Malcolm Andrews was an Australian author born 1944. He wrote a book called Landscape and Western Art in 1999. I read a couple pages of it and picked out some quotes that made sense.

• Landscape is often viewed as the “raw material waiting to be processed by an artist”
• “land into landscape; landscape into art”

Space, placement and depth in images are shown by juxtaposition and perspective. Placing small objects closer to the camera can balance the composition with objects further away. Ive been asked to look at Ian Berry‘s images of Whitby in North Yorkshire. Imagine the same images without the people, how would this affect your sense of Whitby as a place?

Looking at these photos, Whitby looks like a nice holiday town that families visit for a day on the beach. However, if you picture the images without the people, it just becomes a landscape. Almost abandoned-like rather than a tourist spot. Naturally, the eye would be drawn to the houses, buildings and the ruins.

What is the effect of an absence of familiar subjects in Rene Burri’s Sao Paolo, 1960?

By placing the people on top of the building, it emphasizes the scale of it. If you remove the people, you will still notice the scale because of the cars in the background but it wont be as effective.

Is the photography simply providing an authentic record of the artwork – photography as evidence – or is it part of the artwork itself?

I think it is down to context when answering this question. Although, all photographs are art because each one is unique and no two can be the same. You can say that a single photograph wouldn’t be considered art whereas a series of photographs along with titles in a gallery or a photo album would be. For example in the previous exercise, Keith Arnatt took a series of photographs of him slowly being buried. One single image would be slightly confusing without any context but when placed together, it can be understood.

Photography is a necessity when it comes to land art, purely for documentation reasons. The photograph of the artwork is considered the art itself to the viewers who have never seen it. Some may say that the photographs are just evidence that the artwork ever existed, but could the same question be asked about all artworks that no longer exist?

Notes on Curators Talk ‘Richard Long: Heaven and Earth‘ by Clarrie Wallis:

https://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/richard-long-curators-talk [accessed 20/02/20]

mentions one of his first works, ‘Snowball Track’.

“he mainly works in the landscape but sometimes takes it into the gallery”

“Long never makes significant altercations to the landscape through which he passes. Instead, he adjusts the natural placement of rocks or vegetation .”

‘The forms of his sculptures are simple and straightforward; the line, the cross, the circle and the spiral “

“he uses only the earths natural raw materials”

Aleksandra Mir – https://www.aleksandramir.info/projects/first-woman-on-the-moon/ [accessed 20/02/20]

In comparison to Richard Long, she has used large machinery to move the earth materials in order to create a giant lunar landscape.

However, they both have to use photography as a way of documenting their land art otherwise there would be no way of proving it ever existed.

Keith Arnatt – Self-Burial (Television Interference Project) 1969

This particular piece involves sequence photography, each frame shows Arnatt slowly disappearing into the ground. Photography plays an important role in this piece because if you see one photograph by itself then it would be hard to understand but with them all together as a sequence, it’s clear to see what the intentions are.

Self Burial (Television Interference Project) 1969. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arnatt-self-burial-television-interference-project-t01747 [accessed 20/02/20]

Documenting photography are photographs about something rather than of something. Paul Graham’s spent 2 years completing the A1 project, it is a series of photographs documenting a ‘road trip’ down the A1 that portrays the life and landscape.

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Although these photographs could be considered art by themselves because of the pretty landscapes etc, however, they are better together. You can see the journey through the series of photographs. I guess you could say the photographs explore the theme of time because the sky in some photos look darker than other which implies time has passed through the day.

Reading through pages 98 and 99 in Place ‘Room Four: Myth/History‘, it mentions the artist Rodney Graham who produced a series of photographs in tribute to Kurt Cobain completed in 2000.

Photography and Land Art

Photography has a special relationship with art forms that are transient, ones that can only ever be temporary such as land art or performance art. Land art developed in the late 1960s America, the landscape became the artwork but photography was the only way they could survive.

Can’t access Hamish Fulton’s website. www.hamish-fulton.com/hamish_fulton_v01.htm

Sir Richard Julian Long is an English sculptor, born June 1945. He is one of the best known land artists and he won an award for White Water Line in 1989. One of his artworks that caught my eye was ‘A Snowball Track’, he completed it in Bristol 1964. The piece consists of snow on a field with a long snowball track and footprints. I found and article in the Guardian by Sean O’Hagan in May 2009 about this piece, he mentions something that stood out to me. “Pure and simple. And, in its purity and simplicity, it denoted all that would follow.” I believe this statement is correct because as proven his most recent works are ‘pure and simple’ but thats what makes it unique to Long.

Photographs are a significant part of our lives because it shows us the memories of our pasts. When my family talk about our pasts, it’s good to have visuals. I have never met my grandad on my mothers side but she always shows me photos of him so it allowed me to look into her past. Everyone wants to keep those precious memories tight in our possession, photos that people would most likely save from a house fire.

Is flicking through images on someones phone or digital photo frame as potent as looking through an album or sorting through a box of photos? Or is it better?

I believe it doesn’t matter whether you’re looking through a box of photos or through someones phone, it all has the same effect. It brings back feelings of nostalgia. Obviously, its much better to hold a photo in your hand but I believe it doesn’t change the effect. Before the digital revolution came around, you had to get your photographs printed to see them so you wouldn’t know if the image would be blurry or not. I guess thats one disadvantage of digital revolution, photos aren’t as natural anymore because if one is taken but it isn’t right, they delete it and retake.

• Does the mechanical nature of photography make it a medium uniquely suited to portraying time and the passage of time?

I would agree with this question because photography does capture time , a certain time/event in life and it can even capture the passage of time. For example, although the time lapse feature on the iPhone is a video, it still captures the passing of time. However, you can get a photo of the passing of time using the shutter speed setting on a camera. The photo below is made using high speed photography. I did have a time lapse video of us travelling through the mountains in Spain but the video wont upload so I got a snapshot of it instead.

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• Can other creative forms deal with the concept of time to the same extent?

The only thing I can think of to answer this question is a piece of art portraying decay. I remember researching Damien Hurst in school and one of his artworks portrays the passing of time through decay. The Physical Impossible of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This image shows the shark in the tank, another image shows the shark ageing over time.

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Derek Trillo – Passing Place, Manchester, 2006 – this image consists of two people passing each other on a staircase, one is going down and the other is going up. The people are black figures and the silhouette is blurry and we can see their legs moving suggesting they are in motion. The background is very colourful, could possibly be LED screens.

Harold Edgerton – Bullet and Apple, c.1964 – this image consists of an apple resting on top of a bullet shell with another bullet being shot through the middle of it against a blue background. The entry and exit points of the bullet look like mini explosions emphasising the damage done. This image is very fascinating as it had captured it at the correct moment in time the bullet went through the apple. The human eye would not be able see clear because the bullet travels too fast. This links back to my previous exercises.

Harold Edgerton – Multiflash tennis serve, 1949 – this image is a tricky one to describe compared to the first two. The background of the image is black, there is a blurry white figure in the centre that seems to be playing tennis. The action suggests the figure is hitting the tennis ball. It looks like a strobe light could have been used to capture the sport.

Jacques-Henri Lartigue – Cousin Bichonnade in Flight, 1905 – this is a black and white image that consists of a woman wearing a long skirt and black shirt jumping down a stone staircase. She looks as though she is hovering above the staircase. Lartigue was 9 years old when he took this shot, I can imagine how excited he was to see this image develop back then.

These are images that I have taken myself. The first image is my partner and I walking through the shopping centre. You can see we are in motion as the image is blurry and you can see our legs kick out. The second image is a fire we had one night, it shows the red timbers flying away when the wood cracks. The capture has caught them moving so they look like lines. The third image is my friend drawing in the air with a sparkler, this is interesting because the shape is so clear.

I was given the task to flick through a photo album and pick out any photos that are considered “artistic”. It is hard to pick out photos that are considered art because I believe that any photograph can be considered art as no two photos are the same even if the the subject matter is the same. There are a few different photos that I have found that I would consider art in their own ways. See my chosen images below.

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The first image is a photograph of my friend and I at our prom night. I believe this photo can be considered art because it has captured a very significant moment that wont happen again. The next two images are photos taken of the sky in different places and different times. This can be seen as art because nature is beautiful and deserves to be captured. The final image is a photo of some street art that I saw in Norwich. This is art because it takes skills to be able to paint like this but also it sends a nice message to its viewers.

The next task was optional but I decided I would give it a go. I was asked to take some shots in my neighbourhood that were purely ‘utilitarian’. I had to find the definition before I went out so I knew what I was looking for. Basically it means something that is designed to be useful rather than attractive. Then try to produce a photo that is more ‘arty’. The first two photos I took mainly showed what my village looked like, for example, the first image is the beginning of Station Road. The second image is a patch of green that is used for kids to play on. The next two photos showed the beautiful buildings that could be considered art and the final image of the sky is taken from my back garden which i have included because it is beautiful.

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