Comission: Further Research

Today i talked with a man called Steve Baker, who is the head of Recycling and Waste Management for Medway Council. I spoke with him about my project, and he informed me that since the start of thie recycling programme, 47 "Bring Sites" have been installed around medway to help incourage people to recycle more and more, as well as places for household recycling. Looking through the website and at where these points are, i have a good idea of the ones i want to visit, and am going to go location hunting during this week. Also, i spoke about the possibility of me meeting with members of the council and works who deal with this project, and taking their pictures for my work. I now have his email address and intend to keep in contact with him about how my project is going to see if he can possibly find any use for this work within the council.

Fashion Constructed Image: Casting

So yesterday, i started doing some proper casting. As a group we had a few people in mind for the shoot, but we decided to branch out and ask alot more people before coming to a final desicion. Finding people who were willing to actually be involved with the shoot was hard, so in the end we only found 11 people who were up for it, most of whom we didnt think were right for the role.

Environment: Critical Appraisal Resubmission

My idea evolved throughout this entire project. I started looking at how much of the environment we use, wether it be land or resources. I looked at photographers who focused on the environment, such as Edward Burtynsky, and his work around the industrial parts of China. Since then with my reshoot, ive started looking not at just how much we use, but also how much we waste, and the disregard there is for the environment, especially in more industrial places. This idea took me to the island of Sheppy, which is full of factories and business that flood the air with gasses on a daily basis. I went around the smaller companies, and the lands around their factories to see the state in which they were kept, and was shocked to see how little they care about the immediate environment.

My final images were all taken in the small town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppy. I shot on medium format, as i wanted to capture as much detail in the surroundings as i could. I would have liked to have shot on large format, but i had to be fairly quick as some of the places i went to werent open to the public. I tried to vary the content of my images, whilst keeping to the theme, and i felt that i have done that quite well. Having to resubmit this project really gave me the opportunity to look into the subject more, and take it alot more seriously.
I plan on contuining this study into the environment beyond this project, as it is a subject that intrigues me.

Some of the things i would like to have done better with this project, is to plan my time and shoots better. I struggled with orginizing shoots and getting out and taking pictures. I would also like to have travelled further afield, and documented a greater variety of this type of waste.

City: Pastiche of Lee Friedlander's "Albuquerque, New Mexico"

For my pastiche, i chose to try and immiate this image by Lee Friedlander. The image shows an almost abandoned cross section, with a dog that looks like it is waiting to cross.

The image was shot on a Leica 35mm camera. For my image, i attempted to try and get the same camera. Unfortunatly due to time constraints, the only camera i had available to me was a Bronica 6x6, so i had to crop my final image in the dark room. Trying to find a location that was similar to this was very difficult. I eventually setteled on a junction in Rochester for the shot.

As this was the only image i needed to take, i didnt make a contact sheet from the film (only 3 of the images came out, 2 of which were full of cars driving past. I tried to catch a break in the traffic, but it was hard as it was on a main road. i started off making a test strip for the image, working at 5 second intivals.

From this, i worked out that that i would need an exposure longer than 20 seconds, so i made another test strip at 20 seconds on Grade 3:

This seemed like a good starting point from which to start working with the grades and creating the high contrast found in Friedlanders image. My next step was to add some Grade 5 to the image to darken the shadows. I realised that in order to get this high contrast look, i would need to drop some of the mid tones in the image, and so made this exposure:

I had dropped alot of the midtones, but there still wasnt enough contrast. I decided to change the first exposure from grade 3 to grade 2 to see what effect it had on the image, and this was the result:

As i was running out of time in the darkroom, i decided to go all out on the image and make an exposure that was guarenteed to increase the contrast: I started by exposing the image at grade 2 for 13seconds, followed by another 22 seconds at grade 5, and this was my final result.

I was happy with this exposure. I realised whilst making this image, that to achieve the same exposure as Friedlander, i would have had to return at a different time of day when the sun was setting and the lighting would have cast more shadows.

Environment: Reshoot

After failing this project, and given the chance to resubmit, i was able to expand my idea of destruction and disregard of the environment. Ive looked at the damaging effect that industry has on the environment. For this, i decided to go to the Isle of Sheppy, which is full of factories and businesses, large and small.

For my shoot, i used a Bronica with a 6x4 back. I chose to use this instead of using the square format because i pefered being able to choose wether my image was portrait or landscape, without having to crop in the darkroom. I used 1 roll of Fujifilm PRO 400h around the small town of Queenborough.

Out of these images, i chose the 3 that i felt worked well together, and also showed this idea of wastefulness and disregard of the environment.






The first image i took was of some fencing around an olf train repair yard. The fence interested me, as in the middle of it was a small tree that had been built into the supports of the fencing. It seemed interesting that this fence was reliant on the tree as support, yet the company had no regard for the environment. Also, the aliminium sheets that made up the fence reminded me of a city skyline.

I started off making a test strip to find the correct exposure:

From this, i worked out that a good exposure time would be inbetween 5 and 10 seconds (closer to 10) so i did another test strip for 8 seconds, and came up with this exposure.

To reduce the amount of blue in the image, i reduced both the yellow and magenta. I meant to reduce them both by 10, but i accidentally reduced them both to 50. Luckily, this turned out to be exactly what i wanted, and came out with this for my final print:

My second final image was taken right opposite this fence. I wanted to look at the amount of rubbish and waste that was just lying around. There was a recycling bin in the yard that i was standing in, but it looked completly unused, whilst stuff was all over the floor.

I made another test strip for the exposure. As both this and the first image were taken under similar light conditions, i guessed that the exposure would be the same, but i made the test strip to make sure.

10 seconds again seemed to be around the right exposure time, maybe just a little to dark, so i made another strip, this time at 9 seconds. I had chosen not to reset the colours back to their default settings in hope that i would achieve a similarly correct exposure.

I liked the colours that came out in this strip. They werent perfect, being a little to yellow/green. But i liked this slight offset as it emphasised the idea that this was a rather dirty place. I therefore decided to make a print with these settings.

The third image was of a riverbed that ran past one of the factories. All dried up, it was full with rubbish and industrial waste, including scrap metal and bricks.

Again, i left the colour settings as they were, and as i was running short on time, i decided to just make a print straight away and see how it went. I decided that this time 10 seconds needed darkening down just a tiny bit more, so i set the exposure for 11, and this was the result.

I was really happy with the result, and out of the three images, this one was my favourite. The sense of decay and disregard in this image is emphasized by the colour, especially the grass.

Fashion Construsted Image: Chris Jordan

As our idea has expanded, and we have started looking at using objects as a main focus of the portrait, it seems necessary to look at the work of Chris Jordan. His project called "Running the Numbers" are a series of large pieces depicting shocking numbers in the US.


The 2 images above represent the amount of prisoners there were in Americn prisons in 2007. The whole piece is made up of 2.3million prison uniforms, which are stackec up and split into 5 large canvases. I really like this idea of scale. You cant relly tell what the image even is unless you get up close to it to examine it.

Another piece he has done depicts 2 million plastic bottles, which is the amount that are used in the US every 5 Minuites. Again its another piece done on an enormous scale, so it just looks like a sea until you get in close and see what its made of.

I like this idea of the sheer number of products that he is featuring in his work. It is similar to what we want to do for our project.

Environment: Location Hunting/Reshoot

With the re-shoot of my environment project, i decided to take a different approach with the project. Before i had focused on roads/construction sites and expansion. This time i've tried to broaden my focus by looking at the industry's effect on the environment right now, and the effect its having on the landscape.

The first place ive looked for locations on this project is the isle of Sheppy. A small island off the south east coast, the whole area is covered in factories and business, that generate alot of waste. I went to the town of Queenborough, which is home to Sheerness Recycling, a company that deals with the recycling of commercial waste. Unfortunatly, they wouldnt let me on site to take any pictures, but there is a sea wall right next to it which is acessable to the public so i scouted out the area from there.

Other locations i looked at around the island were a few companies such as Olympic Glass, and the waste they produce. Again this company wouldnt let me onto their site, but ive sent them emails asking for special permission so i am hopefull they will reply soon.

I did get to look around a site whilst there. It was a small company that dealt with the repair and maintance of the rail service on the island. Alot of the bigger companies use a network of railways to transport materials around. On the site, there was loads of old rails, and old trains lying around, under repair, or just not being used. I talked to the man who was working there at the time, and he told me that he maintains the engines of the trains used, and revives old trains so that they can be used again.