Pastiche Shoot & Final Image

-          Before taking my pastiche I researched different locations where I knew there were large hills overlooking towns, I then looked them up on google maps and research them by looking at other images from the hilltops on google images.

-          I  travelled to a few different locations; particularly Box Hill &Leith Hill over Dorking, Race Hill over Brighton and Cissbury Ring over Findon; however I ended up choosing to photograph from Box Hill (locations of final shoot images marked on map in blue)  as although the other locations had similarly good view there were no trees in the foreground to replicate this conflict between humans and nature. 

-          I chose to shoot the black and white image on a day when the weather was fairly overcast but also relatively early in the morning so that there was a thin mist covering the hills in the background to give a similar effect as the smog blurring the hills into the sky.

-          I had a couple of options for the trees in the foreground, I took shots of all of them so that I could decide later which gave the most similar effect. One set of trees were too alive and full which would not mirror Robert Adams’ message portrayed. Another set were moving in the wrong direction so was not compositionally correct while the final trees were not perfect but I felt depict the same message of humans neglecting nature and the destruction caused while the composition is also correct- the two trees which were a little too close did look very straggly and forlorn.

-          I used a relatively small aperture of around F.8/11 to give a larger depth of field similar to Adams’ image as the trees in the foreground are perfectly in focus very slowly blurring out into the background.

-          I also took the image in the morning so that the sun was just rising over to light up the buildings in the valley while the hilltop is still in relative shadow creating a similar silhouetted look. 

Robert Adams' 'On Signal Hill..'

-          I was able to print my pastiche image today, my final settings were Grade 0- 26 seconds, Grade 2- 9 seconds & Grade 5- 5 seconds. I think the image came out well and as I planned; and does have the same message as Robert Adams' original image. 

My Final Pastiche Image

Michael Landy article research

My mentor recommended looking at the installation artist Michael Landy therefore I read the following article about his work in 2001 commenting on consumerism:

Man 'destroys' life for art

A London installation artist is reducing every possession he has to dust on as part of an exhbition called Break Down. 

 Michael Landy, 37, will shred or granulate everything from socks to family photographs over the next two weeks at the site of the old C&A flagship store on Oxford Street, central London.

By the time the installation is complete he will have nothing but a cat called Rats and his girlfriend, Turner Prize winning video artist Gillian Wearing.

Mr Landy said the exhibition was an examination of society's romance with consumerism.

Refuse

"It's about the amount of raw material that goes into making objects and about the lifespan of things.

"But the title also reflects an emotional break down," he said.

Refuse has been a key part of the artist's work.

In 1994, his still life composition of a bin full of rubbish at the Karsten Chubert Gallery in London was accidentally thrown away by a cleaner.

Landy also hit the headlines with a 1997 installation to celebrate Christmas commissioned by the Tate Gallery.

It featured a large bin filled with empty bottles, used wrapping paper, broken decorations and dead Christmas trees.

Consumer choice

But there is more than rubbish involved in this latest project.

Mr Landy has made an inventory of everything he owns, from odd socks and David Bowie singles to his Saab 900 car.

All 7,006 objects have been labelled and details loaded on to a database.

Each item will be placed on conveyer belts and 10 assistants will begin the destruction.

While many of the items were worthless utensils such as kitchen equipment, Mr Landy will also destroy his valuable art collection, which includes pieces by artists such as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.

"I see this as the ultimate consumer choice. Once Break Down has finished, a more personal break down, will commence - life without my self-defining belongings." 

Conveyor belt filled with Landy's possessions leading to the shredder

I found his work had a really bold message about the obsession we have with consumerism, by destroying all of his possessions he really wanted to send a strong, shocking message to the audience to make them stop and think about their actions. Although it is a very unique concept I feel it is not the message I want to portray in my object unit work, I want to highlight consumerism to my audience and make them think about their action but I don’t want to ‘shove’ it in their face. I want the image to slowly reveal its real message to the audience members so that they can individually take separate meaning from it relating to their own actions.

Edward Burtynsky's 'Manufactured Landscapes' programme notes

After reading comments left by Chris Van Beck I decided to firstly watch the programme ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, a video on the work of Edward Burtynsky. I have become really intrigued by this series of work and how I can use similar aspects to shape the final products of both my object and environment units; therefore I made the following notes and comments on the programme.  

 -          He uses large format, instant print cameras

-          To harm the planet we ultimately harm ourselves

-          We are connected to it, we are part of it so if we destroy it, nature can destroy ourselves

-          Fundamental, philosophical position when I look at the world

-          Maybe the landscape of our time is the one of change, one that we disrupt

-          Industrial landscape as a way of defining who we are and our relationship to the planet

-          Part of our kind, our politics, our time

-          Not to celebrate or glorify it but also not to damn it- this is what it is, allows the viewer to comprehend the scale- a different landscape.

-          the noise of industry in opening scene of video- humungous factory in China

-          the factory of the world, the channel of the world- colour theory? Yellow

-          theme started when he was inspired by nature

-          epiphany when lost in mining town- found largest industrial area he could find

-          beautiful & sublime yet due to subject matter in actual fact quite ugly

-          always in the back of everyone’s mind when thinking about the extraction industry- we all know it comes from somewhere but we’re disconnected from that, his images bring it to our consciousness

-          explored quarries/ mines etc.- evidence, discussions of extraction

-          During the gallery viewing- people looked at his work close up- detail, what is it? People turn heads to figure out what is going on

-           Dimensions of images are huge which enlarges the little details which are the most important

-          Materials go to China to be formed into products and sent back out

-          Scrap heaps become hills and mountains

-          Pressed rubbish, strange, neat boxes- tidied away from human eyes.

-          Other aspects- recycling from here is shipped to China eg. metals, coppers, motor parts, 50% of computers end up in China to be recycled- referred to as the waste there

-          Workers pull apart all the components to get all the valued stuff out- the smell of burning awes can be smelt 10km from the area

-          Phosphors are released when the computer boards are smashed apart which drains away and contaminated the water- they are now having to ship their water in- destruction

-          The huge masses of materials etc. become indistinguishable- scale?

-          Huge pollution- growing- more products needed therefore growing industry

-          Consumerism growth= waste growth

-         His images have a stillness- a silence, can’t imagine the chaotic noise- manufacturing noise

-          Ships photographed are a metaphor for reason to allow globalisation to take the steps it has- connection

-          His images are just magnificent, epic, incomprehensible, expansive

-          Everything he does is connected to what he is photographing:

-          Probably used the gas delivered by one of the tankers, the metal which made his tripod, the silver in the film he uses.

-          Oil tankers- had crude still in the bottoms which had to be scraped out by hand- no one older than 30 works there, up to their necks in it, dangerous

-          Oil industry- oil epiphany, how it effects his life:

-          When driving- the steering wheel probably made from oil derivative, paint on the car, glass heated through tar- oil is the key building block of modern life, the last century

-          Great abundance of black liquid- freedom, China- ‘second last dance’, whatever we do we won’t have enough to supply the world

-          China trying to be the manufacturer for the world- how long will they be able to sustain?

-          The Three Gorges Dam is the largest in the world by 50%

-          Took 50 days to fill, 600km long

-          27 nuclear power stations are to be built in the next 10 years

-          Coal burning stations

-          Massive transformation of landscape- intentional, need for power- 13 full sized cities destroyed for reservoir, flattened buildings to allow ships to go through

-          People who used to live there are the ones working there- being paid to take their cities apart

-          Melancholic- landscape made out of a destroyed landscape, frenetic activity, surreal chaos, roads made between mountains of rubble.

-          Beijing is 90% agriculture & 10% urbanised but they plan to make it 30% agriculture and 70% urban- urbanisation of china is unprecedented

-          Shanghai is the fastest growing city- last year it had about 4-5 million new citizens arrive

-          City for the younger generation

-          Thousands of high rise dwellings are taking over old traditional dwellings.

-          Red= happy traditional Chinese colour

-          Older generation not happy- heart longs for the traditional, the past- old knocked down community- new buildings

-          One person would not move- last standing house, alone and isolated

-          Burtynsky thought about putting his work into a more criticising light- ‘If I said this is a terrible thing we are doing to the planet then people would either agree or disagree. By not saying what you should see allows them to see their world a little differently’

-          It puts the viewer in an uncomfortable spot- we ‘..don’t want to give up what we’ve got, but we realise what we’re doing’

-          Creating problems that run deep- not simply right or wrong- a new way of thinking.  

My response & analysis of 'Manufactured Landscapes' relating to my own work

-          When watching the gallery visitors in Burtynsky’s exhibition I was interested in their reactions

-          I like the way that the people didn’t seem offended by his work but confused and intrigued by it.

-          I want a similar effect when people look at my work, I don’t want people to think that I am criticising them but purely to highlight the unawareness we have towards pollution through ignorance of sewage pipes due to companies not informing the public of health risks etc.

-          I really like how the audience of his work takes a bit of time to comprehend the subject matter and what it is trying to show, a similar response that I would like both my object unit and environment unit final work to achieve.

-          For example in my environment shots, I want the audience to notice the scene as a whole as a beautiful scene but then notice the ugly, ominous pipe in the foreground and the other aspects in the background eg. beach huts and children playing

-          To start thinking about the different effects the sewage pipes can have on the surrounding environment- health risks, aesthetic issues etc. and the ignorance that they previously had towards these issues when possibly walking on a beach like that 
-        Again like Burtynsky, I want them to think how it is not right or wrong- as it is right to have them their because we need a way of depositing overflow material otherwise we would create more problems at treatment plants etc. but also wrong as it is on a beach where humans and nature can very easily be effected by dangerous bacteria levels on the beach and in the water.

Robert Adams Research and Pastiche Analysis

Robert Adams is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. By being brought up by his father taking him on walks in the woods and being a Boy Scout as well as working at a boys’ camp in the Rocky Mountains you can understand his passion for exposing  the shocking effects we are having on the world.

In the early 60s Adams bought a 35mm reflex camera and took mainly images of the relationship between nature and architecture, followed by reading the complete sets of ‘Camera Work’ and ‘Aperture’ at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre where he learnt photographic techniques from Myron Wood, a professional photographer. Influenced by people like Timothy H O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson, Adams began to document the Western landscapes of North America and how humans had shaped it.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan

He produced many series of work such as ‘The New West’ which focussed on the new suburban developments being built along the Colorado Front Range. His images portrayed a confliction between the beauty of the landscape and the human presence.                                                                                                                                                                                   He then produced ‘Turning Back’ which was a series looking at deforestation in the Pacific Northwest region of the US- again looking at the destructive nature of human beings on the world. Although his images are highlighting the way we are destroying the landscape he still manages to create a beauty, a tranquillity out of the chaos, such as his image ‘On Signal Hill, Overlooking Long Beach’, which although looks over a vast cityscape looks very quiet and still.

In an interview Adams was asked: ‘What do you think is the most serious threat facing the world?’ Of which he replied: ‘Overpopulation. It’s the fundamental, lethal accelerant for most environmental and social problems.’

Analysis of the image ‘On Signal Hill, Overlooking Long Beach’ 

Image description:

Robert Adams produced a book called ‘Los Angeles Spring (1986)’ which consisted of his images concerned with environmental degradation; this included the image ‘On signal Hill, Overlooking Long Beach’ which I am creating a pastiche of as part of the environmental unit.

The photograph depicts two very straggly, melancholic looking trees overlooking a smoggy cityscape, Long Beach. The trees are like on-lookers, horrified by the destruction and pollution caused by humans. Adams uses these two trees as a representation of nature in general, neglected and abused by industrialism and growing populations.

The way he shoots the image makes the trees look like the out of place, unnatural part of the photograph. At the same time the trees look weak, choked and straggly but still strong as if they are making a stand against humans, they will not let anything get past them almost like guards for the rest of nature.

Composed in a similar way to Casper David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ the trees act as the onlookers over what would have been an untouched land but has now been destroyed. By comparing these two images you get the feeling that the landscape beyond the figure in Friedrich’s image could now be the one we see in Adams’ photograph.

Visual choices- focus, distance, lighting, camera position etc.

-          It has a large depth of field as the foreground and background are both clearly in focus and it is possible to distinguish the main subjects of the photograph, trees and buildings.

-          The muggy haze over the city creates a very foggy horizon line, while in the foreground the trees are very defined and harshly contrast with the soft backdrop.

-          The lighting is very soft which would point to quite an overcast day, therefore the contrast between light and dark is quite bold but it does not wash out the subject in the background. The sky which takes up over half of the image is very blank giving the image a stark backdrop which makes the subject matter very obvious and eye catching.

-          The camera position is very close to the trees in the foreground level with them while it is very high up making it obvious that Adams is up on a hill overlooking a cityscape.

Process & techniques

-          The image is a black and white analogue image taken in 1983 and produced as a gelatin silver print

-          This process is the photographic process used with current black and white films and photographic papers.

-          The process consists of a suspension of silver salts in gelatin which is coated onto a surface such as glass or flexible plastic or film which then becomes light-sensitive. It is then possible to expose it to light and develop it as an image.

-          It is 9x11 inches in size which is a relatively small print highlighting the way that Adams wants his images to speak for themselves; he wants the audience to have to look closely at the image and discover for themselves, as an individual, the meaning of the image.

Social & cultural background

-          Since the late 60s Adams has always been interested in the changing landscape of the American West, the effects that humans have had on the environment and landscape as we take up more land for living on.

-          Adams sees it as a fallen state of a former Eden.

-          He says "The operating principle that seems to work best is to go to the landscape that frightens you the most and take pictures until you're not scared anymore."

-          Since the 16^th/17^th century the American West has been being invaded, captured and settled on and over time the landscape has drastically changed.

-          The American West when undiscovered and explored was untouched by humans, what was known as the Sublime landscape was captured by artists as this vast, exciting but frightening land, eg. John Gast, Albert Bierstadt & Casper David Friedrich.

-          Followed by photographers such as, Timothy H O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson & Andrew J Russell who then began to document the invasion and industrialisation of the landscape.

-          They wanted to highlight the way that man had conquered this compelling, spiritual & vast beautiful land.

-          However the similarly captured views are now seen by Adams as destruction of the land rather than conquering of the land.

My feeling & reaction

-          When looking at the image myself I feel it is quite an emotive scene, on the one had the trees are overlooking the city giving a sense of power while on the other hand the condition of the trees are appalling as they look very abused and weak.

-          The foggy horizon creates a sense of pollution enhancing this feeling that nature has been abused by humanity.

-          The stark blackness of the silhouetted trees gives a very negative feel in the foreground while in the background it is very bright giving a sense of positivity as if the trees represent the viewer looking disgusted over the effects humans have had on the world while the people in the city live happily unaware of the effects of their actions.

-          As this image was taken in the 1980s I feel like Adams was very forward in his thinking, he wanted to send a message to the viewer that something had to be done to stop this increasing inhabitants and changing of nature and the landscape then otherwise the situation of pollution etc. was going to get worse, which it so obviously has.

I will now use my analysis of the photograph to create a pastiche of the image with certain ideologies taken from Robert Adams’ work in mind as well as the compositional values of the image such as camera position, subject matter and weather conditions.

 

Object unit development & response to Chris Van Beck's comment

After reading my mentor, Chris Van Beck's comment on my 'Object Tutorial note'  post I began to think about the different aspects he brought up about my work and ideas. 

- I began by thinking more clearly about the materials I will use in my composition, thinking about both new and old waste to represent the different way we are destroying the environment.

- I will use throw away materials that are used everyday and thrown away after only a few days of use eg. paper, cereal box & egg carton cardboard, glass bottles and cling film; combined with film from data cassettes and videos which can be used for many years as well as bike tyres which are often discraded after a year or so of use.  

- I will also include objects that could be seen as more obviosuly destructive to the environment, which in my scene will be less obvious and once noticed look very out of place and shocking eg. batteries.

- I want to highlight human's throw-away lifestyle which how ever much someone calls themself an 'environmentalist' still contributes to this modern lifestyle. 

- I then began thinking about how subtle I want my theme to be; I want to begin by creating a beautiful 'sublime' scene inspired by Ansel Adams' vast landscapes but at the same time making it relatively obvious what it is made up of.

- Then as the viewer begins to look more closely they start to notice something out of place like a battery, the aggressive feel of the glass cutting through the landscape; representing the way we are wrecking our landscape through deforestation, littering, pollution etc. 

Chris Van Beck drew attention to the impact that we have as photographers which I found really interesting to think about. 

- Digitally speaking people are always wanting the new model of camera constantly discarding the old into rubbish tips, while 20 years ago a camera was kept for many years due to the lack of advances in technology.   

- Manually speaking when photography was new there was no understanding of the effect that chemicals have on the environment, yet despite our advanced & clear undertsanding of the effects now we still discard chemicals from all different types of businesses, companies etc.

   

- By photographing we are polluting the planet in both ways through, the need for the next best thing- technologically and through the ignorance of people when putting chemicals down drains, I want to represent this through the obscure out of place objects, while everything else looks quite natural and flowing these objects become very harsh even though they are not the main focus of the scene. 

- - Through the angle of the camera when taking my object photograph I want to make the scene look huge; I want to comment on the mass effect humans are having and the increasing pollution due to increasing population.

- Although we had already looked at the photographer Edward Burtynsky, my attention was drawn again to him by Chris Van Beck and his work 'Manufactured landscapes'.

-      - His images from ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ are beautiful and sublime but at the same time ugly due to the subject matter. 

Burtynsky comments on his own work: ‘Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work… I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.’

‘These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire-  a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.’

- There are many different interpretations that people have on what a ‘landscape’ is and how they represent it; through searching key phrases in a browser like ‘Human landscape’, ‘industrial landscape’, ‘man-made landscape’ I found many different artistic explorations through photography and sculpture.These are the following articles that particularly interested me:

Humans: Inherently wasteful, or good stewards? (And, why this question misses the point)

Posted by Max Liboiron ⋅ May 29, 2011

People are making more waste than ever before. The desire to luxuriate and waste is part of human nature. Humans are inherently wasteful. We’ve heard it before. But I doubt it.

So I did an experiment:

Rubbish Topographies, 2011. Mixed media, used tea bags, trash. Touchstones Nelson, Nelson, BC, Canada.

 

Rubbish Topographies is a landscape made of donated trash. Although the pile of tea bags and cardboard may bring to mind the panicked proverbial that, “we make too much garbage!”, it symbolizes something further. Every tea bag was saved, dried, and delivered by my family, friends, friends-of-friends, coworkers, and even strangers from around the world. Rubbish Topographies is not meant to represent a pile of guilt, but is a quantitative testimony to how people will mind and care for their waste when there is an opportunity to reuse it.

 

One of the problems with asking for peoples’ used tea bags is that tea bags mold as quickly as a house on fire if they aren’t taken care of. You have to squeeze them out and/or dry them and store them in a cool, dry place. Then you have to mail them to me from England, Canada, or California, or meet me in Washington Square Park and hand over your zip lock baggie full of green tea. In other words, people have to spend time, effort, and cash to steward their waste. People dipped into waste buckets for their office mate’s bags. Others refused to send me their bags  once they dried them because they were so beautiful. They posted pictures of their tea bags on Facebook. Strangers sent me cards with their trash.

As such, Rubbish Topographies is a tea-bag tally-chart of individual commitment to, conscientiousness of, and generosity with their waste.

If you read Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (1999), or Vance Packard’s The Waste Makers (1960), you’ll see that, historically, people bucked against the introduction of disposable and single-use items, planned obsolescence, and “wastefulness” more generally. Packard’s waste makers aren’t individuals, they’re industries and businesses. A passage from Strasser’s historical research highlights the lengths people would go to avoid paper cups at the turn of the last century:

“Disposable paper cups met significant resistance. Most public places offered them in coin-operated dispensers, and some people were not willing to pay for what had once been free. Respectable travelers carried their own cups, available in metal and celluloid in a variety of collapsible and folding designs. Others reused paper cups from the trash or drank out of the public tanks, putting their lips to the faucet or using the cover of the tank as a cup. Some people protested against the vending machines: soldiers smashed paper cup dispensers in Washington’s Union Station during President Wilson’s inauguration in 1913.” (1999: 177)

Many people are still doing their best to avoid waste. Beth Terry, author of the blog MyPlasticFreeLife, is one of those people. She specifically aims to live without plastic waste. She finds it difficult, and has changed her lifestyle significantly because it is nearly impossible to avoid disposable plastic in the course of everyday life in the USA. But she’s decreased the amount of disposable plastic in her life to nearly nothing. You can take her challenge to do the same and see for yourself how difficult it is to maneuver the infrastructure of everyday life without needing something that comes in disposable plastic.

This situation changes the stakes and context of statements like “we make too much garbage” or that, “We exist.. in a way that violently negates beings [and objects] rather than takes care of them.” Rubbish Topographies and Beth Terry’s PlasticFreeLife are two social experiments which indicate that humans aren’t inherently wasteful, but they certainly don’t mean that individual consumption habits are the best way to deal with waste. Beth Terry’s example shows how nearly impossible it is to live in our capitalist, commodity-driven, global economy without plastic waste, and the few thousand tea bags collected for Rubbish Topographies wouldn’t fill a dump truck. It means that changes in waste patterns aren’t going to come from individuals, but from the larger system of production. The focus on the “wasteful nature” of humans misses the problem completely.

 'Waste Landscape' Metallic CD Dune By Elise Morin & Clémence Eliard

Waste Landscape is on display in Paris’ Centquartre space in the Halle d’Aubervilles until September 11, 2011. Elise Morin (artist) and Clémence Eliard (architect) of SMALL MEDIUM LARGE design studio, in collaboration with the 104.fr, have collected 65,000 CDs, now representing throwaway technology and rubbish in our MP3 society.
The result is a 600 square meters artificial undulating landscape of metallic dune, a seductive and artistic eruption into our environmental consciousness — should we choose to receive it.
Best explained in the words of the artists themselves, “the project joins a global, innovative, and committed approach, from its means of production until the end of its “life”.  Waste Landscape will be displayed in locations coherent with the objectives of the project: art’s role in society, raising consciousness towards environmental problems through culture, alternative modes of production and the valuation of district associative work and professional rehabilitation… Waste Landscape is at the crossroad of contemporary art, landscaping and environmental concerns.”
At the end of its exhibition lifecycle, ‘Waste Landscape’ will meet its next transformation into recycled polycarbonate.

 

Art-Lovers flock for rubbish - it’s Regent’s Park’s Frieze Art Fair

Ben Bloom , Reporter Friday, October 15, 2010
6:49 PM

Rubbish art installation as part of Frieze Art Fair

RUBBISH will be the first thing that greets the great and good of British art and thousands of visitor who head to Regent’s Park for the Frieze Art Fair this weekend.

One of the world’s leading contemporary art fairs is back in Regent’s Park with 173 galleries and more than 1,000 artists.

Satellite events will be taking place across the capital, as well as in the ticketed fair compound, but a free sculpture exhibition in the park can give a taster of what’s on offer.

Trash (pictured) by Wolfgang Ganter and Kaj Aune is one such artwork.

It consists of a moving pile of rubbish brought from Berlin which emits sound and smoke.

There are also 15 art bicycles created by Gavin Turk for visitors to ride around the park before receiving a certificate signed by the artist declaring they have participated in a work of art.

We all know that cell phones these days can call, text, surf the web and remind you to pick up your dry cleaning … but they can also be used for artistic purposes to create drawings, floor sculptures, light and sound installations and more. Artist Robert Pettit has a show up at the SMFA in Boston featuring these and other creative uses of over 5,000 cellular phones he collected for artistic purposes. As more and more cell phones fall by the wayside each and every day, scrapped for the latest model, one has to wonder if there are other things (artistic and otherwise) that these strangely ubiquitous objects could be used for.

 

I also came across Joel Sternfeld’s image ‘Museum of Architecture, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1980’ which when I first glanced at it looked like an overcast landscape but when looked at more closely it becomes obvious that it is a model- the figure peering in from the side, the solid backdrop acting as an overcast sky.

The scene becomes intriguing and unusual for the viewer, it could be seen as a person’s perfect lifestyle expressed through a model version of it contaminated by human intervention. By the way he photographs it, as if looking down from a hill the scene becomes very realistic looking which is the similar effect I hope to achieve in my final object image. Again the lighting is very natural which confuses the viewer as to whether it is sunlight or artificial light which I would also like to use in my image.

Environmental Tutorial Notes

During my tutorial with Steffi Klenz I explained my conceptual idea for my environment unit shoot (explained in my post- Environement Unit reserach- 'Panorama: Britain's Dirty Beaches') along with my inspirations so far and then made some notes on the comments and advice given;

- I started looking at Bernd and Hilla Becher's images as I was really intrigued by the way that the repetitive nature of their series' make the subject such as gas tanks look beautiful making the backdrop insignificant.

Bernd & hilla Becher 'Gas Tanks'

- Although I wanted to create a series of repetitive images to exaggerate my theme I don't want the pipes which I would see as ugly to be the main focus and inturn do not want them to be taken as a good thing.
- The tutorial has made me think even more about the ignorance we have towards them as we discussed how if there are 20,000 in the UK are we able to blank them out when passing them? Do people really know what they are and what is coming out of them?
- Steffi advised me when doing the shoot to take two different versions of the scene; one taking on a similar style as the Becher's to exaggerate the fact that these are on our beaches yet we ignore them. However Becher's images are very mathematical which makes the viewer move their focus away from the subject and focus more on the composition & precision of the work.
- Therefore I will do a second image in the similar manner of Richard Misrach's image 'Swamp and Pipeline'. His image is mainly concerned with the natural swamp however when looked at more closely you realise there is a horrid pipe running through the front of the scene; I feel it is quite a dramatic image due to the way that the water looks so smooth and calm and then suddenly there is an aggressive, harsh horizontal line running through the frame cutting it in half.

Richard Misrach 'Swamp & Pipeline'

- By making the CSO pipe the smallest part of the image it will enhance the ignorance we have towards them. Including it in the image combined with for example children playing nearby gives this sense of irony; asking the question to the audience how could you ignore it?
- It begins to add a sense of humour, that it is so ridiculously obvious and scary to think about that you almost have to laugh.
- I will shoot my images during the morning when the lighting is very bright and I will frame them to create the 'perfect' beautiful beach scene; in each scene there will be a different theme to the surrounding subjects to highlight the ignorance and different things that can be effected by CSOs eg. children, surfers, nature etc.

- After my tutorial I visited some beaches in search of CSOs, I was shocked at the amount I found at the first beach I went to. I discovered the 'Good Beach Guide' website that had a huge list of beaches recommended and not recommended alond the South East coast.
- I travelled to the following beaches which were described on the 'Good Beach Guide' as:
235 Worthing West Sussex South East Recommended Basic Pass
236 South Lancing West Sussex South East Recommended Basic Pass
242 Newhaven East Sussex South East Closed Basic Pass
the statistics showed that over the last two years Worthing and South Lancing beaches had gone from recommended to basic pass while Newhaven went from closed to basic pass.
- When on Worthing beach I was shocked to find 6 pipes all with different amounts of water running out of them along a stretch of under a mile of beach. I couldn't understand how this was allowed to be like this, and while looking at them and taking some practise shots I was approached by people walking along the beach.
- In some cases they made some interesting comments which highlighted my theme of ignorance while others I asked for their opinion; some said 'what a beautiful day to take photos', others commented on the pipe 'I wonder what it is, and when I asked them to comment on the pipe people said, 'it's a bit of an ugly thing to take photos of whatever it is'.
- Although it is not a good thing that people are unaware of what these pipes are and the effect they can have on the environment, I was pleased that my work would be able to help people to understand what these things are that litter the beaches.
- The most horrific beach of the day was South Lancing, there were 3 massive pipes that had been unsuccessfully disguised by wood to look like windbreakers. The first thing that hit me was the smell of the surrounding stagnant water once I was able to approach them as I was almost scared of these monstrous things due to the fact that I felt they shouldn't be there.

- I will now go back to the same places with a Mamiya RZ with colour film ISO 160 to capture my theme in a frame, I am using colour film as I found that the pipes stood out due to their colour contrasting with the tranquil, neautral colours of the beach and water.

Environment Unit research- 'Panorama: Britain's Dirty Beaches'

For my environmental unit I started to become interested in the effect we are having on nature similar to my object unit I have been looking at the photographer Andy Hughes, William Eggleston & Joel Sternfeld. However my ideas have become more focussed on the effects that sewage and the weather has on human health and nature after watching the programmes 'Panorama: Britain's Dirty Beaches' and 'Inside Out (South East) 17/10/2011'. 

Panorama & Inside Out looks at the effects that CSOs (Combined Sewage & Overflow) have on the health of people that visit the beach as well as nature eg. sealife & plants. 

- It was said that after visiting 43% of the beaches in the UK there is a 1 in 20 chance that you will contract gastroenteritis (also known as gastric flu & stomach flu) the symptoms are severe inflammation of the stomach & small intestine resulting in diarrhoea & vomiting. It is transferred by contact with contaminated food and water. 

 

- Pollution is increasing as the climate changes eg. wet weather increasing, this is because the sewage treatment plants become overwhelmed after heavy rain and have to release waste water into the sea before it has been treated. 

- They must use the CSOs as overflow pipes.

- There are over 20,000 CSOs in the UK and over 700 pipes on the beaches and rivers on the South East coast alone.  

- Around 45% of beaches deemed as 'Good' in the 'Good Beach Guide' (www.goodbeachguide.co.uk) have CSOs near enough to them to effect the water quality; this is why the quality over the past couple of years have been decreasing. 

 

- By the end of 2012, the local councils of bathing beaches will be obliged to give daily information about the quality of the water and risks of bathing and being on the beach.

- It has been found that CSOs are effecting the sealife, in Panorama they highlighted the increase in the death of cockles caused by bacteria in untreated sewage.

In my work I want to highlight the effects that sewage treatment company's CSO pipes are having on different aspects of the beach from sealife to the landscape to humans by capturing different scenes and events. 

In the programme it was also highlighted how ignorant people were to the problem saying things such as they thought that it didn't happen anymore and they were totally unaware that that sort of thing was done. Therefore I really hope to capture moments wwhere people are obviously very oblivious of the occurrence, possibly try and reflect the idea in the image by having the pipes as a very obscure part of the scene.

I have become more and more passionate about this as I remember as I child playing near by to pipes I was unaware of as CSOs and therefore I worry about the effects this has on not only humans but the environment, literally and visually.