Assignment 5: in the style of an influential photographer

Requirement

Produce 12 photographs of the photographer you have researched.

 

Choice of photographer - Robert Adams
My chosen photographer is Robert Adams, specifically his seminal The New West - Landscapes along the Colorado Front Range. See own notes.

This choice suits both the subject and my needs to develop as a photographer


Choice of subject - Salisbury Plain
I have travelled across Salisbury Plain countless times to visit relatives, in all seasons and weathers. More recently, I have been struck by the increasing signs of human intervention that marks its wide open spaces. And this puts me in mind of Robert Adams' study 'The New West - Landscapes along the Colorado Front Range'. Clearly, the Salisbury Plain of today is in many ways unlike the Colorado Foothills in the 1970s. Even so, the similarity between the two places that I have been noticing lies in what Adams' describes as: 'no expediency is forbidden'. His approach is the New West seems to me an effective way to communicate this human action, ugly for sure but it is still our landscape and we have to see in it what beauty we can.



Own development
My tutor, Jesse Alexander has described some of my work as worthy of the tourist brochure or the picture calendar. (Was this praise? Not as he intended!). Brochure-ware is a strand of landscape photography that borrows from Ansel Adams, whose style Geoffrey Badger labels 'operatic', loud if you will. So, why not expand my horizon by experimenting with a contrasting approach, Robert Adams who Badger calls a 'quiet' photographer?

 

What is borrowed from Adams' New West
In undertaking this essay, I have borrowed the following from Adams' work:

• Subject - open land where owners have left expedient, ugly traces of its use for their specific commercial (or military) interests
• Message - we need to see the landscape as a whole, natural and man made, not isolated 'beauty spots'. It belongs to us so we had better make the most of it as well as recognise that all land 'has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty'
• Composition - Key features are (a) to place man made artefacts in the frame so as to catch the eye as the same as not to obscure the land where they are situated, (b) rarely uses foreground interest to lead eye into image and give a sense of depth, (c) images mostly have a limited range of tones
• Use of light - 'The subject reflects the speculators' greed but at certain times of day are transformed to a cold, dry brilliance'
• Camera equipment/ format - images are framed square
• Use of colour and/or black and white - Adams' work is entirely monochrome

Tutor Feedback
You pushed yourself outside your comfort zone to produce some 'quieter' images, which satisfy the brief and does justice to the subject. This assignment reflects some of the technical aspects of Robert Adams' work and his interests in terms of subject matter.

However, consider the following:

• Text that is too prominent can overpower an image: there is a balance to be struck
• Adams used wide angled lenses but some of your images are made with telephoto ones (also, this can make them too didactic, give them more space so that the viewer has something more interesting to work with). Avonmouth - an example from Jesse Alexander's own work. ...more
• Some of the images have dust makes in the sky - you should clean up.

Finally, clean up additional learning posts by condensing into a few themes and labelling the section Learning Log rather than Pages.

Text and images

Army 

 

Look at a map of Salisbury Plain and it is dominated by areas segregated for the Army and its training. See from the civilian side the Army's presence in the landscape is a series of warning signs, marking out its territory.

Signage near Bulford Camp

Road to Collingbourne Ducis

Warning to public near the A 345

 

Pylons and Masts

Salisbury Plain bristles with electricity pylons, telephone lines, mobile phone masts and military communication towers. Ugly, yes. Yet can we see beauty in them?

 

Pylons near Larkhill Camp

 

Communications towers, telephone poles
and lamp posts on the way to Bulford Camp

 

Mobile communications installation in a field
outside Upavon

The Road West
 

The A303, the main link between London and the South West of England runs over the Plain, most famously past Stonehenge. It is almost never silent and especially choked with tourist traffic in the summer. Why  can't they build more lanes? wonders the impatient motorist. They probably will in time. The traffic also creates demand for roadside services. Here no expediency is spared.

Solstice Park Services with mock Neanderthal Man
in front of the Holiday Inn

A303 near Stonehenge

Waste ground left by developer at Solstice Park

 

New buildings

Land gets swallowed up by new development, with the help of the bull dozer and crane and the promise of a brighter future. Profits for the speculator, maybe losses: who knows? Will these buildings still stand in 50 years' time and what traces of their existence will we see?
 

New homes outside Amesbury coming soon

 

Pile driver lays foundation for a new building 

Warehouse under construction at Solstice Park