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

Man-made landscape (42)

Requirement

• 3 images

Purpose

• To consider human impact on land in landscape photography
• To explore one's stance to this widespread phenomenon

 

Technical learning

• Liz Wells cites a definition of landscape in Land Matters: 'vistas encompassing nature as well as human impact in the natural world'
• No agreed standard about the boundary between landscape, the natural world as altered by man, and social documentary, the urban environment containing the remnants of the natural world
• In Britain, the landscape almost always involves a choice of the extent to which to include the marks left by man, since few areas remain in their natural state (contrast with the pristine wilderness of the American West captured by Ansel Adams)
• Some issues: is a modern version of the rural idyll of Constable acceptable? Is commuter-belt scenary in or out? 

Exercise instructions

• Take at least 3 images in different places of clearly man made landscapes, without people featured prominently in them
• Decide in each case the impression, information and opinion that you wish to convey, and explain

Images and Review

 

Rochester, Kent
Graffiti and dock buildings contrast with
radiant summer sky and distant woodland
 

Blackdown Hills, Somerset
Disused land, barbed wired and junked tyres from
tractors in an area of otherwise natural beauty

 

Grain (41)

Requirement

• 1 or more images

Purpose

• To practice the technique of introducing grain into images
• To explore the creative use of grain in photography

Technical learning

• Grain is a by-product of prints from film photography, especially in monochrome and the larger the image 
• It lends a textural effect, particularly in tonally flat areas (e.g. sky)
• Some see grain as attractive in its own right. Others use it for effect: e.g. Bill Brandt (see below)
• Creating grain in film depends on film type but can be created by underexposing by 2 stops and then push processing by the same amount
• Creating grain (noise) in digital photography van be created by using a high ISO or adding in post-production using specialist software

Top Withens, Bill Brandt, 1945

Exercise instructions

• Produce one or more grainy images

Images and Review

Hay fields in Somerset

Processing removes colour but adds 

• Drama to flat image, especially the sky
• Impression of being shot 50 years+ ago

Converted to BW and Grain added
using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2

Original

Coloured filters with B&W film (40)

Requirement

Optional

Purpose

• To understand the impact of using colour filters on tones in monochrome images

Technical learning

• Black and white film reads tones from the brightness of colours hitting the emulsion. So, colour filters are used to adjust in camera the tones rendered in a scene
• The principle by which filters work  is that its colour brightens similar hues and darkens ones on the opposite side of the colour wheel
• The same effect can be achieved in digital imaging by using software applications

Key filters and their impact

• Pale yellow - darkens slightly a blue sky
• Deep yellow - darkens sky and lightens foliage
• Yellowish green - reduces haze, lightens foliage
• Orange - sharpens distant subjects and darkens blue skies
• Red - turns blue skies black and increases contrast of sunlit scenes
• Deep Red - darkens sky close to distant horizons
  

Exercise instructions

• None, but let's see how digitally applied coloured filters in Silver Efex Pro impact an image.
  

Images and review

[to follow]

Burning in the sky (38)

Requirement

1 pair of images, original vs. processed

Purpose

• To experiment with the Burn Tool (PS) to increase contrast either (a) to compensate for the camera being unable to process the variation in brightness between sky (when slightly overexposed) and land (when correctly exposed) or (b) to add contrast, if not drama, to an image

Technical learning

• The camera sensor has a lower dynamic range than the eye
• Therefore it often fails to capture successfully (that is, as the eye sees it) the variation in brightness between sky and land
• One way to compensate is to use a ND grad filter (assuming a straight horizon line). Another is to shoot RAW and blend exposure adjusted segments of the image.
• A third technique is to use the Burn Tool, which darkens the tone of any pixels to which it is applied
• Even where a the range of brightness across a scene fits within the camera's dynamic range, the Burn Tool can be used to create more form in lighter areas of the image  
  

Exercise instructions

• Use the Burn Tool to enhance a slightly over-exposed sky

Images and review

Beach at Burnham-on Sea

 

Original image - insipid sky

Burned-in sky

 

Ways of dramatising a landscape (37)

Requirement

• Identify types of 'dramatic' image

Purpose

• Appreciate the difference between the 'dramatic' and 'quiet' landscape image

 

Technical learning

• Dramatic or quiet Landscape?

Dramatic

• The dramatic landscape is a moment that seems like a unique combination of spectacular elements (usually light): the photographer gets credit for the graft, patience or luck to be there

Quiet

• The quiet landscape conveys the essence of the scene by presenting the typical in a subtle way 

Dramatic landscapes - examples

• Spectacular subjects 
• Extreme focal length, wide or telephoto
• Rich colours
• Back lighting
• Unusual composition

Exercise instructions

 

Provide examples of the above and add to them

Images and Review

Spectacular subjects

• Pick sublime subjects, ones that inspire awe by scale or by menace, and use composition to emphasise these characteristics 

Extreme focal length, wide or telephoto

• [to follow]

Rich colours

• Strong colours, especially contrasting warm and cool ones, exerts a emotional pull

Back lighting

• Creates a high contrast: high energy image
• Choose between exposing for either the foreground (burnt out background) or background (silhouette in foreground) - reduced detail creates mystery, invites imagination

Unusual composition

• [to follow]

Narrow depth of field

• Contrast between detail and blur creates mystery

Motion Blur of moving object especially water

• Use ND filter to slow down shutter speed without overexposure

Use monochrome and sharpening

• If colours lack impact and image has strong textures,  convert to black and white and sharpen to heighten effect.

Defining a style (36)

Requirement

• Appraisal of the style of 3 to 4 published landscape photographers

Purpose

• To learn to analyse and recognise the style of other photographers

Technical learning

What is style?

See notes in Pages - ways of seeing and the use of technique to communicate this vision

Gerry Badger (in Without Author or Art: The Quiet Photograph).

• Every serious photographer needs to get his/ her work noticed, a creative calling card. The conventional way of doing this is to develop a recognisable style. Style comes from conscious refinement of composition, camera craft, subject matter or message of what lies within the unconscious persona. However, style is a reductive influence on a photographer's work, forcing consistency within his/ her portfolio.

What are the elements of style?

• Subject
• Message
• Composition
• Use of light
• Camera equipment/ format
• Use of colour and/or black and white

Some photographers to explore

• Fay Godwin, Land (1985) and Our Forbidden Land (1990)
• Galen Rowell, Mountain Light (1988)
• Edward Weston, Edward Weston: Photographer (1965) and My Camera on Point Lobos (1968)
• Richard Misrach
• Eliot Porter, Eliot Porter (1987) and Intimate Landscapes (
• Robert Adams,
• Franco Fontana
• David Muench
• Andre Martin, Image d'une France (1972)
• Joel Meyerowitz, Cape Light (1978)

Exercise instructions

• Prepare an appraisal of the style of 3 to 4 published landscape photographers (100 words)

Images and Review

Franco Fontana

• Subject - Bare but man altered landscapes, absence of human figures,
• Message - Visceral pleasure of revealing form in the landscape
• Composition - Strong use of shape by abstraction of contrasting landscape elements, powerful use of lines to stimulate the eye, cloudless skies (or sometimes nearly so), wide tonal range of colours
• Use of light - alignment of shadow with (and to emphasise) shape,
• Camera equipment/ format - use of telephoto lens to isolate shapes and colour in his landscapes, (wonder if these cloudless skies are shot near to  dawn or dusk with the sun behind the camera - shadows of an elevated sun are missing)
• Use of colour and/or black and white - emotional pull of colour is the key to the impact of his images

Personal reaction

Despite having an unnatural even dream like quality, these images grab my interest strongly due to the use of colour and shape. In that sense they have a meditative effect, even though I have no sense if the work has an underlying meaning or comment on land.

Club Mediterranée, Ibiza, Spain (1992)

Imaginary Landscape, Italy (1998)

Sunday Salon

Basilicata, Italy (1978)

Eliot Porter

• Subject - detail of nature (trees in leaf, rocks, etc) in between the big vista and the macro image
• Message - you can find nature's beauty, grandeur and fragility in the smaller space
• Composition - seek out texture, pattern, colour and reflections. Horizon often missing. Many images are close, if not actually, abstract in nature
• Use of light - frequent use of overcast or shade, rather than light of the 'golden hour'
• Camera equipment/ format - uses lenses between 
• Use of colour and/or black and white - strong use of colour



 

Personal reaction

The close-ups force me to look at the detail of the subject which in a longer framed shot might get lost by other distractions. This is a style that I like as it gives a new perspective. The close up also brings out colours which tend to be drowned out by dominant greens in more panoramic shots. 

Richard Misrach

• Subject - Western America, often desert scenes (as in Desert Cantos), seeming wilderness and wide expanse of land with some trace of man's presence (usually a destructive one)
• Message - Man's despoliation of the naturally beautiful landscape of the American West, all wilderness has now disappeared (in contrast to Ansel Adams' work in capturing remaining pockets of unspoilt land) 
• Composition - Human presence or evidence of it occupies only a small part of the images space but strongly attracts attention by striking a note of discord in an otherwise harmonious scene.
• Use of light - Light is usually soft , tones are generally on the light side of the range
• Camera equipment/ format - Large format camera, sharpness through out image (probably wide angle lens set with a small aperture)
• Use of colour and/or black and white - colours tend to be soft (in keeping with the light)

Battleground Point#2 (1999)

Bomb Crater and Destroyed Convoy (1986)

Hazardous waste containment site, Dow Chemical Corp

Drive-in theatre, Las Vegas (1987)

The Santa Fe, Nevada

The Shuttle Landing (1983)

Personal reaction
These images are composed both to show the conventional beauty of wilderness as well as the harmful effects of man's activity on the land, commercial or military. Neither dominates the other. This contrasts is a very effective way of delivering the message.