Commission Unit

Landscape & City

Hannah Jacobs

Landscape
My initial ideas for landscape:
Patterns Natural patterns Interrupted Man made interruption Natural continuation ended by man Roads and roadside Meeting point of the two Concrete meats nature

Initial shoot
Local woods and local A road Bridge over the A road, fences separating the two The contrast of the concrete against the natural The rhythm is made by man, natural isnt rhythmic The way to reach the natural is through the rural Concrete seems useless in this context

Simone Nieweg
Her ideas and themes were similar to that, that were appearing in my work. Looked into her work for inspiration on how to shoot my idea in maybe not such an obvious way. She does this through composition. Photographs close to home for familiarity. Distruption of the land is subtle and not all it seems, it is often a comment about the land we see being a distruption itself as these patterns do not appear naturally, they are manmade. Commonly uses roadside crop fields.

Fergus Heron

Meeting point of nature/ is the nature spilling out or being contained by the roads. Certain images have a subtle hint of a road . Not the most obvious choice of composition to tackle similar ideas to mine.

Nadav Kander Colour Fields

Looking at his work for different visual ideas and less obvious ways to think about my ideas The lighting acting as the meeting point of the man made and the natural (the lighting being the man made) The places appearing as roadside sites relating to my ideas of looking at roads and roadsides Creating a different emotion to the piece, makes the viewer slightly unsure of what to think about the field rather than angry about the theme being discussed within the work

Hans-Christian Schink
I feel that this is where most of my inspiration came from. Hans unlike the other artists went about his work by being obvious with what he was trying to say and not leaving the viewer any room to debate what was clearly being observed and questioned through his pieces. He used Becher style composition when photographing his subjects within this body of work, which I admire as I see this as aesthetically pleasing and aspired to create this within my work. Schink's images attack the issue with strong leading lines and huge structures which are literally cutting through the landscape. This also seemed the best way to compose my idea within the image. I think that his work influenced me the most as the idea behind his work was so similar to mine, and some images in particular show this well. The ones in which the viewer cannot make out the use of the man made construction that is interrupting the landscape makes me particularly frustrated with what I am seeing, which is what I aspire to evoke within my viewers. I realised when looking at his work that the best way to tackle my ideas and put them in front of the viewer was to say exactly what I mean by physically making my images obvious. I physically wanted there to be a big interruption within the image. This project which I have taken these images from are based on Germany's project of creating an westernised landscape. These are supposed to create a flourishing landscape. He took a particular interest into the bridges and extravagant slip roads, again linking into the same ideas as my work. However, I feel that there is a slight deceitful side to his work as the images do appear as breathtaking and overwhelming, however this is then changed once realising that they are breathtaking due to their monstrous size.

Other Inspirations
Nicola Hulett
Mans control over the land Mans contact with the land not physically seen but shown through the land The manmade is within the trees, they have become the obstruction to the land, as their placement is constructed by man

Robert Adams
The meeting point of the manmade and the natural land Land is losing to the manmade Composition shows the natural falling off, being defeated by the manmade More of a look at the mass manmade constructions

City
My initial Ideas for city:
The city not being overwhelming as it is often seen City scapes, encompassing the city into one Man conquering the city Man having control over the city The city as digestable Removing the people from the city Certain viewpoints allowing you to stand back from the city, allowing the city to become simple

Gabriele Basilico - Beirut

The image is all about the viewpoint and the manipulation the photographer has over how the viewer sees the city. Although different themes are being presented within this image, the idea of the viewpoint is similar to my idea, as that is where it stemmed from, being able to see the city in a particular way, changing the psychological attitude towards the city.

Idea Development
Having attempted to shoot a city scape but having the wrong view point and wrong lens, I began to think if this was the right way to shoot my idea. Which got me to think about the particular word, digestible. The city broken down to not overwhelm. The city as the opposite of what it is often viewed as. So I began thinking about what the city consists of and came up with two categories. Transport Buildings This then lead to some subheadings as these are still quite broad ideas. Transport: Cars (this would later change to motors in general) Trains Buses (this would later change to bikes) Buildings Homes Leisure Work I feel that this project has developed more into a psychological break down of the city. The images still kept free of people and within the simplistic uncomplicated style similar to the bechers work.

Vera Lutter
Having researched Vera Lutter for a research task I really took to her work and ideas. I really admired her ability to completely focus on the mechanics of the city, removing any presence physically. However, there is still a reminder that this is a city because of people inhabiting and building, due to the blurs of people and the development they make on the objects throughout the long exposures. I also admire her work as it is taken at nighttime, how I intend to shoot mine. I also can relate to her composition visually as she tends to have quite simple becher style composition which is how I imagined mine to be. I think the reason this works for hers, and for mine too, is because it removes any distraction from the focal point and gives the viewer what they need to see.

The Bechers
The Bechers style has been a very big influence to my photography in general but especially in this project due to the nature of how I wish to make my collection appear. The simplicity and conformity is something I aspire to, although I will not be photographing buildings that look similar and putting them together I hope to photograph them in a way that is simple and brings them together to create a series of images which is essentially a break down of what the city consists of. Again there is an absence of human activity within the images, adding to the simplicity, and focus on the subjects.

Germain Krull
Similar way of looking at the city to me More of an essence of conquering the city rather than breaking it down, however still makes it accessible. Views the city from above, looks down at the streets and people The viewer does not feel this is something to be overwhelmed by

Self Evaluation - Lanscape

The issues that surround the landscape environment are very much to do so with man and the control or lack of control over the land. Also there is constantly a mention of the manmade interfering with the land. For my project I decided to look into this interference in many different ways and ended up going with quite an obvious way of projecting my thoughts through the images, although it does go against many of the landscape influences as a lot of the time landscape is projected in a way that appears to be one thing and in actual fact another. I decided to go with this very up front, and matter of fact style as I felt that it was the most appropriate way to show interruption in the land. As the interruption is usually that of a harsh kind, I felt that my work needed to reflect this visually. The overcast weather helped me to create this as it helped to not distract from the manmade object running through the landscape. Also I had a constant objective to select how the viewer saw the interruption, so that they did not see the purpose of the manmade obstruction, as to not cloud their frustration of the landscape being interfered with. I feel that these visual choices have really worked for my piece as there is a great sense of frustration created, as the objects simply slice through the images, leaving the landscape literally cut up. I feel that I have managed my studies well for this unit however, there was a slight imbalance in the time management between the practical and the research. I feel that I could have done more test shoots in preparation of the final shoots. This may have helped me with my biggest issue within the project, creating a real sense of a collection of images. Making the images similar yet different. Also choosing how to project my ideas was another main issue as I had two strong visual references in my mind that I liked equally and feel that this could have been explored a little better practically. To overcome this by my final submission, I am going to explore some different locations, shooting in the style of both ideas, and possibly combining the two.

Self Evaluation - City

For the city, I felt that a lot of the issues generally explored through photography are to do with the city as a living and growing complex which can often be either frustrating or overwhelming. I decided to push against this idea with my work as I have a strong belief that the city can be accessible to anyone if presented in the right way. I then decided to turn my project into a psychological breakdown of the city. This lead me to photograph at night, allowing me to remove the hussle and bussle from the images, including humans, and keep them as simple as possible. I also decided that a simplistic becher style format would take place in my work to enable the subjects to be as digestible as possible. I feel that for this project again my studies went according to plan, however if there was something that could have had more attention would be the research, as I dont feel a strong prescence of artist influence within my ideas. I feel that this would be a main thing to rectify before the final submission as this could change and evolve my work into something better, and also have more understanding of how other artists have attempted to do something similar. I feel that another difficulty of my project was bringing all the different shoots together as a collection due to all the different locations, lighting and angles, it doesnt feel as wholesome as I would have liked. However, I do feel that it has given me something to think about within my work, as the lighting has proven to be similar on particular pairs of images in interesting ways, making some seem warmer and some colder. I feel that I can either go with this idea before my final submission or try to rectify this, however I would need to do more research into lighting and how different artists have used it within collections.