Photographer Research - Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin

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This photograph by Fay Godwin is beautiful, I really like her photography because it is so simple, yet it shows so much in my opinion. I really like how much contrast there is between the dark and the light parts of the photograph, I think that the photo is amazing even though the scenery is quite bare and looks as though it is dying. 

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I think this photograph shows two sides to our environment, on the left side of the road the environment looks dead and derelict, even the fence looks in bad condition, however on the right side of the fence, the environment looks beautiful and well kept after, I think it is an interesting picture and she may have taken it to show what is happening globally, with the majority of our land turning into land like on the left, due to disasters like decertification which leaves the land un-useable.

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Personally I like this photograph because it shows reflection really nicely, also I think that it shows texture quite well in my opinion. I would like to take some photos like this because it could be used to show how the land naturally is and that we should try to keep it like this, taking control of everything

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I really like this photograph, I think that it looks very british, the sky is quite grey in this photo which is quite a typical british thing. This photo shows the farmer leading the cows, he is standing ahead of the herd which shows that he has power over them. 

Summary: In my opinion, her photographs show Britain in their rawest form, she hasn't tried to make the country look any better than it actually is. I think that this works well because it looks more realistic.

Research Photographer - Zwelethu Mthethwa

Zwelethu Mthethwa

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This photograph by Mthethwa shows a small boy rummaging through rubbish piles, I think that this sort of photograph is very interesting, because it shows us what sort of world other people are living in, because although we may be told about it, without witnessing it, we are unable to fully relate. I think that showing what is really happening in third world continents like Africa is very important as it raises awareness.

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This photograph was taken in Cape Town and is from of one of Mthethwa's series, it is a series about health, he's interested in putting a face to all the data about health in Africa and was interested in giving people the opportunity to document their own perceptions of health. I think that showing the actual health of people in Africa is important because if we just see Africa as a very poor continent with high HIV rates, we will have a lower viewpoint of it.

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I think that this photo shows how arid Africa is, there isn't any vegetation in sight and I think that it shows us how much people have to work, it is showing us how Africa is in reality and how much global warming is actually affecting the world, even if we aren't really seeing it in first world countries like England and America.

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This photo is showing a man in Africa doing his job, to people in first world countries, this seems like a lot of work for one person to do, however in third world countries, people have to work harder for less money, which is unfair.

Summary: Zwelethu Mthethwa is a photographer from South Africa who takes photographs in Cape Town. He takes photographs of people doing their jobs, in addition to people showing their idea of health, and showing people that the health of Africa isn't just a number or percentage of people that have AIDS or Malaria, its actual people that have to fight these illnesses. Personally I really like portraits and reading in to portraits, so I may use this as inspiration.

Research Photographer - Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

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Ansel Adam took all his photographs in Yosemite National Park, they are created with very high contrast that gives them this look which makes them seem like they have been heavily edited on photoshoot

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I think that this photograph is beautiful because the entire photo is in focus, there isn't much depth of field at all which makes it seem like its all right in front of you, I also really like how he has used reflection in this photograph.

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I love the contrast in this photograph, I think that it makes the photo seem more edited, even though it wasn't edited digitally at all. The contrast makes the background stick out from the foreground a lot more which also looks very good in this particular photograph. I would like to use this technique in one of my photographs because I think that it creates more of an impact on the eye, it is almost like a hyper realistic drawing.

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This photo is very symmetrical which I think looks really good, I think that  this photograph is rather simple, although it shows a lot of beauty. In my opinion this photograph looks amazing, I love his use of reflection and the line in the middle where the water meets the ground. He has placed the photo very well.

Summary: I chose to look at Ansel Adam's photography because he takes photographs of beautiful scenery, I think that it is important to take photographs like this because it inspires people to keep scenes like this, if we carry on ruining the environment with global warming, we won't be able to see this scene again, so taking photographs will make people more inspired to strive not to destroy the environment. 

Photographer Research - Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg

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I really like the style of her photographs because what I personally love is urban landscape photography, especially at night because most cities like London, where Luxemburg takes her photos, are still very bright at night due to man made lighting. This photograph is called towering inferno and I like it because of the colours, the reds and orange lights makes it a much more fiery colour. Additionally I think that the background colour looks good in contrast, it is quite a warm yellow or green.

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In my opinion I think that this photo, although it is quite simple, is very interesting, I like the colours because they are very warm, although from the place of the photo it is likely that it would be very cold. I also really like it because of the shadows, the shadows in this photograph are very dark and I think that this shows how eerie and creepy places in London can be at night.

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This photograph is called vertiginous exhilaration and it is of a building taken from the top pointing down, I think that it looks really good because the colours look quite a lot colder than her other photographs, I also think that the colours go together well, yellow and green are quite similar.

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I like this photograph because it shows a lot of darkness which I think can refer to her emotions when she took the photograph, we show emotions in a variety of ways, one of which is through our art. I like her style of photography because I think synthetic lights can sometimes look better than real lights.

Summary:

Rut Blees Luxemburg is a photographer who was originally from Germany, however her photography is mainly taken in London, she uses a slow shutter speed for some of her photographs which creates a really beautiful effect of the cars moving across the road without actually seeing the cars. 

Although she doesn't take environmental photography, I think that I would like to do photography in her style and I may do a shoot or two in this style as I think that it will look good, especially if I am looking at light pollution.

Photographer Research - Cedric Delsaux

Cedric Delsaux

Source for all photographs - Source

This is a photograph from a recycling plant in Belgium, I really love this photo because it shows how much rubbish we throw away, although this is being recycled, it can still be damaging to the environment, and in addition we don't recycle a majority of the rubbish we throw away. I also really like the colours in this photo because they are very basic whites and greys and there isn't much colour which I think looks good because it looks like a lot of the same.

I like this photograph because it shows a great contrast, it is of living quarters in front of a casino in China, I think this shows us the contrast between the rich and the poor, the living quarters are very derelict looking, whereas the casino looks almost pristine and in addition the colours are showing the same thing, the greyish brown makes me think of poverty and unhappy living, but the gold looks almost royal and very well off, this contrast is very interesting and I think it's important to think about that contrast when you visit places like China or India

This photograph is from a tyre dump in France, I think this photo is really good because it shows such a contrast in both the colour of the tyres compared to the sky which is almost white, and also the forestry that is growing despite the amount of tyres blocking most of them from as much sunlight and rain, it looks like the tyres are replacing the greenery. 

This is a photograph from a chicken factory in Ukraine, it shows newborn chicks pushed together in small cages before they are killed/vaccinated depending on the sex, I think this photograph is very thought provoking as it shows the behind scenes of producing eggs and chickens. I also really like the colours in this photograph as well because they are pastel type colours which I prefer over bright colours.

Summary:

I really like Cedric Delsaux's photography because they make you think which I think is important, I also love the colours that he uses in his photographs because they aren't usually very bright and rich, they tend to be quite faded which I think looks good. He does a wide range of themes for his photographs which I also really like as he's not just focusing on one thing like some other photographers.

Research Log

Fay Godwin - Source

I am inspired by this photo because it is beautiful, I love how the sheep is looking straight at the camera and I also think that the broken gate has a nice affect on the photo, it makes it seem as though the sheep has managed to get out of its fencing, although we can see that the gate isn't connected to much, so I think that it is just a metaphor for the sheep being able to escape.

Adam Andrearczyk - Source

I love this photographers style, because it is quite dark whilst seeming very fairytale-like, however this photo is an exception because it isn't showing us a fairy tale, this photo shows us a river that seems to have a lot of rubbish in it, water pollution is a very important issue because humans are running out of fresh water to drink, and polluting water makes it undrinkable without a lot of cleaning, which can be incredibly expensive. In some cases it makes the water completely undrinkable.

Cedric Delsaux - Source (101)

This photograph inspires me because it shows the massive amount of waste people dispose of, when we look at how much waste we get rid of as one person, it doesn't seem like much, but there are billions of people on Earth, all the waste from all the people has to go somewhere, whether that is underground, or in some cases, under the sea. I think this is unsustainable, we are ending up with ocean dead zones and uninhabitable land because of the amount of non-degrading waste we have previously created. Although it is difficult to completely stop creating non-recycleable items, we should definitely strive to, for the good of the Earth and the beings who live here.

Cedric Delsaux - Source (118)

This photograph is of what looks like a shanty town in front of a skyline of buildings, I think this photo shows us the contrast between the rich and the poor and it inspires me because I think that making people aware of how unfair this contrast can be is important, all the people that live in either of these places should be equal, although we can see that they aren't. 

WWF - Source

The caption of this photo is 'what will it take before we respect the planet' and this inspires me because I think it shows us how we are directly treating animals like our objects, we don't even respect them enough to leave them alone, and not only are we exploiting the adult animals, we are exploiting them from birth, as we can see from the baby Rhino also having graffiti on it, although WWF probably paid for this picture to start a conversation about conserving the world, I think that it also starts a conversation about animal rights.

Cedric Delsaux - Source

This photo inspires me because it shows deforestation in Brazil, I think this photo is especially good because it shows us the trees that haven't been cut down yet in the top left corner and I think that it shows us that there is still beauty in the world, however the humans are quickly destroying it, if we keep cutting down the amazon forest the same rate as we are now, the entire forest will be gone in only forty years, additionally much of the forest is being cut down for things like animal agriculture or palm oil farms, both of these things we could do with having less.

Edward Ruscha - Source

This photograph inspires me because petrol stations are all over the country and they cause a large amount of pollution because of the way we make petrol using fossils from thousands and thousands of years ago, this is not a sustainable source of energy because we are close to running out, at this rate of consumption we will run out of petrol in around 40 years, and if we don't come up with a sustainable source of energy that can be used as well as fossil fuels by then, we will end up having wars over fossil fuels.

Martin Parr - Source

This photo inspires me because it shows human consumption and how greedy we can be, I would like to do a shoot on food and how much water we waste each meal if we eat meat compared to if we don't as I think this would be an interesting way to look at indirect water consumption. I also like this photograph because it shows someone eating not just the food on its own like most photographs of food.

Henri Cartier-Bresson - Source

I am inspired by this photograph because it shows someone on their bike, I also really like the movement in this photograph in contrast to the person on the bike, it shows us that life is moving for that person whilst the rest of the landscape won't move on from there. Biking is a really useful way to get around and is better for the environment and for your health, although driving is easier, especially when it's cold or windy, even halving the times you drive to and from work would make a significant difference.

Fay Godwin - Source

This photograph inspires me because it is showing us the rubbish and pollution we leave behind, the amount of rubbish that is thrown into the sea is causing ocean deadzones, along with the waste from land animal agriculture and overfishing, the oceans may well be empty by 2048. 

Francesco Tonelli - Source

This photo is of a bunch of grapes, it inspires me because it is so simple, I want to take photographs of food for one of my shoots and I really like this kind of photograph, although I wouldn't be able to create this effect at home so I may have to do something different for my photographs.

Rut Blees Luxemburg - Source

I am inspired by this photograph because it  shows a lot of cars lights going past, this was taken using long exposure which I think looks really good, it also shows us how many cars go past so often, a majority of households have more than one car, many have 2 or even more, running 2 or 3 cars per household (in the UK) creates a lot of greenhouse gases emissions, most of which are carbon dioxide which can stay in the atmosphere for up to 200 years.

Alessandro Grassani - Source

This photograph inspires me because it shows us the reality of rising sea levels and how that can affect low lying countries so greatly, this photograph shows us the trunks of dead palm trees from being drowned, rising sea levels causes more floods, and with no trees the low lying countries like Haiti and Bangladesh have no natural defence and must create flood barriers to stop flooding from affecting local people even more.

Davide Lopresti - Source

I love this photograph because it shows us the fishes perspective when we swim in the sea, I think that we are too dependant on the sea and that this is causing a large amount of fish to become endangered, for example the pacific bluefin tuna, which has had a 96% reduction in stock levels due to overfishing. Approximately 2.7 trillion fish are caught each year

Matthew Kennedy - Source

This photograph inspires me because it shows the glaciers in Alaska melting, I think both of these photos are beautiful, although its rather sad how quickly we are melting the glaciers, these photographs were only taken 6 years apart and the glacier had retreated by nearly three miles