Jim Gollan @ OCA Landscape: Other photographers and exhibitions

Toshio Shibata

Study of work on web

The photographs of Toshio Shibata convey a powerful drama generated by the conflict of natural forces against man-made structures.

Water spills, crashes, glides, and pours over walls, sluices, concrete blocks and channels, in an endless gravity- propelled dance.

Kuroiso City, Tochigi Prefecture, 1989

Huge structures wind around highways and grasp the hillsides on which they are built.

Using an 8 x 10-inch camera, he eliminates most references to scale, placement, and point of view while providing crisp detail and texture.

Under Shibata’s eye, the man-altered landscape becomes a mysterious abstract composition in which the shapes and patterns intrinsic to both the natural and artificial forms becomes visible.

Edward Burtynsky - Oil

Visit to exhibition on 15 June 2012, Photogaphers' Gallery, London

Industry changes nature is the key theme of Burtynsky's work. His subjects include scrap yards, mines, quarries and refineries. His images are full of detail and on a large scale. His work communicates paradox, which he sees as a reflection of our times:

His subjects are places we don't see often, if at all, yet what they produce plays a significant part in our lives
We want this output but, whether we are conscious of it or not, the world suffers as a result of our desire
He contrasts attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear

Oil

Burtynsky documented the production, distribution, and use of oil across the world. In addition to showing the mechanics of production, he photographs the effects of oil on our lives, depicting landscapes altered by its extraction and the urban sprawl generated around its use.

Images

The gallery allows visitors to grab shots of the works being exhibited. Here are the ones that had the greatest impact on me.

Extraction and refining

Oilfields, Belridge, California, 2003
Emotion - Stained, arid, mechanical
Graphics - multiple points (almost uniform), depth by
repeating smaller objects, long horizontal lines
intersecting short vertical ones

Oil Refineries, St John, New Brunswick, Canada, 1999
Emotion - Unreal, complex, empty
Graphics - Horizontal and vertical lines, 'unreal' colours of how
camera sees night (as opposed to eye), contrast of
highlights and shadows, depth by light change

Oilfields, Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, 2001
Emotion - Alien, ruined 'chocolate box' image, scarred (injury from fight),
restraining (pipeline of forest)
Graphics - Leading jagged line gives depth, colour and texture contrast,
juxtaposition of metal and forest

Oil Tanker and Refineries, Pasadena, Texas, 2004
Emotion - Polluted, ordered, industrial.
Graphics - Boat provides horizontal stability, multiple points, diagonal lines
and desaturated colours give depth

Transportation and motor culture

Nanpu Bridge, Shanghai, China, 2004

Emotion - Frenetic, ant-like, polluted

Graphics - Motion blur, spiral moves eye and holds it

in frame as well as gives perspective (supported

by muted colours at horizon)

Highway #1, Los Angeles, California, 2003

Emotion - Complex, busy, arterial (modern life)

Graphics - Road leads dynamically eye and holds it in frame,

depth by shadow

VW#1, Houston, Texas, 2004

Emotion - Uniform, huge, ant-like

Graphics - Rhythm with occasional small

variation of pattern, contrast of vertical and horizontal lines,

repetition of decreasing scale of cars and direction of

vertical lines gives depth

Kiss Concert Parking Area, Sturgis, South Dakota, 2008

Emotion - marginalised (nature), sunset (on planet?),

Graphics - Juxtaposition of machine, concrete and natural landscape,

vertical lines lead eye to distant mountain

Landmarks - Fields of Photography

Exhibition at Somerset House, 14 March to 28 April 2013

William A Ewing, Curator

Landscape photography is one of the richest and most varied practices of photography

Many of the images that we see today speak of environmental damage - climate change, desertification, melting glaciers, rising seas, extinction of species, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources

Despite this, we still turn to visions of pristine nature for comfort (witness: postcards, calendars, tourist brochures, advertisements)

Landscape photographers have many interests and agendas that affect their message

This exhibition seeks to show a sample of the work of 21st Century landscape photographers organised around the curator's reading of the photographer's message

My thoughts

I found the exhibition stimulating, even though I still need convincing about the interpretation of the message of some of the images or the role of a particular type of image within landscape. Still, almost certainly the curator knows more than me.

Sublime - is there not much work in this space in 21st Century? I'd treat Mitch Dobrowner's images as Sublime rather than placing them into the curious Witness category.

Landmark - great images, but do they belong in landscape? The concrete and steel dominate too much, the land that surrounds them is missing.

Datum - on the other hand, these images definitely belong in landscape but are dull towards forgettable

Reverie - another odd category. Amy Stein's 'Howl' (a coyote mistaking a street light for the moon) is surely not a dream? A Delusion perhaps, even a less obvious Scar?

Sublime