I have made some notes on the images below:

Derek Trillo, The Cheshire Plain from Beeston Castle and OCA Student, Peter Mansell

These images are taken from an elevated viewpoint such as a building and or a hill for example. Being at this height when taking a photo allows you to see certain things that you wouldn’t see at ground level because of the elements in the foreground would obstruct the view. For example, in the first image you wouldn’t see the form of trees in the circle shape from ground level, you would just see a line. Some in the foreground and some in the back. It’s a similar thing with the skyscrapers, you will see the ones in the foreground but you will struggle to see the ones in the back. From an elevated viewpoint, it allows you to see the 3D aspects of the objects and it shows the scale of the elements.

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John Davies, Agecroft Power Station

The effect of taking this photograph from the elevated viewpoint and from a far distance allows you to see the vast scale of the landscape and how much the power plant takes up, especially in comparison to the football players. If you took the photograph from the ground level, you couldn’t see how far the landscape goes. Even though the ground is relatively flat, other elements would obstruct the view.

In the foreground of this photograph, there is what looks like scrap vehicles, rubbish scattered over the floor and a treeline. Further up, there is a football match taking place in the shadow of the towers. This emphasizes the scale of the power station towers but it does not effect everyday life. The landscape continues all the way up to the horizon so there are very many focus points within this photograph, however, this could only be seen at this elevated viewpoint.

Bernd & Hilla Becher, Water Towers

Bernd and Hilla Becher are known for repetition of subject matter, often in grids. They are usually all the same but slightly different. This encourages the viewer to look more carefully at the differences between the 9 images emphasising the detail.

After reading an article on the Guardian: New Topographics: photographs that find beauty in the banal, I had noticed that all the photographs were produced in black and white which creates a dramatic effect, however, Stephan Shore was the only photographer to exhibit coloured pictures. I had to research what banal meant and the title basically means finding beauty in the ordinary. I pulled a quote from this article that really stood out to me because it is a real shame to see the beautiful natural landscape being destroyed by roads and buildings. It is clear to see this statement is proven to be true as I continued my research.

the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development and the spread of cities.

S, O’Hagan. February 2010

Robert Adams (b. 1937) who took part in the New Topographics project continued to produce subtle, thought-provoking and environmentally aware photographs of natural scenery with urban sprawl. I scrolled through his website and looked at all the photographs that Adams had taken. Accompanying the photographs was paragraphs explaining his thoughts on man-altered landscape. One series that I quite like was 27 Roads, it shows many different kinds of roads from fresh tarmac to dirt back road. It portrays that over time the man-made altercations have become more significant than nature. These photographs could be argued that they are just evidence of the changes made over time, but that may not have been intended by the photographer. I have just chosen 3 from the series.

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Mitch Epstein’s American Power project is a totally different kind of photographic statement in terms of man-altered landscape. The photograph below shows an oil refinery with the American Flag on the side of it. This is a massive man-made altercation to the natural landscape and America had to make it clear that this huge change was all on them.

I feel my research here has influenced my own choice of subject within photography for the future because you need to be cautious about whats within the frame of your photograph. I usually try to avoid getting houses and telegraph lines in the frame when taking a photo of the beautiful sunset. It’s difficult to show the natural landscapes content because each element obscures whatever is behind it. This is more so now than in past times because of the mass industrial development.

For this exercise, it asked me to review my holiday photos and try to remember my motivation for taking them. Also, to what extent did I consider the composition, viewpoint or lighting? I will pick out the ones that are more than just a record of place, images that take you back to your past.

I have so many photographs so I have selected quite a few. Some photos are took spontaneously and I go a little wild when I see something that I like. For example, funky building designs, colourful shops, everyday life but the different culture. Other photos are taken with care, to capture a moment, people we visited or things that are a once in a lifetime thing. moments like these are where I considered the lighting, viewpoint and composition.

Everyone always told me in school, I have a good hand-eye co-ordination and a good eye for photography. I always used to take photos on my phone until my Nan bought me a Sony A58 DSLR and I took so many more artistic photos. I even entered some of my photos into a competition and came 2nd place.

Back to the exercise, the main reason we take photos is because we want to capture moments in our life that are significant but also to show others the beautiful scenery. For example, I went on holiday to Amsterdam and took a variety of photos from the coffeeshops to the canals. The main photos I took was of the buildings because they are all so beautiful. Obviously most of these images look better in the daylight and I wanted to make sure the sunlight didn’t make a glare on my camera.

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The image below is from when we went to Scotland in our camper-van. I took this photo because of the amazing scenery but it also shows the scale of the mountain.

This photograph below was taken on my iPhone 7+ in Glencoe, Scotland. I remember taking this photo because I find nature very soothing, calming and it’s beautiful to look at. I was pleased with how this image came out as you can see so much detail. Further towards the back of the image is blurry creating the depth of field.

The next photograph is one that takes me back to when my family and I went to a festival together. The motivation for taking this photo was purely because we wanted to keep the memory alive. Capturing the moment.

I think that you could say that if no thought has gone into taking the photo then it could devalue it. But you have to put even a little thought into taking it otherwise why would you do it? I believe that the best quality photographs come from proper equipment like a DSLR for example. I still like to take photos on my camera and poloroid because they’re nice and vintage and its nice to have physical copies.

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.