Founds Objects

This is one object that

I will be combing with

photographs to make

a piece of work about

Leybourne Grange

Leybourne Grange

These two images are apart of a series of photographs that I will be combining with found objects to create a piece of work about Leybourne grange, rather than looking into the places history and use I wish to look at it in relation to my interests around decay, humanity and nature.

Abandoned House

This photograph was Taken in lower Rainham of an old Abandoned house in an orchard.
It was taken at 9:30 in the evening for 30 seconds at f9, a torch was used to paint the house with light making it visible in the photograph. Unfortunately a high ISO was used to allow for a smaller aperture this has resulted in the photo being somewhat grainy apart from this however I feel this is still an interesting photograph.

The Saw Mill

This image is the beginnings of a piece of work for an abandoned saw mill in Hastings. when complete there will be four photos one in each slot.

The frame that the photos are set in was taken from the Saw mill and the photos are of it, This piece aims to create an object that conveys the on going aesthetic within my work and also hints to the themes that interest me.

The foot print of man on the land:

"my touch is the most recent layer of many layers that are embedded in the landscape which in turn will be covered by future layers - hidden but always present" Andy Goldsworthy

Looking at this through the lens of humanity, it could be said that he current global civilisation will eventually become another layer like every previous civilisation that has graced the earth.We are fuelling the inevitability of time, the decay and waste of our living is easily found, The transition from one layer to another is all around us. Using photography I look to find such transition in the land, not simply to record such moments in an effort to stop them, but in hope that the collapse will happen, for through the collapse we will learn the lessons that need to be learned.

Mill

The photograph above is from two that I have manipulated and put together.
The pictures are from an old and abandoned saw mill, they show how nature has started to take back the land that the mill sits on.

Tyres

A small stream runs off a lake in Hastings, A quiet place seemingly bereft of human activity, however on closer inspection, the foot print of man is littered across this idyllic place.

In this photograph I look to emulate the commercial ideal of the natural scene, that of water flowing down a river or stream. beneath this aesthetic however lies the true subject of the photograph which is the disregard humanity has for nature.

Doorway

Where does the line between fine are photography and documentary photography lie, This photo does not have any deeper thoughts behind it for me other than what a beautiful door in such a decayed place, of course I have manipulated this in the way that I manipulated my other photos however this is simply a record of my interests. the line seems to be slight and something that is causing me a deal of confusion. Maybe behind the door is the answer

The man made frame

The frame is the object to remove a picture from its surroundings, reality, the real world and the constructed world. The decayed frame of humanity looks through onto the natural world that we are so disconnected from. we need to destroy the frame that humanity has created between itself and nature.

Decay

The beauty of decay lies in the promise of the end.

living in the shadow

This photograph was taken on a recent holiday, the contrast between the human settlement and the mountains behind sums up the way humans live in this place, in the shadow of nature.

whilst visiting this place we were told tales of human loss in the mountains and the efforts that people have gone to to inforce settlements in the atlas mountains; Carving roads through the range in an attempt to keep all connected and safe from the power of nature.

the visit highlighted my interest in the relationships that humanity holds with nature, and although these people are very much intune with there surroundings there is also a great tension.

Time

This is a series of photographs that I took during a holiday in Dorset in 2009.

Monuments

As our Civilisation progresses it seems increasingly obvious that it will at some stage collapse, like many before us we may fall into the realms of myth and be spoken of only through stories. Like many others however we have the chance to leave our footprint behind a monument to all that we have accomplished good and bad. what legacy will we leave behind

Powerstations

these nine images are the starting point for the idea that I have been exploring, they have currently been left in colour, grayscale and antique lighting. I feel the later best explores the ideas of the idolised so I will be looking to further this type of photograph.

So it was windy then?

It was nice and cloudy earlier however rather windy, these are the photographs that I managed to get before the whole thing snapped in half. Photos have been photoshoped to add vignettes/ graduated filters.

Proposal

Landscape relates originally to the way in which painters would create a ‘landscape’ real or fictional this would be constructed by the artist, this pictorial creation of the land was often an idolised/ romanticised view of nature. One such artist that had this view on nature was John Constable, his landscapes idolise the everyday landscape/working countryside, Paintings such as the famous Hay Wain looked at the working countryside and show a harmonious relationship between man and nature, this painting was created as the landscape was changing, the working countryside was disappearing and the industrial landscape was expanding.
In this modern age the industrial landscape is dominant, the idolised view of it has retreated into national parks and other such havens. Using photography as a medium to base my work in a specific place I look to create work that idolises nature through constructed landscape, with nostalgia for the lost harmony of man and nature.
Creating these images involves masking or blocking parts of the landscape to construct a picture that reduces the presence of man in industrial landscapes. In a similar way to Magritte’s La Condition Humaine series the masking/blocking out parts of the landscape, manipulates it to my own means, however still hinting to what’s behind.
I am most engaged with the idea of my relationship to nature, and how that has manifested itself in a yearning for the idolised view of nature, photographs such as that by Gustave Le Gray are examples of this. It would be possible to seek such places and record them for my own memory, however the landscape of my home has been greatly influential in the development of ideas and thus attempting to create this view in such places has come naturally. The landscape of my home is not an idolised view it is an industrial landscape, power stations, human activity, this is captured in my photographs and has therefore raised issues relating to that of the environment. Although I do not dismiss such aspects of my work they are not directly engaged with because my work is not chiefly created to challenge current environmental issues.
The body of work that will develop out of these ideas will be contain many smaller photographs with a few larger prints the expected outcome at the end of this body of work will be large format prints, A1, A0 or larger, this large scale will be implemented to create a sense of scale within the landscapes. I will utilise both film and digital techniques and also digital manipulation where needed to create desired effects, printing will also be explored alongside different camera types, digital printing and also darkroom development.

This is the Fujica AZ-1 (1978) I will hopefully be using this camera in conjuction with my DSLR. Once I have learnt how to use this film camera, I will hopefully be able to create more atmospheric photographs using a variety of printing techniques.

Another idea for current body of work.

Initial Photograph

This is the initial photograph for the current body of work I am working on. Unfortunatly the conditions and the location weren't ideal, the elevation of the land meant that I wasnt able to get into the correct position for taking the photograph, however this is only the first shoot so other location can be found, Better Allowing me to manipulate the pictorial view of the land.

The idea behind the work is the same Kettle Post (January), Blocking out the aspects of the landscape that I find jar with the natural view much as a painter would interpret the landscape he/she was painting.

Kettle

This Photograph has been taken as an initial idea for my current unit at uni.
The word landscape relates originaly to the way which painters would create a 'landscape' this image was often an idiolised view of the land, at the time these scences may well have been normal, vast patches of land touched only slightly by the hand of man. In this modern age however mans influence in the land has become more obvious and destructive, becuase of this 'landscape' has changed in my photographs i will block out or mask the human attempting to create that more idiolised view of the land. this photograph doesnt do justice to my ideas however through development I will be able to create something that does this.