COMMISSION UNIT : SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT LANDSCAPE/THE CITY and WASTE

CONOR GALLOWAY

INTRODUCTION LANDSCAPE
A savaged planet devoid of life and stripped of essential resources; this is our future. The truth is that long after we have wiped ourselves out nature we make a slow painful comeback. The old chalk pit resembles a lunar apocalyptic landscape in the midst of beautiful countryside and is evidence of this possible future; humans have devastated an area of extreme beauty, and now as nature slowly begins to come back, plan to destroy it permanently with the development of housing.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT: THE PIT

Used the picturesque and English rural countryside I live in as both a focus and a starting point, originally wanted to detail small and large details of mans presence in landscape. Listed locations in local area to visit. Visited abandoned chalk quarry in my village and was overwhelmed by its beauty, in awe of juxtaposition of beautiful countryside and savaged land, hidden from view. Decided to concentrate on capturing this one site as I felt it was powerful enough to explore further. Through research my concept developed further into examining the impact of human assault on developing the traditional English countryside, highlighting the change of our industry, the power of nature and whether we should let nature keep these once savaged beautiful areas. I wanted viewers to recognise the otherworldly landscape as a warning for a possible future and to raise a debate.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

Researched forgotten industrial past of area and visited other brownfield sites in local area marked for development as well as general references to the English countryside under threat from development.

My artist research focused on photographers who had captured epic expansive landscapes in interesting and unique ways. Of particular inspiration and importance was Edward Burtynsky, Jem Southam, Fay Goodwin and Sophie Ristelhueber before Ori Gersht and the Romantic painters Turner and Martin were highlighted to me as I was keen on discussing ideas of the 'apocalyptic sublime.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

ORI GERSHT AND ROMANTIC PAINTERS TURNER AND MARTIN

Gersht and the Romantic painters were of important inspiration in waiting for dramatic weather conditions to light the pit in interesting ways, bring drama and highlight the English countryside under threat.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES JEM SOUTHAM AND SOPHIE RISTELHUEBER

Southam (left) influential for his beautiful softly lit and sombre images that were slightly cold.

Ristelhueber (right) for her survey of violence in landscapes to get across a point.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES EDWARD BURTYNSKY AND FAY GOODWIN

Burtynsky (right) influential for his use of innovative techniques, huge detailed prints and creating a beautifying industrial sublime to entrance a viewer and get across his disgust at the violence humans are inflicting on the landscape

Goodwin (left) was influential for her reference to traditional Romantic paintings in the creation of poetic surveys of the British landscape with a hint of drama in carefully considered images.

FINAL IMAGES

Like the emphasis on scale and disturbed land raises question whether such a landscape could be deemed beautiful. Well framed. I like the difference between heavily disturbed land at the forefront of the image and the more flat land below. However, slightly green cast and the sky too white, slight out of focus on right edge due to such small aperture.

FINAL IMAGES

Never planned to use blue sky in my work, but with countryside in background works in causing viewer confliction. Land is far more barren and disturbed in this image, the inclusion of countryside in the distance allows the viewer to be aware that this actually a man-altered landscape. I do wish the sky had more depth to it in order to make image more dramatic and light disturbed land more interestingly.

FINAL IMAGES

I really liked this area of the quarry but I don't think I photographed it well , the weather conditions unfortunately makes the image appear flat and brings out too much colour in the vegetation, however, this emphasises the inhospitability of the scape. Works well as a variation in the series. The inclusion of the vehicle tracks going into the distance brings attention to the fact that this land is not natural but altered by man.

 I investigated my concept deeply over numerous months and visited the quarry countless number of times; a lot of effort was put into making the project work. Absence of dramatic sky means images not as successful as they could have been. The prints themselves are not perfect, detail is incredible but lack perfect exposure and aperture. The images work best in capturing the scale of the site rather than close up images of the chalk cliff faces. I decided against re-shooting and re-printing the images larger because of lack of weather conditions and justification of cost and effort. I feel the images do portray to the viewer some idea of the concept; they raise questions of whether a man-altered landscape like this can be deemed beautiful although it has been savaged. When taking into consideration how I had gone from limited knowledge of photography to printing in a small amount of time, I am happy. I am deeply satisfied that I used large-format for the production of the work; it has connected me to my references and highlighted every detail of the quarry.

SELF-EVALUATION

INTRODUCTION THE CITY

'The City is a creature, alive through the hustle and bustle, the sounds, and constant movement of light and traffic. It is unforgiving, ruthless; but also intoxicating.'

CONCEPT: METROPOLIS
I have always been fascinated by the modern city, enjoying the feeling of being lost and dwarfed and capturing this in a creative way through in-camera experimentation.
As a reaction against restrictions, my aim was to be experimental and liberated creatively, producing unique work that sets me apart creatively from the rest of the year in response to this part of the unit pushing for our work to be more conceptual. My intention was to visualise the sounds, movements and textures; the life of the city. Interrogating how the image appears through the viewfinder, I focused on an abstract aesthetic and creatively experimented across London with camera position, aperture and multiple exposure; distorting angles of buildings and skyscrapers to produce patterns with a focus on geometrics, unusual shapes and colours. I wasn't interested in defining London and only used this location because of my easy access to the city. I wanted my viewer to imagine themselves situated within an 'unknown' metropolis and enjoy the feeling of being lost.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

I knew quite early on what type of work I wished to produce with this project and used my own images from my time in Bangkok and Singapore in the Summer as initial references and for a starting point. Not much in-depth research needed to be done as I wasn't investigating a defined concept. I wanted more emphasis on the freedom of creative and image-making produced. My research was solely investigating visual references, split into two - photographic references for the moment of imagemaking and art movement references for when it came to actually printing the images.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

My references for how I wished to compose the images in-frame were a focus on those who documented the urban landscape in unique ways with sites void of physical human presence, using innovative camera processes and an understanding of handling the camera to achieve this. RUT BLEES LUXEMBURG

Luxemburg was a major influence to me in how she manages to find beauty in the most ordinary corners of the nocturnal urban landscape, with considered choice of long exposure and camera position.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

VERA LUTTER AND RAY K. METZKER
I was fascinated how Lutter strips down the camera to its basic processes and uses this creatively to achieve what she wants with a more objective visualisation of the urban space through exploration.

Metzers exploration of the rhythms, textures and human drama of urban existence through visual kinetic patterns, mosaic grids and double framed images with a focus on darkroom experimentation was particularly representative of what I wanted to achieve.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

Of particular inspiration has also been the art movements of Dadaism, Cubism, Collage, Photomontage, Avant-Garde, Abstract Expressionism and Post-Modernism for a considered emphasis on printing the images.

(L-R) Gordon-Matta Clark, Franz Marc and Jerry Uelsmann

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

Robert Rauschenberg

Paul Citroen

Pablo Picasso

FINAL IMAGES FROM FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

In preparation for the interim review I digitally printed three of the negatives from my first shoot session across London, playing with contrast with a hope that the images would look that way once printed in the darkroom. I chose the initial images for their sense of scale which increase feelings of insignificance. What made the work so interesting was not just the multiple-exposure use and emphasis on geometry but how the contrast helped unlock the layers of the negative which allowed the viewer to truly get lost in the image. I felt misleaded in the project as I thought the contrast would be easy to get with darkroom practice, when in fact I needed more educated and professional advice on specialist film and paper before shooting and printing.

My results from the second session of shooting were much more interesting than from the first ; I decided to focus on printing images that were truly abstract with hints of high-rise architecture that caused interlocking shapes. I simply printed as I normally would in the darkroom due to lack of time and printed as large as I possibly could afford (12"x16") to further encourage the viewer to become 'lost in the city'.

FINAL IMAGES

FINAL IMAGES

FINAL IMAGES

 Ambition versus time has prevented me from realising the full potential of this concept. I wish I could have experimented as much as I wanted in the darkroom, but I underestimated my new workload for the semester.
The last of three images doesn't really fit in because the multiple exposed elements are not as bold as the previous two. I've kept to my aim to keep this project as organic, fresh and experimental. I haven't managed to truly deliver the prints I wanted but the speed of which the project is evolving by itself is far more encouraging and exciting. I like the similar colours that link all the images and makes them appear part of the same series. Through the very abstract imagery and idea I feel that my desire to visualise the movement and life within the city can be seen. The final images to appear more 'creatively handled' and less pristine compared to the ones presented in December, something I wanted to achieve.

SELF-EVALUATION

INTRODUCTION WASTE

'No matter how much we try to dismiss it, we'll all end up as ash and dust.'

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT: THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH

Simple imagery of dust collected over-time from my home details the beauty in death and reflects 'life's absolute truth'; no matter how much we try to dismiss it, we'll all end up as dust. Focus on issues of indexicality in photography and presented in an archaeological like format, the work details delicate traces of human existence as if it were a found fossil; from hairs to tiny plastics to food, the work highlights our interconnectivity with the waste we produce. The dust appears at times to take on an appearance of an expansive desert-like landscape captured from above, or the swirling chaotic gasses of far away supernova, all the while detailing what we unknowingly leave behind. I struggled on a concrete idea. Starting with an idea to use dust in some format, I dismissed this before returning to it. I became fixated on thoughts of what happens when we are gone? I was still inspired to play with this idea of human presence through subtle traces. Ideas of burial and experiments in the nature of the photograph were the focus with an aim to produce quite an abstract series of images that played on notions of beauty and poetry with typically unpretty source matter.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

I knew from the onset I would be using the still-life genre and really wanted this project to remain quite simple in it's production. I began with an early fascination with burial, archaeology, fossils and microscopic imagery and wanted to reference this in the actual imagery; in the case of the dust it appears almost like the documentation of an archaeological site, albeit on a very small scale, as such objectivity of the image was very important to its success.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

Practitioner research was vital of which I split into three separate parts: Artists/Photographers whose work is concerned with waste Artists/Photographers who work is concerned with death and decay Photographers concerned with alternative photographic techniques (important as at the time I planned to focus on taking further the burial experiments I had conducted)

Chris Jordan's documentation of the crisis at Midway Atoll: his simple, objective straight down presentation of a powerful subject matter.

Kevin Newark's 'Protoplasm' (2005-2006) series that beautifies a typically ugly object in a serene environment: wasted plastic bags

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

David Maisel's 'Library of Dust' (2005-2007) for it's documentation of how life can thrive from death and our own interconnectivity with nature.

Sally Mann's 'What remains' series (mid 2000s) and in particular 'The Body Farm' for the powerful subject matter depicted from an objective, haunting stance, as well as the softness/flatness and warmth to the images and the range of beautiful tones in the black and white imagery.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL REFERENCES

What was equally as important as the subject captured was its presentation, something which came with my research. Mann was a key influence in my decision to use black-and-white and go for an alternative warm-tone paper to print on as I almost wanted to create a pastiche of her work; I also wanted there to be a silence to my work and for viewer to be taken in by the detail of the work highlighted by its warmth. I felt that for there to be intimacy between the viewer and the work, a small print with a significant border would work best at keeping the detail of the work as well as that connection. Detail and texture were very important to me and I felt that a non-glossy paper would bring these out; I wanted my work to be representative of fine-art rather than editorial/commercial pieces.

I became focused on creating a four-dimensional piece of work (a piece of work discussing waste, of waste, created in waste and presented as waste) and started the project by burying a few negatives (both blank and with an image) as well as a print. They needed development but what worked best were the negatives in which an image could just about be seen behind the scars.

INITIAL EXPERIMENTS

TEST SHOTS
I decided to focus upon burial/decomposition and capturing a relevant subject matter in an artificially created unearthed environment (a cardboard box filled with 30 litres of compost and natural debris), for the negatives to be then buried. I captured objects that suggested human presence and maggots to suggest decay and disturbed ground before capturing dust and waste from the River. I decided to shoot outside under a lightly cloudy sky to act as a giant softbox because I wanted there to be this even flatness across the image. I initially decided against shooting the artificial burial site because I felt like it was impossible for the viewer to realise what they were viewing, and later decided against shooting the waste plastics because I wanted more meaning to my work.

FINAL PRINTS
I shot from directly above as a reference to my research and allow the viewer to examine the dust from an objective stance. To make for a interesting and non-repetitive series I chose images that were representative of all the different arrangements ; images filled with movement and images that represented almost archaeological sites or barren landscapes.

SELF-EVALUATION
Both my research and time-management was a lot better compared with the first part of the commission unit,; my understanding of the importance of sequence and ability to print has greatly improved.

Greater understanding of the power of presentation and representation and how this can influence a reaction from a viewer.
My work has become more complex, referencing universal ideas, styles and disciplines beyond photography as well as a greater understanding of the complex nature of photography. Although the prints themselves are not perfect and should be shot again, my foresight and consideration of how to present the work improves their quality. I shouldn't shy away from the difficulties that producing good work can bring, such as working in the studio, and I should take my education at UCA as an opportunity to get as much from it as possible to ready me for the real-working environment.