Environment Project Part one

To look at environment in art its a good place to start with landscapes and the development of landscape art. it wasn't noticeably recognised as an independent art genre around the 1800s, from the romanticism art movement, this movement started to bring depth into the emotional reactions to the paintings and brought more hidden narratives to the whole paintings. Before this landscapes were merely seen in paintings as back drops, a good example of this change of the landscapes moving from backdrop to the narrative of the whole composition woulod be Casper David Friedrich painting The Chasseur In The Woods 1813.

Casper David Friedrich
The Chasseur In  The Woods 1813

I think is a a good example of the beginning of a big change from the landscapes being a back drop and becoming more of a tool to set or directly show the narrative of the painting. As in The Chasseur In The Woods, the one alone soldier walking into the huge overwhelming woods gives the impression of a lost battle before its begun. This painting was created towards the end of Napoleons dominant reign in Mainland Europe, so the landscapes, the overwhelming dark woods direct the narrative, not the one man. 

Another huge leap for landscape art I believe to be Edward Brooke which starts to create picturesque scene of the British country sides. 

Edward Brooke
The Haymakers Lunch 1846

Roger Fenton, a trained and skilled painter turned photographer but kept the basic out look and compositions of paintings, for example Still Life With Fruit 1860 , the composition of this is very much the same to many other still life fruit paintings. 

Roger Fenton
Still Life With Fruit 1860

Roger Fentons landscape photography had a very similar basic format and aesthetics to the paintings of Brooke, the straight shot over the land. In similarities with Brooke as the focus is on nature and the land as apposed to the man or man made structures, more concentrated on the beauty of the the nature rather than glorifying the man made and mans conquests. 

Roger Fenton
Landscape with clouds 1856

Soon after the work of Fenton and the now appreciated landscape photography an American photography came on the scene, Timothy O'Sulivan really pushed forward with landscape photography as an art and took it further away from documentary styles of Fenton. 

Timothy O'Sullivan
Shoshone Falls 1840

Timothy O'Sullivan
Black Canyon

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Pastiche 

Need to look at compositional form, camera setting, lighting conditions, depth of field and scale used by a photographer. Use this information to recreate the aesthetic the feeling and mood of their image, taking this inspiration to create my own image but not trying to directly imitate to get get a close replica. 

Jem Southam
'Seaford Head' 1999

I want to really read this image in a sort of punctum way before i tackle any other process of creating my pastiche, i want to decode it and see if any concept ideas come up from it. The large depth of field gives sharp focus to all the cliff rock, meaning to viewers eye is taken all the way down the  coast able to look at, after the pile of rubble, the horizontal lines of the rock face which then comes to the sky. The overall view of the image is damage and eroding  landscapes, the braking of what was once clean and a flush straight edge, now a pile of rubble. The very desaturated colour of the whole image makes it a fairly depressing, the greyness of the sky and dullness of the beach combined with the pile of rubble.

After searching for a good enough location for this photo, i've come to the conclusion that without spending alot of money on travel,  its near impossible to get a shot similar to this around here, so i'm going to look at a different artist.

Robert Adams
On signal hill 1983

When i read this image, what comes to me is the relationship of nature and man made urban environment. This is put across to me with the depth of field being fairly broad, in the sense that the focus only begins to fade away in the distance, which joins with the sky, the city is sandwiched between the tree and the sky. The fact the trees are the dominate the photo and composition suggest a prominence of nature, but the way the city merges with the sky and abruptly starts after the hill could suggest a creeping or increasing change of nature to man made.

Location Hunt

Greenwich park
Location 1

Greenwich park
Location 2

To me the significance is the city or urban area in the back ground, showing our vast changing landscape and horizon. I chose to go to London as the city scape is much more recognisable and i feel that people viewing this image would be able to relate to it much more if they can recognise the setting.

visualisation of final print

Pastiche negative
shot with wista 45, 135mm lens, f8 

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The three photos of my own concept with influence from the pastiche

I've decided to explore the idea of the man made environment starting to expand more and more and become the norm for many people as their 'natural environment' rather than what IS a natural environment. This idea came from reading the pastiche photo,  from Robert Adams the image i read  that the balance of the 'green' environment had changed to the favour of the grey man made.

I've decided to take it to the extreme and show an environment where everything is fake, everything is unnatural and where people will spend alot of there time on there own choice. a place like this could either be a place of higher education where the people there have made a effort to be there, gone out their way to be in that environment, a shopping center where people have made a conscious decision to spend time there for a drawn out period of time and possibly a super market for similar reasons.

After a time of thinking and location searching i've decided the best place to show this idea and which would be easily accessable to the viewers to read into this idea would be the shopping center, as the they more oftern than not places where people travel to to spend their time, and as they're enclosed and sheltered from the outside world time escapes you.

Location hunts:

environment negs:

Wrong depth of field

Wrong depth of field 

When i took these two photos i used the wrong f stop and as a result the depth of field is very shallow, this isn't what i wanted so will have to reshoot these two photos. But the trip wasn't wasted as i got two good shots which i'll be able to use.

Environment shot with wista 45, f22 

Environment shot with wista 45, f18

Self assessment over view:

From doing the Pastiche i've learnt to really get involved and read an image, not just to glance at the face value but start to decode it and look further into what could be said. The photo 'on signal hill' by Robert Adams i read into it the relationship between natural environment and the environment we make to meet our own needs or desires. Thats why i chose to do the pastiche on Greenwich hill overlooking Canary Wharf. I've tried to keep the aesthetics similar to the print by Adams with the pale sky and overcast lighting, but the over all photo is composed slightly different, this is because if i'd composed the photo with the tree in the middle it wouldn't show the Canary Wharf which i think was important to show in the image.

The three photos of environment i wanted to directly show the other half to Robert Adams images and instead of the focus being on the natural environment have it be on the environment we make and seem happy in, i wanted the most fake environment to show this, a place where everything is artificial, lighting, position and why its used. I chose Canary Wharf Shopping Center as its underground with false lighting and because of this makes itself its own environment.