Visual Recording

Natural/Constructed Photographer Research

Ansel Adams - Natural

Ansel Adams was a dedicated artist-activist, playing a seminal role in the growth of an environmental consciousness in the U.S and the development of a citizen environmental movement. Adams did this through his commitment to the Sierra Club and his signature black and white photographs of natural parks. 

Ansel Adams- 1902-1984

Adams' main inspiration was the Yosemite national park in Sierra Nevada, California. Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916, three months before the founding of the National Park Service. In 1919, aged 17, he first became apart of the Sierra Club when he took a job as custodian of the club's Leconte Memorial Lodge, the club headquarters in Yosemite National Park. 

In 192 Adams participated in the club's annual photography trip up the Yosemite mountains. This trip was known as the "High Trip". In 1928 Adams became the club's official trip photographer. In 1930 he became the assistant manager of the outings.

Adams' role in the Sierra Club grew very quickly and the club became a vital aspect to his early success as a photographer.

Alongside being the club's official photographer, he was also involved in the politics of the club. Adams often suggested proposals for improving parks and wilderness, because of this, he soon became known for being both an artist and a defender of Yosemite.

Ansel Adams' photograph of the Yosemite National Park

In 1934 Adams was elected as a member of the board directors of the Sierra Club; he maintained this role for 37 years. Adams' tenure spanned the years that the club became a powerful national organisation that lobbied to create national parks and protect the environment from destructive development projects.

The first time Adams' photographs were used for environmental purposes were when the Sierra Club were seeking the creation of a national park in the Kings river region of the Sierra Nevada. Adams lobbied congress using a book  of his photographs called "Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail". This book influenced both interior secretary Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt to embrace the Kings Canyon Park idea. As a result the park was created in 1940.

In 1968 Adams was awarded the conservation service award, the interior department's highest honour. In 1980 Adams received the presidential Medal of Freedom.

Ansel Adams was often criticised for not including human in his photographs and for representing an idealised wilderness that no longer existed. However, it is mainly thanks to Adams that these pristine areas have been protected for years to come.

Andreas Gursky - Constructed

Andreas Gursky in a German artist known for his large format architecture and landscape colour photographs that explore and reflect the effect of capitalism and globalisation on contemporary life.

Andreas Gursky - Born January 15th 1955

Gursky finds inspiration from a wide range of sources which he then researches at great lengths before he shoots his final photograph. Gursky then often chooses to digitally alter his photograph before printing the final product. 

Before the 1990's, Gursky did not digitally manipulate his images but in the years since the 1990's, Gursky has been up front about his reliance on computers to edit and enhance his pictures. Digitally enhancing the photographs often creates an art of space larger that the subjects of the photographs.

Gursky's most famous digitally manipulated photograph is "The Rhine II". This large colour photograph depicts a stretch of the river Rhine outside Dusseldorf. What is obvious in the image is that it is a view of a straight stretch of water, but it is the abstract configuration of horizontal bands of colour of varying width that makes his image famous.

Gursky's aim in using digital technology is not to create fictions but rather heighten the image of something that exists in the world.

The Rhine II

The Rhine II

The Rhine II has been named as the most expensive photograph as it sold for $4.3m at Christie's, New York.

The horizon line bisects the image almost exactly in the middle. Above that the sky is an overcast blue/grey colour. In the bottom half of the image the river is a glassy, unbroken band between green stripes of grass. At the bottom of the picture there is a narrow footpath and below that there is another band of green grass.

Gursky digitally erased buildings on the far side of the river. This manipulation enhances the image visually. Rather than a sense of place, the picture conveys an almost platonic ideal of a body of water traversing as landscape.

The scale, attention to detail and colour and form of Gursky's photography could be read as a deliberate challenge to paintings's status as a higher art form. On top of that, Gursky's images are extraordinary technical accomplishments which take months to set up in advance and require a lot of digital doctoring to get just right.

My best Natural/Constructed photographs

Natural

 This is my favourite photograph from the shoot because the aperture settings allow for there to be a shallow depth of field and so the all attention is on the flower whilst still being able to see the location of the flowers due to the life ring in the background. I also love the bee on the flower. 

I chose this photograph as one of my best ones because of the detail of the spider web in the photograph. 

I chose this photograph as one of my best because of the beautiful textures of the woodwork and paintwork.

I chose this photograph as one of my best because the composition is really good. This is because everything is symmetrical and also because of the way the light is captured in the raindrops.

The Scream - Edvard Munch

My first impressions of this painting is that it is quite manic and also somewhat disturbing. It seems as if the person that is screaming is trapped inside itself. The painting is disturbing because the person is neither a man or a woman which makes it the unknown which is always quite disturbing. The effects of the painting make it seem as if everything around this person is moving around really quickly but this person can't move because they are trapped.

"The scene of The Scream was based on a real, actual place located on the hill of Ekeberg, Norway, on a path with a safety railing. The faint city and landscape represent the view of Oslo and the Oslo Fjord. At the bottom of the Ekeburg hill was he madhouse where Edvard Munch's sister was kept, and nearby was also a slaughterhouse. Some accounts describe that in those times you could actually hear the cries of animals being killed, as well as the cries of the mentally disturbed patients in the distance. In this setting, Edvard Munch was likely inspired by the screams that he actually heard in the area, combined with his personal inner turmoil. Edvard Munch wrote in his diary that his inspiration for The Scream came from a memory of when he was walking at sunset with two friends, when he began to feel deeply tired. He stopped to rest, leaning against the railing. He felt anxious and experienced a scream that seemed to pass through all of nature."

Taken from: http://totallyhistory.com/the-scream/

I attempted to recreate the image of The Scream, obviously it doesn't have the same emotions and effects on the viewer as the painting did but the same concept is there. 

My imitation of The Scream is somewhat similar to the original because the the people in he background are a lot smaller than the screamer at the front of the image and the railing is also at a one point perspective.

One-Point Perspective

One-point perspective is where all the parallel lines meet a single point on the horizon. With one point perspective you have to establish the flat side of the object and then make all the receding lines meet at the single vanishing point.