Commission

The Commission project consists of a theme commissioned by our tutors from which we have to think of a concept, research artists and facts about it and then make a series of at least 3 images. The theme given to us is waste, it can relate to any sort of waste, human, animal, toxic, rubbish, etc. The only rules we have to follow are that it has to be related to the theme, shot with either a medium format or a large format analogue camera and it has to be taken either in the studios in campus or on location around the Medway area.

After the first lecture I went for a walk along the Medway river towards M2 bridge with my 35mm camera and took a few shots. In this walk I noticed the random litter around the river, what could be called fly tipping or illegal dumping. I think the randomness and the spontaneous of the rubbish found to be interesting, the idea that people can just throw stuff away in the river and fields is something worth investigating into the background, the laws and the so called “benefit” that people get from it.
I want to highlight the diversity of the objects found around the Medway area through an object shoot in the style of Keith Arnatt's series "Pictures from a Rubbish Tip", Irving Penn's "Cigarette" series and David Maisel's series "Library of Dust". Taking items away from the street and shooting them in the studio environment, this way highlighting the objects, and in this case the variety and randomness of the objects that can be found in 100 meters of river bank in the Medway Area.

Keith Arnatt's series is a body of work devoted to images of decomposing food, some in their plastic wrappers, some naked; all of which have a delicate, almost transcendental, beauty. is more artistic, looks for a more aesthetic view towards litter picked up in dustbins. It has a romance to aesthetic, making the viewer want to look at it, but once you take a proper look at the image, focusing on the object, you can see the grime and dirtiness that represents rubbish. Arnatt uses the medium of photography with the sensibility of a painter. Colour is important to him, and this comes out in one image depicting a strip of bacon and a piece of eggshell against a backdrop of plastic partially obscuring a pink floral pattern behind. Arnatt has transformed the unwanted into something, at least pictorially, highly desirable.

Penn's work depicts his interest and fascination in photographys ability to make the mundane interesting. He made a series of cigarette photographs in the 1970s in which he recorded the cigarette butts he found. The cigarette series show photographys ability to objectively record and to make fascinating at the same time. Penns imagery elevates this ordinary piece of detritus to sculptural form. He shows photographys ability to take an object, shape or form out of context and produce an artistic form from it. 

Library of Dust is a haunting series of images by David Maisel, who photographed a collection of corroding copper canisters containing the cremated remains of patients at the Oregon State Insane Asylum from 1883 to 1971. The canisters are beautiful. The abandoned remains have reacted with the copper to create colourful deformations on the canisters that often appear to be bubbling over. The visual poetry is beautiful, bewildering and bewitching. 

With Christy's help I found a photographer by the name of Andy Hughes. His pieces of rubbish on the beach have a sculptural quality, highlighted through the choice of high saturation, texture and colour. He looks at beach litter not as something that spoils the landscape but its beauty. His work titled 'Dominant Wave Theory'was exhibited at the Mariners Museum in Virginia, USA (30th May-3rd Jan 2010). This work took 10 years to complete and was part of 'Surfers against sewage' which were part of Cornwall's clean up of their beaches. 

His photographs highlight the disposable lifestyle of humans and the cost on the environment. I guess then his work was inpsired by the work of the New Topographics; whose ideas explored the increasing imprint of man on the landscape. His objects create aesthetic forms, isolated in the surroundings of the lonely beaches and by tthe tight cropping of the frame. The audiences attention is drawn to the large scale composition and the saturated colours highlighting the beauty in the rubbish forms.

Referral: Critical Reviews

Object:  I have always been close to nature. As I have been surrounded by it most of my life. This summer deforestation caused by forest fires, affected my surroundings last summer. This is my inspiration for my referral. Plants and trees are universal symbols found in every spiritual tradition, symbolising wisdom, protection, beauty, redemption, etc. I researched factual details about deforestation, mostly in the Amazon as well as photographers.

My biggest inspiration is Daniel Beltrà a spanish conservation photographer, but also researched Edgar Martins, Robert Adams and Nick Moir.

This project has developed my sense of research, and the value of it whilst also highlighting the massive deforestation problems in the world. I believe I could have done better with a wider time-frame with this idea but that also is a learning process for me, factoring in everything else and making myself a schedule.

Cityscape: To start with, in the referral for this project I had an idea of shooting a journey from Kings Cross to Camden Lock, and idea I had to change once I saw it was hard to achieve in the time frame I had. My concept then moved onto the consumerism and capitalism governing modern arquitecture. The plasticity and fakeness of the new buildings. 

For this project I took inspiration and researched Olivo Barbieri, Thomas Struth and Gabrielle Basilico. My biggest inspiration out of the three was Gabrielle Basilico, as his style suited my project and the way he takes mundane buildings and shoots them in a manner that makes them seem important and of a cultural or historical value. 

I believe this project could have gone better as it was setback by camera problems, such as the Bronica I took out popping open in the bag without my knowing or being kicked out from one of my initial places I wanted to shoot as it was "private property". Even then I am satisfied with the images that have come out in the end.

Referral: Cityscape

For my cityscape referral I had the initial idea of shooting a journey between King's Cross and Camden Town through the canals at night, a journey I had previously made with two of my friends. I found the canal very interesting, especially the underside of the bridges we pasted, every single one is different. They each have a different feeling to them, some feel darker than others, some had murals, some had graffiti, some had collages, some had a blue neon light, etc.


 I took this idea along to my tutorial, along with several artists I wanted to research for this idea, as I hadn't had a chance to do it properly. These included: Brassai's series "Paris After Dark"; Dan Holdsworth for his images involving night photography and different ways of using artificial light, Alan Delaney's series "London After Dark" as the place I wanted to shoot was London at night and finally Naoya Hatakeyama and his series "Underground/River" really had me intrigued. Steffi, at my tutorial then told several artists I could look at to help me with this idea. In specific she told me to have a look Francis Alÿs, Hamish Fulton and Richard Long to really think of the idea of a journey. She told me that just shooting the underside of the bridges would not reflect the idea I wanted to transmit and that I should think of something else.


I researched these photographer as well as David Hockney. I came to the conclusion that in the time I had to go to London and explore, then go back and shoot I did not think I would be able to transmit the idea of a journey and instead would look like random shots. I then decided to look at the idea of mass consumerism that cities have taken, where everything is mass produced. I find it hard to find a shop that is not a franchise, or a shop the just sells branded products. Everybody looks for the cheaper products to live their life, this in turn makes products look worse by even making the wrapping cheaper making the over all product look like plastic. This has also started to transmit into arquitecture, new hotels and buildings don't use materials such as brick anymore they use a metal that looks like plastic. The sun reflects weirdly off it and paint makes it worse.


For this project I researched three artists: Olivo Barbieri, Thomas Struth and Gabrielle Basilico. I was inspired by the work of Olivo Barbieri, especially by his capability to transform the city and the perception we have for it. Gabriele Basilico and his great ability to let the building speaking about a deep human condition, without the presence of any human figure in his images.

Gabriele Basilico is an arquitectual photographer. He is among the leading international photographers, after studying architecture profession as a photographer began devoting himself to landscape photography, and more particularly to architectural photography.

He works mostly with view camera and black and white film. His work in Beirut, photographed after the war, is especially celebrated. This quote, translated from italian, speaks about his work: 

"With his images, the controlled, conscious metaphysical tension, he has effectively worked for in recent years, the post modern taste, visually noting someforgotten industrial architecture and suburban, revalued as archaeological and fastened with a heavy chiaroscuro and a perspective, and fleeting gated,sophisticated style in the '30s ". I particularly looked at his cityscapes, were he focuses on mundane buildings, places that can be found anywhere and don't have any significant fame or history, and shoots them in a way that highlights them and makes them look like a great and important arquitectonic pieces of the century. The style of taking the photograph from below, in my images, came mainly from Basilico. 

I also used Thomas Struth as an influence because of his work ,Struth states that he seeks to record the face of urban space, seeing the architectural environment as a site where a community expresses it history and identity which was something that I was also keen to express in my work. This relates to my idea that nowadays people want to spend less, making everything look cheap.

I traveled to London to find some of these buildings and found them straight away, even before I stepped off the train, as to go to Victoria you go straight past a selection of new buildings in Chelsea that had differente designs. When I got off the train I turned back on myself and walked towards the direction of the buildings. On the way I made another discovery, Victoria's Bus Station is a building exterior is made out of metal girders and glass windows, giving it a very industrial look, a basis of consumerism. I then continued to the buildings I had seen on the train and took a few photos on my digital camera as test shots to see how they would look.
I then went back on Wednesday 29th of February with a Bronica SQ-B. I went back to places I had been before but got kicked out from one place by a security guard, saying I could not take pictures. The day was overcast that made the light quite neutral helping me show the plasticity of the buildings.