Wednesday 30 November 2011

Environment Unit Test Shots

Over the last couple of weekends I have travelled to several different locations during the early morning to capture some test shots of car parks in their vacant state. Like I had mentioned in my previous blog entry on the environment unit I started to think about weather conditions more.
I have selected a few of my favourite images from each shoot that I scanned in to the computer and some of which I plan to print and consider as final images.
The first set are from my shoot in Bluewater car park, the history of this shopping centre developed my initial ideas. The complex is situated on a 240 acre plot of land which was previously a chalk quarry which supplied to builders in London; I find the idea of an emptied area of land being transformed into another form of empty land very intriguing and quite humorous.
I like the first image due to the repetitiveness of the space lines, the trees and the lamp posts disappearing into the distance as this creates a sense of vast space as well as uniformity. The weather conditions early in the morning are slightly foggy giving a sense of vastness and mystery; the faintness of the tones has a flattening effect on the image. In the second image the backdrop enhances the magnitude of the location, I like the way the different lines of the elements in the car park cut through the frame and sweep across the image. The image has lots of different levels, starting with the unnaturally artificial lines cut into the chalk cliff, then the softness of the trees and bushes and finally the geometrical shapes and lines on the concrete surface.       



Although I don't think this third image fits in with my theme particularly well in showing emptiness I just wanted to put it in my blog entry as I particularly like the geometrical architecture in front of the natural flat cliff face. I was also drawn to the way the developers tried to contrast the aggressive, ugly concrete with a small garden in the centre of the frame.  

I find these final three images my favourite from the Bluewater shoot, while walking through the car parks I was straight away drawn to the tyre tracks. I feel they are like a ghostly reminder of what had previously been there & for some reason I really like the last one with the abandoned truck sat amidst the vacant car spaces. This is when I first started becoming attracted to reflections; I find these reflective surfaces reminiscent of Rut Blees Luxemburg's night images. I found with her images the puddles were like portals or holes into a ground below the concrete so I guess this is my attraction to the reflective tracks. Like they are gaps in the concrete as if there is something not quite right with the scene; linked to the history of Bluewater- a huge void created in the planet filled with industry. 

These next set of images were taken very early in the morning in the IKEA car park; I was drawn to the extremely foggy conditions and was quite excited to find out the outcome of the shots. Again like the previous Bluewater images, the surface of the car park was very reflective and the mistiness added a sense of mystery to the images as to what was beyond the edge of vision. 


 I particularly like the blue tones in these images, due to the weather conditions there is very little extreme darks and lights which gives a flat feel in conflict with the fact that the images are so dense you cannot see the horizon. These images reminded me a little of Hiroshi Sugimoto's landscapes such as 'Ligurian Sea, Saviore' where it is indecipherable as to what is sky and what is groun or sea in Sugimoto's case. 



I finally visited a nearby industrial estate car parkwhich was even foggier, I myself when in the fog walking and driving around felt quite on edge almost scared. I think I have a slight phobia of things coming unexpectedly out of nowhere; which I found especially with the IKEA chimneys because they are normally a landmark so you know which direction IKEA is but weirdly there was no sign of them when heading there and suddenly they emerged out of nowhere which for some reason freaked me out. Hard to explain but I hope that makes sense because I feel that's where my weird attraction to fog comes from combined with reflections.
Even though these last images express similar themes to my previous shoots I am not so pleased with them, the tones are very cold unlike the Bluewater and IKEA images which both have similar blue shades. I also don't find the images particularly exploratory or as original as my other shots. 
I am planning on printing a couple of these images to discover whether they have the right outcome and impression I want, as well as looking at how well they work together.  

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