looked for this and how to represent it the more I started noticing that a lot of these people were pregnant women, so I decided to look into the effects these two things would have on an unborn child.

I wanted to create an image that had to be viewed rather than just glanced at, like Keith Arnatts 'Pictures from a Rubbish Tip'. These were images of rubbish that looked very beautiful in the way they were shot yet they were created from discarded items.

In my final image I wanted to get across the idea of a poor defenceless child stripped of its innocence due to the parents alcoholism. The image shows a doll left in a room alone with the door slightly ajar. The effects of the Foetal Alcohol Syndrome are a small head, smaller eyes, underdeveloped jaw and flat midface. I couldn't transform the doll to this extent as it was not very malleable, so instead I cut away some of its head and created an explosion of cans to show the damage this syndrome causes. I chose to photograph the doll on a play mat rather than a plain white backdrop as it puts the doll in a normal environment causing it to look more sinister with the alcohol cans.

I also decided that I only wanted to show the effects of the alcohol instead of doing the smoking as well. This is because the effects of smoking on an unborn child are more internal than the alcohol effects.

Overall I am quite pleased with the image, even though it is not a literal representation I think it still gets the point across that alcohol is very damaging to unborn children.


The Environment

For the Environment project we had to choose an image to pastiche and then also make work based on our personal conceptual approach to representing the landscape.

 I chose to pastiche Robert Adams 'On Signal Hill'. I managed to find a single tree upon a hill on an overcast day. My pastiche is quite similar and although I am pleased with it as a first attempt, I would like to explore a bit further along from where I was to find two trees together and also capture the image when the light is more on the landscape in the distance, similar to how it is on the town in the original.

My own work was about looking at a metaphorical journey of life, so I looked at photographers such as Nicholas Hughes and Paul Hill. I tried to combine the two influences together to form a comprehensive yet sublime series of images. The main thing that I feel I have learnt from looking into Nicholas Hughes is that Landscape photography can be pushed and doesn't have to be a crisp clear image.

When making this series I kept thinking about my own route through life over the last four or five years as I was stuck in a crappy job heading nowhere which is why the first image is very dark with the path disappearing into the woods, then I was introduced into photography which basically lit up my path, the last image has several different crossroads which is where I felt I was about six months ago at the end of college.

I spent some time in the darkroom experimenting with grades and times to make these images but feel that if I had planned my time better I would have been able to experiment a lot more and would have had some different images to show.

The Environment

Our second brief for the term, 'The Environment'. For this one we have to pastiche one of the photographs below:

 Robert Adams, 'On Signal Hill', 1983

 Roger Fenton, 'The Terrace and Park at Harewood House', 1860

Jem Southam, 'Seaford Head', 1999

We have to 'imitate the photographic language of the image by researching and reproducing compositional form, camera setting, lighting conditions, depth of field and scale. Your work should recreate the aesthetic and feeling/mood of your chosen image'.

We also have to 'submit a set of images (minimum of three) based upon your personal conceptual approach to representing the landscape. There may be political aspects you may wish to consider, or investigate the relationship between human intervention upon nature'.

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Ansel Adams is no doubt one of the most famous landscape photographers, with work commissioned by the United States Department of the Interior which celebrates the country's natural heritage. This work allowed him to express his artistic flair and genius through technical and aesthetic inventiveness.

This image shows a great landscape that has not yet been overrun by man, Ansel Adams photographs it in such a way that it looks treacherous and untamed. 

The scale of the buildings shown here being overwhelmed by the natural landscape in which they have been made. This image shows quite well how Ansel Adams was able to capture the aesthetics of the land, he has caught the way that the rock is domineering over these tiny little buildings. These days people would not think how to photograph this area as they are generally tourists looking for a snapshot of themselves within this man made area rather than being in this vast significant landscape.

Stephen Shore

Fast forward about 50 years and we find ourselves looking at some very different landscape work

This certainly does not strike as the treacherous and untamed area of Ansel Adams

The image above shows a family in the great outdoors, the landscape is still very domineering but now has less of an impact of being this 'Great Beyond' like in Friedrich's painting 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog'

Henry Wessel

For some reason I have been really drawn to these two images shot by Wessel.  The plants or crops  have almost created a prison wall, apart from a small opening for the owners to get in and out of their house. The house has been pushed into the background by these quite dominating crops, very nearly shutting this house off from the rest of the world. 

The 'nature' within this image is being dominated by all of the concrete, bricks, mortar and tarmac surrounding it. The composition of these two images is similar, there is the same amount of sky, same idea of having a building with some plants/trees in front of it and then the small amount of road in the foreground. The trees have been boxed in and placed to create better aesthetics for the people of the area, this also shows the interference of humans on nature.

Richard Misrach

This is a different style of landscape photography, it has become less about the area and more about who is occupying the area. It seems to me that all these people have looked at a generic landscape image of a beach with a beautiful sunset and thought about escaping for the weekend. But on arrival they have all discovered that everyone else has had the idea of escape. 

John Davies

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I have decided that I want to pastiche Robert Adams ('On Signal Hill') photograph because the deadpan shot forces you to look at the frail trees grasping at the cusp of the hill, to me this shows how fragile the landscape is against the forever expanding Human race.

This is a test shot that I took on my DSLR mainly just to get a quick look at the composition and see how close I would be able to get to the original. I also took a few shots on my bronica so that I would eventually be able to go into the darkroom and print. If my 120mm shot of this scene comes out like the above image then I will still have a bit of dodging and burning to do as the sky is not bright enough and the land beyond the hill doesn't quite match. The composition is relatively close but I still want to go to a few different locations to see if I can get a better shot.

I have also shot a few test images for the second part of the brief, where I am looking at the invasion of human kind on the landscape.

I shot these images on an overcast day as I wanted to show the 'invasion' of man in a bad way. If I had gone and shot these on a bright and sunny day it would have given the images a warm look making out that this is a good thing. The colours would also have been brighter which again would have changed the way the images would have been viewed.

I have shot some more for this series on black and white as to stop any possible distractions and to give it more of a documentary style feel.

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Had our environment tutorial today, found it very helpful as before it, the more I thought about my 'invasion' idea the more I disliked it.
At the weekend I went out to some woods to do some outdoor lighting tests, there were some concrete stairs down into the woods which I found to be quite interesting.

I went back the other day still with the notion of shooting a few frames for my original idea, I also shot the stairs because I think somewhere in my sub-concious I was thinking about how a decision to take a certain path leads onto something happening within your life. It didn't really make sense at the time and throughout the tutorial I was really struggling of a way of putting some words together that would suggest this idea.
Somehow through my mumbling of words we discussed a few photographers that I could look at to help me and I also decided that this piece of work would be a metaphor for the journey of life and how most people are not really sure where they are going.

Below is the shot that basically started this idea. I am a bit annoyed that I didn't get the bottom of the stairs in, but that could be relevant to the idea of not knowing what is coming next or even where you have come from.

With both these images the camera is very involved in the path and I have shot them specifically without anyone in them. The reason for not having anyone in the images is because I want the series to become about the viewer and how they took certain paths that lead to where they are now.

 Because we have been having seminars for another assignment where we have been deconstructing images a lot (even for the pastiche for this assignment) I have been trying to deconstruct my own work. The path that the camera is practically on is on a steady incline suggesting that 'things are on the up' as generally things going up are seen as a good thing (depending on a persons disposition this could instead be seen as an uphill struggle), the trees full of leaves again suggests that life is good and full. The wall is an obstacle and because the path goes round the corner says that there is uncertainty of what is next and how the obstacle will be overcome. It also looks like you are able to go off to the left into the open so at this crossroad you will have to make a decision, which life is full of.

One of the photographers that I was pointed towards was Adrian Ensor http://www.adrianensor.com/main.html

Nicholas Hughes
http://www.nicholas-hughes.net/

Paul Hill - White Peak Dark Peak

"Hill’s landscapes are produced within a tight tonal range of grays, whilst the skyline, invariably, has been removed from the image. The latter technique draws the viewer into a two-dimensional plane and as a consequence creates an invitation for contemplation of the very nature of the terrain itself."

http://www.artreview.com/profiles/blogs/paul-hills-white-peak-dark?xg_source=activity