Refined and Unrefined Photo Books for Assignment 5 – Landscape

I have decided the best way of presenting Assignment 5 – Landscape in its final form would be a photo book. I have had this idea of producing a photo book in my head for quite long while and I felt Assignment 5 with its relatively large number of photographs (compared to previous assignments for Landscape) and strong concept behind the project had potential to present well as a photo book.

Unrefined Photo Book Example Page

Refined Photo Book Example Page

An accompaniment to the photo book would be the overlay on a map I’d traced to show visually the concept of my walking around the perimeter of a circle on a map of my local area and photographing from various spots along the way. I felt this overlay with red markers for the spots I’d photographed from and line indicating the perimeter of the circle over the black lines I’d traced from the map would make a good cover page for my photo book for Assignment 5 and my tutor’s comments reflected this. The fact this map appeared on my blog in the blog post: ‘My Walk Along the Perimeter of A Circle on a Map of My Local Area and the Spots Where I Photographed From (Daytime)’ also added consistency to the project in my eyes.

Unrefined Photo Book Top, Refined Photo Book Bottom – Example Pages

In terms of the rest of the photo book, I initially rushed into creating the other pages which contained the photographs, my rationale being that it was supposed to be a photo book and therefore just full of the relevant photographs for the project in order. When I received the photo book – I used a photo book publishing website called Blurb – I realised that perhaps it would be better to include information about each photograph including a title. This I realised would give context to each photograph and an insight into how I felt about the project which was after all a major reason for starting the project.

Another Example Page of the Refined Photo Book

Therefore I got another version of the photo book printed after adding a title and context for each photograph. This revised version of the photo book – also printed at Blurb – was much more balanced and held the viewer’s attention for longer in my opinion. Also I personally was more pleased with the results compared to the previous version; I found out a bit more about myself in relation to the photographs because of writing the context for each photograph.

Back Cover of Photo Book

References:

Blurb. (2017). Blurb. [online] Available at: http://www.blurb.co.uk/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2017].

In light of my tutor’s comments regarding my submission for Assignment 5 – Landscape, I’ve realised there were several key areas I could improve on for the assignment. The first consisted of filtering my project down into a slightly less convoluted mishmash of elements so my intentions and points I were trying to make were more obvious. For me this meant removing the corresponding night landscape shots as upon reflection they didn’t contribute too much to the project. Instead I felt they confused what I was trying to convey to the viewer. What I was trying to convey was a message of diversity within the landscape from the people which typically inhabit my surrounding landscape, from the presence of the people themselves on the (already diverse) surrounding landscape. Then there was a slight impermanence factor, reflected by the people’s traces on the landscape indirectly from land use as a second source of information. However, by introducing a third element consisting of variation on the landscape between day and night, I was almost offering the viewer too much information. So, I decided to remove these night shots entirely from the assignment (none of them in my opinion worked better in comparison to their corresponding day shots in conveying this diversity). I did this fairly reluctantly at first because it had been quite arduous to go back to each location and shoot the corresponding nighttime landscape shot afterwards but on this occasion I saw less as more and thought it benefited the project. Therefore the main aspect I wanted to get across was the diversity of the landscape and it’s inhabitants in my local area and I felt this was far more evident from the more varied day shots (with the more prevalent inclusion of people), which were sufficient in my opinion to get this message of diversity across.

Another trait in my photographs my tutor picked up on was the seeming insistence to photograph using the same exact aspect ratio and orientation. While this 3:2, landscape format worked okay in general in my eyes, looking back at the images I could definitely see where cropping may be beneficial. Therefore I endeavoured to experiment with other formats where necessary to further inform the audience what was the focus of each photograph. Furthermore I could now see potential for linking certain photographs which shared similar compositional traits by cropping them in similar ways to accentuate these similarities. Namely Photographs 7 and 11 for Assignment 5 – Landscape offered the possibility of such a cropping treatment and I could foresee would work together well with Photograph 6 as examples of ‘looking to the side’ as explained in my blog post: ‘Inspiration for My Own Self-Directed Project (Assignment 5)’. Here I had been inspired by Alec Soth with Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004) to look to the side. As well as this, putting these images with similar cropping together as a diptych in my proposed final presentation method: a photo book I could foresee working well.

Diptych of Photographs 11 and 7 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

In response to another comment by my tutor, I would like to offer a little more information into how I felt the project went with regards to my self-discovery through the camera. I had stated this was one of the hoped-for outcomes for the conducting the project so close to home and yet hadn’t alluded too much to how I felt this had gone in my summary. It had brought back some memories of old routes I used to walk when I was younger and crucially made me look at my local area in new ways. The significance of this in relation to the course was because the area had changed so much yet was still recognisable made me realise I felt some kind of sentimentality to the place. From this attachment I started to see my local area in a new light – noticing things I wouldn’t normally have noticed in my local area, which could bode well for future projects.

Photograph 1 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

Photograph 2 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

With Photograph 2 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended I cropped in significantly in order to better get my point across to the viewer – all the people at the bus stop were on their smartphones.

Photograph 3 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

Photograph 4 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

For Photograph 4 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended I adopted a 5:4 aspect ratio as I felt it framed the shot better with the people in the frame seeming to be perceivably more eager to get out from work as well as out of the frame!

Photograph 5 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

Photograph 6 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

I chose a more ‘cinematic’ 16:9 aspect ratio to frame the man against the confines of the ‘Edgelands’ he was walking down. For me it gave the photograph an edgier feel.

I used a square 1:! ratio for Photograph 7 – Assignment 5 – Landscape and put it in a diptych as can be seen at the top of the post.

Photograph 8 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

A 4:5 ratio was used here to crop in on the main action in the street – the street football, while still allowing for the viewer to gain an insight into what kind of area/street they were playing on.

Photograph 9 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

Photograph 10 – Assignment 5 – Landscape

I decided to keep Photograph 10 – Assignment 5 – Landscape the same framing because I thought all aspects of the photograph were quite important.

I used a square 1:! ratio for Photograph 11 – Assignment 5 – Landscape and put it in a diptych as can be seen at the top of the post.

Photograph 12 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

Again, cropping in further on the most salient part of the frame for me made it clearer what I was trying to convey to the viewer in Photograph 12 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended.

Photograph 13 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

Simply gently cropping to a 5:4 ratio allowed the photograph for me to appear a bit more balanced in Photograph 13 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended.

Photograph 14 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

I had to think a bit harder for Photograph 14 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended about how to crop it to best keep the important elements and simplify the scene more. I found that by using a portrait 4:5 ratio I could accomplish this.

Photograph 15 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

Although cropping in significantly to a 1:1 square ratio prevented the whole of the building being shown in the frame, I thought this was a bearable expense as I could still show the visible wear on the building and the person crossing the doorway was much more visible like this.

Photograph 16 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

For Photograph 16 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended I felt I could only crop in slightly (to a 5:4 aspect ratio) while still maintaining the important elements and preserving the vibrancy evident in the frame.

Photograph 17 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended

Similarly to Photograph 16 – Assignment 5 – Landscape – Amended I only cropped in slightly to a 5:4 ratio because in my eyes most of the frame except for the edges on either side were important.

Overall I feel I produced a good body work for Assignment 5 and had begun to find my own personal voice within the landscape practice which featured including human figures in the landscape settings, thereby adding meaning through observing the indexical relationship between them and the landscape. I was also able to explore issues of impermanence in the landscape which was brought about either by the presence of these temporal figures or their indirect human intervention on the land; leaving traces of their use visible on the landscape photograph. To establish these issues of impermanence I returned at night to photograph all the same scenes as the daytime counterparts with similar composition and framing which in my opinion made this trait more powerful. A lot of my project was built around the idea of a lack of permanence through human presence in the landscape around my area. Although the people were permanent for the duration of the photographs, they were largely transient outside of this and so the landscape as a consequence was transient as well, something I tried to reflect through the use of corresponding day and night shots. Not only did the human presence change but also often the physical use value on the landscape itself changed. I felt the night shots were the obvious way of portraying this change, which otherwise would have been lost on the viewer.

By researching other artists and styles of photography; most notably Stephen Shore’s work: Uncommon Places (1974-79) and then ‘Drift Photography’ – (Luessen, C., 2012), found at: http://arthopper.org/the-flaneur-psychogeography-and-drift-photography/ (accessed on 14/7/2016) respectively, I was able to draw upon some of their techniques which helped me to overcome some of the problems I’d been having with the project. The main problem included photographing the banality of suburban areas effectively. The way I overcame this included the use of colour in landscape photography and the signs of wear and physical use present in often overlooked elements of land features and how this can affect how we view the values of an area. In fact, I found this enabled me to photograph the less suburban (and so less banal to my eyes) parts of my local area more incisively in terms of human presence, either direct or indirect, inducing meaning on the photograph.

I found by looking at the landscape in a new way; through signs of physical use and impermanence rather than just what looked most picturesque, my visual observational skills improved a lot. I noticed the way the land was utilised by humans more and what effect this had on the landscape and then I had to use my awareness skills to draw attention to these factors through composition and the placement of people in the frame effectively to suggest use of their surrounding landscape. My techniques ranged from handheld to tripod use and I discovered shooting handheld allowed for much more spontaneity for including people in the frame in the daytime shots. With the nighttime photographs in contrast I reverted somewhat necessarily back to a more deliberate approach of tripod use.

I felt the presentation of the project was of a good quality with interactive maps on the website but I felt the overall creativity was lacking a bit. The approaches taken to arrive at the eventual photographs were appropriate in my mind with good sources of inspiration. However, there wasn’t too much variety within individual photographs compared to the creativity for the themes of the project. On the other hand this made the project consistent and more obvious to the viewer the themes in play. Lastly, I did indeed feel I discovered something more about myself through these landscape photographs and I would suggest my target audience of people living in the area might also.

References:

Luessen, C. (2012). The Flâneur, Psychogeography and Drift Photography. [online] ArtHopper. Available at: http://arthopper.org/the-flaneur-psychogeography-and-drift-photography/ [Accessed 15 Aug. 2016].

Landscape for me is a journey not only through the land but also self. Through my observations on other people’s transience in the landscape as well as their intervention upon it, I feel I am able to portray a realistic interpretation of the landscape before me. In doing so I find out more about myself in the process. By photographing this, I am creating slices of the world around me which my audience and I can later look at for the duration of the photographs’ life.

Recently I have been discovering the immediate landscape around me in order to gain further insight into my local area. Because it is my interpretation of my surroundings, my audience learns something about me and so provides an accompaniment to this Artist’s statement!

I am currently a student with the Open College of Arts and as I progress with my studies I am becoming aware of the importance people and their intervention on the landscape can have to my photography’s meaningfulness.

This was quite a busy photograph portraying the transition from more suburban areas into the more commercial and then central part of the area. I felt the people in the photograph took centre stage here though, despite the attention to the eye of all the other components of the photograph. The variety of people passing by the camera were the main factors of impermanence in this photograph but there was also the subtle (because it was in shadow) inclusion of a plastic carrier bag in the frame. This added a reflection of how gritty this part of my local area used to be and perhaps (because it was in shadow) how things were changing with all the different people in sunlight. It would probably also not be apparent when I returned for the night version of the shot as well. The buildings in the distance added further credence to this observation with further developments on the horizon.

Photograph 17 – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 17 – Assignment 5 were:

f/8, 1/400s, ISO 100, focal length 34mm. Handheld.

Photograph 17b – Assignment 5

The plastic carrier bag had indeed blown away in the wind or been removed from the scene since the daytime shot had been taken. Also, more notably, the use of the road had now changed from being a way of getting to and from the shopping centre nearby by foot as well as vehicle (mainly bus) to almost exclusively a conduit for traffic to get home as represented in the car trails in this long exposure night photograph.

Camera settings for Photograph 17b – Assignment 5 were:

f/16, 15 seconds, ISO 100, focal length 35mm. A tripod and cable release were used.

This was a little snippet of the backstreets of the shopping centre but it offered a clue as to why I saw fit to photograph it: there was signs that a ‘Street Feast’ took place from time to time in the vicinity on the opposite side of the road. I included a person walking in the frame to draw further attention to these buildings and signs of physical use value. However, it could also be inferred from the photograph that the person way on their way to the shopping centre. Also evident was a tall structure in the distance which I felt added some context to the scene; anybody quire familiar with the area would probably recognise the structure and so this feature of the landscape being present in the frame fit my target audience well. The street itself was pretty colourful for a shopping centre’s backstreet and I felt it offered an insight into the personality of the area and what might take place later during certain days…

Photograph 16 – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 16 – Assignment 5 were:

f/8, 1/800s, ISO 100, focal length 48mm. Handheld.

Photograph 16b – Assignment 5 was actually probably the only shot where there were more notable features in the landscape which corresponded with Photograph 16 – Assignment 5 to make it arguably more interesting and characterful than its daytime counterpart! I had a good idea this would be the case and arrived at a time when this vibrancy was most obvious. This was when the ‘Street Feast’ actually took place, and the entrance to the vicinity for the ‘Street Feast’ was full of people milling to get in. The tall structure was also lit up at night adding extra interest to this already vibrant scene in comparison to the daytime photograph. Lastly, there was the human intervention of bikes now lined up outside the entrance to the ‘Street Feast’, presumably those of ‘Street Feast’ goers, which had been lacking also in the daytime shot.

Photograph 16b – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 16b – Assignment 5 were:

f/13, 25 seconds, ISO 100, focal length 46mm. A tripod and cable release were used.

With Photograph 15 – Assignment 5 as opposed to the previous photograph the main subject actually was the building. I had frequented this building before in the past so for me it really was a trace of a previous time as the building was obviously in disuse now. Interestingly, the door from the construction hoardings to the building was left open suggesting maybe there was work going on to rejuvenate the building into something else. I managed to frame a person walking right in front of the door frame to draw attention to this part of the building/hoarding. The building itself I found very interesting with much signs of wear and use over time.

Photograph 15 – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 15 – Assignment 5 were:

f/3.5, 1/3200s, ISO 100, focal length 24mm. Handheld.

Photograph 15b – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 15b – Assignment 5 were:

f/13, 7.6 seconds, ISO 100, focal length 24mm. A tripod and cable release were used.

There were three elements of impermanence on display in this photograph for me; physical objects which inevitably change in time. The first was the person across the street, the second being the shopping trolley which somebody had left on the pavement and finally, less obviously the advertisements on the billboard to the left. The photograph as a whole was also comprised of the orange/red buildings which I felt could be mistaken as the sole subject of the photograph but I saw the the objects in front of this building as more interesting, something I might not have seen before.

Photograph 14 – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 14 – Assignment 5 were:

f/9, 1/200, ISO 160, focal length 24mm. Handheld.

When I returned for the corresponding night shot all three of the variables I had highlighted had indeed changed, once again showing the impermanence of the landscape which sometimes seemed to change very little in the time I’d lived there.

Photograph 14b – Assignment 5

Camera settings for Photograph 14b – Assignment 5 were:

f/11, 15 seconds, ISO 100, focal length 24mm. A tripod and cable release were used.