I have to read three images by a famous photographer that focuses on environment, the photographer i have chosen is Thomas Struth, his focus is on the urban environment.
Thomas Struth studied at Dusseldorf Academy from the years 1973 1980, initially as a painter, but always drawn to photography he joined the first year of a new class run by Bernd and Hilla Becher in 1976.
Struth traveled photographing many urban landscapes, studying the relationship between human and urban life modern day environment.
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Thomas Struth
Crosby Street, New York 1978 |
Thomas Struths use perspective channels the eye the whole way the city street, as i read this image the perspective becomes more and more relevant. The fact the street is visible all the way down means the viewer can absorb all of the landscape and read the relation ship with the environment and man. In most of these photos theres no direct view of people but the fact that its a city scape, with cars, roads, skyscrapers and very little 'greenery' or nature suggests that only man is there. The way the horizon is also buildings suggests an endless city, and that man has taken over a vast amount of land.
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| Thomas Struth |
Again the image above by Thomas Struth gives an empty feel with the absence of people, but the ghost like town overwhelms the entire image, the horizon is taken by the buildings at the end of the street, giving the impression of an endless city landscape. On a technical commparison both images are composed very similar and use of light same, this influence could have been picked up after studying under Bernd and Hilla Becher who would wait weeks if not months for an over cast day to get the best lighting for there shots, this is as it would give an even spread of light and even shadows.
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| Bernd and Hilla Becher |
As you can see to the left all the individual buildings are very close to being the same with lighting.
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Thomas Struth
Paradise |
The image below is my favorite of the ones I've looked taken by Struth in this series, mainly due to exaggeration of the buildings to the amount to sky showing in the photo, i feel it really emphasizes the dominance we have on the environment and how the landscapes are turning more to the urban, especialy in the western cities. Struths other body of work 'Paradise' (example shown on the right) shows nothing but dense jungle greenery in the untouched areas of Japan, compared to these ghost town grey urban landscapes , i think we can decipher what the impression is felt by the photographer by the fact he calls those photos paradise.
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Thomas Struth
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In all these urban landscapes there seems to be an underlying social and cultural element, mainly of our acceptance of a grey landscape, an empty street because in a city this size no one really looks out for another person perhaps and maybe the overwhelming dominance of buildings to the sky is how distant we are to our surroundings how we've cocooned ourselves to the rest of the world, thats the impression i've got from looking at Struths work.
