Space and Place

For my final module of this course, space and place, i was assigned the location - Park Road, Ardleigh and from there, I managed to gain the idea of environmental issues due to there being a solar plant as well as a tearoom & garden’s there. When photographing the gardens, there were some images of trees with plastic over them, to prevent frost getting onto them, in my contact sheet. These stood out in comparison to the standard pictures of trees and other elements within the gardens which sparked the idea to experiment with different plastic materials and wrapping them around different trees to create sculpture’s of my own. 

Alot of photographers influenced me in this project for different reasons such as Stuart Franklin with his strong environmental issues context behind his work, which helped me develop more of an insight to these problems, Fay Godwin with the negativity behind the co-existence between nature and humans, which I implemented into my contact sheets of shoots, and Thomas Struth with his Untied Enemies series involving sculptures wrapped and tied up, presenting how I wanted my sculptures of trees to look. 

Throughout this project I feel that I managed my time alot better, in comparison to my first module and second, as I knew where and what to shoot so I didn’t have to spent time deciphering what/where to shoot. This could have been due to having access to a dslr camera myself plus, I personally enjoy focusing on shooting spaces/places more predominantly in comparison to portraits of individuals. I also feel my photographer research has really helped me gain strong influences in this project and helped me to build up more of an understanding to what I want my images to look like aswell as how I want them presented.

An issue I encountered was that I was very indecisive at the beginning as to what context and narrative I should choose to shoot due to the many different directions I could have taken it in. If I had spent less time being this way and more time knowing, I could have had more time to shoot more pictures to choose from. I also feel like I should have asked for more people’s opinions on my work when printing to gain a stronger insight to what others thought of my work and not just myself.

Richard Misrach

Misrach, born in California, is a photographer who is very much identified with the start of colour photography in the 1970′s through the use of large format camera’s. He is known as one of the centuries most critically acclaimed photographers and is most well known for his series of images taken in the desert in the American West along with his set of images that documented the environmental issues that have been created through man made factors like pollution, military testing on explosions in the desert, industrialisation, tourism ect. 

The images I have chosen to look at as inspiration is some of his very early work during the 1970′s, that are black and white images taken in the desert. He would take the images at dawn/dusk and use a flash to illuminate the tree/cactus he was focusing on whilst the background remained in darkness. The way Misrach has positioned the tree in the central focal point, which creates a sense of isolation and loneliness links in with my images as I have tried to isolate the tree’s within my chosen pictures with the positioning of the camera and with the plastic upon them, making them seem different to the surroundings.

Kyle Thompson

Kyle Thompson is a Chicago born upcoming photographer, who’s interest in photography came about when he found abandoned buildings in his home town. Most of his work consists of self-portrait’s in derelict and empty places such as woodland’s, buildings and lake bound area’s. He mentioned that he attempts to create ‘ephemeral narratives’ within his work, meaning he does not want the story or context behind it to be thought of for more than essentially a split second. A lot of his images include pictures of people with mask’s over their face’s or them being hidden due to the angle of the image, which creates ambiguity to who is behind the image but, the viewer is left unable to come up with a meaning behind who it is or a story behind the image.

Throughout his pictures I personally gain a very surreal and eerie atmosphere towards his work, which I have tried to implement into my work for this module, especially the use of brown tones in my chosen colour images. I have also shot the past few contact sheets in woodland areas that appear empty and somewhat isolated, which i feel links to Thompson’s work. Although he intends for his images to have ‘ephemeral narratives’, there is still some form of story that can be created but not a full one for example: the top image of the old abandoned car in the woodland. There is no narrative created as such but there are brief connotations to create one as the car that has been abandoned appears to be from the 1960/70′s period and the person who owned the car could have accidentally crashed it perhaps or could have been living in it in the woods. It is noticeable that the car’s tyre’s are no longer there and the hood of the car has been opened as you can see it is not fully shut, creating connotations that someone had stolen areas of this car over the years it has been there. However, who stole it or why they stole it and who left/crashed their car in that place is left ambiguous which is Thompson’s intentions.

Simone Nieweg

Simone began her studies in 1984, at Düsseldorf Art Academy, in which she was taught by Bernd Becher. From day one she focused on photography, rather than other art subjects and she dates 1986 to be the point she thought of her work to become independent, as she switched to colour photography. Alot of her work appears to revolve around gardens, plants and the growing process revolved around them along with animals too. The images taken from her Gardens series show a sense of human intervention through nature and for me, creates a narrative between nature and how humans contribute to it.

Both above images show a sense of human interaction as, the first picture’s background shows an outstretched piece of land, possibly a farmer’s field however, there are no plants to be seen apart from those in the foreground. This allows the viewers to gain the perspective that humans have intervened with the land so that the flowers/crops in the foreground and mid ground were able to grow. The green and yellow tones of those crops also contrast distinctively with the bare brown colour of the background, making them appear bolder to the viewer. The second picture also shows how humans have created nature as, the objects near and on the trees, help them to grow. Without humans using those, these plants may not have grown properly, or even at all if the humans planted them also.

Mark Edwards - Shelter

These images were taken in one of the airfields in Norfolk in which planes originally took off for the Normandy Landings. The shelters are made of what appears to be wooden logs, twigs, slabs and other objects of this nature. The wood stacks appear in a surreal and abnormal way as, when we see wood of this height, we expect it to be some form of tree whereas, this shows remnants of trees/wooden objects creating a sense of irony. Behind the shelters are also silhouetted tall standing trees seen through the mist, creating a possible narrative between life and death through the contrast.

The composition of these images comes as an influence to me for my two black and white images for this project. The contrast and the exposure allow the details upon the wooden shelters to become more distinct whilst they are positioned in the mid ground. They are also positioned in the central focal point which allows the viewers attention to go straight to the shelters. Linking in with the context of the series, the title ‘shelter’ reflects the time in which the Normandy landings were, during the World War II, so people would have been in shelters around the world trying to protect themselves etc. The project could possibly link to how nature was injured during the war yet, people were only focusing in on the human deaths and people regarding plant’s deaths as if it is nothing but they are the reason we survive - oxygen. 

Jerry Uelsmann 

Uelsmann is an American photographer who mainly works through sandwiching negatives together in an enlarger. His work interests me as he manipulates his images in the darkroom  to create surreal formations involving nature and the man made. He has been known to use up to a dozen enlargers at once in order to create his final prints of his work and spends a large amount of time figuring out the possibilities that would be created with all of his different negatives and which ones best suit the way he wanted the image to portray.

Throughout his selection of reworked prints, I feel that he has created new meaning behind the images compared to what the two original negatives would have been e.g.the bottom image, Tree Goddess, would have originally been an image of a tree along with the other being a statue or carved sculpture. There would have been meaning behind those images but, combining them both into one, it makes me see the tree in a new light and appearing as though it has a sense of dominance due to being taken from a low down perspective and the goddess bringing a spiritual element into it also. It makes it seem to myself that the tree is essentially alive as it has been so perfectly done, they look combined, and makes the tree appear as some form of spiritual symbol.

Uelsmann’s use of manipulation of nature links to my images for this module as I have photographed trees that have already been manipulated from their natural state as well as manipulating nature myself by using materials. He takes two separate subjects and combines them into one image to create a new context which is what I am hoping to achieve. By combining both trees and plastic into one, I am taking influence from Uelsmann’s work in creating a new form of narrative in the pictures.

In today’s one on one tutorial, choosing whether to do my final prints in black & white or colour was discussed along with which images to do, how many images altogether and what sizes I should print them in. 

- Print off two/ three large Landscape images, possibly 1 metre x 1 metre?

- One large print with 4 portrait smaller sized prints in a row either above or below the print?

Image in black and white

Andy Goldsworthy 

Goldsworthy is a British photographer, sculptor and an environmental activist from Scotland. Most of his renowned work features manipulations and sculptures within natural or urban settings. He also takes images of his sculptures in an attempt to document his creations for his profile instead of just leaving it in a place for people to see.

It is evident throughout his pictures he mainly manipulates trees and uses twigs to create different types of sculptures. The above images show circular formations that have been created with twigs by Goldsworthy along with another that shows a tree that has been painted in a striped format. All of the sculptures/alterations appear to be in the central focal point of the pictures and are shown with a vast amount of detailing and are sharp. Although they are in the central focal point, they do not show any negative space to connote isolation, which contrasts with other images I have looked at previously. These pictures show more of a ‘belonging’ due to being shown with nature surrounding them still and the angles they have been taken from too. Most of them have mid-key lighting with noticable shadows around them.

Contact sheet 5 - More experimentation with plastic compression with trees

Anya Gallaccio - Preserve Beauty, 1991-2003

Anya’s exhibition titled ‘preserve beauty’ consisted of using real elements of nature that were growing/grown instead of using fake or plastic objects to replicate nature. By using real plants, she was able to show the growth and death of them whilst they were displayed beneath glass shards. The flowers themselves are actually called ‘beauty’, which explains the play on words for the title of the exhibition. When viewers came to see, depending on what stage the plants were at, they would not only be able to see the plants but also be able to smell them. If they were blooming, like in the left image, they would be fresh or if they were withering away, the smell of decay would surround them. 

Anya felt that this was a important part of the exhibition as she did not want it to just be about seeing but actually somewhat understanding the stage in which the flowers were at. She decided to present the flowers underneath 4 rectangular pieces of glass in order to hold them into place whilst the stems all appeared at the bottom. 

Selected images from my fifth contact sheet - looking at the idea of compression of trees with bubblewrap

Contact Sheet number five - Experimentation with compression and sculpting trees.

For these images, I decided to continue with the idea of compression and plastic upon trees in different formations for these pictures. The concept of them being sculptures of my own and me documenting the sculptures through photography however, I have not understood the context nor meaning behind the sculptures I am creating as of yet.

John Pfahl - Altered Landscapes, 1974 - 1978

Pfahl is known to have had a childhood centred around woodland and hiking, close to his old home in New Jersey. In this series, Pfahl manipulates landscapes unlike any other photographer had done beforehand. He would use rope, tape, foil and other man made materials and place them within nature ridden areas. I personally feel that this created a sense of man and nature co-existing with one another. When Pfahl was a child, he would often take a map of an existing place he had once been to and personalize it in his own way due to memories that happened there or how he saw the place through his own eyes. This somewhat links to this manipulation he has created to the landscapes in these pictures by creating arrows and triangles, which are common symbols used on maps.

His use of perspective in pictures creates almost a sense of ‘exploring’ towards them and as though they may have been taken by a child, especially the last image I have chosen. Its taken from a looking upwards/forwards perspective which makes it seem as though he is short like a child would be if seeing the same landscape in front of them. I also feel that maybe the manipulation is trying to replicate a child’s imagination and how he may have seen these places when he was younger himself perhaps, due to the bright colours used with the symbols.