The Comission- Final photos (evaluation)

I have decided for my final photos that I am going to do documentary photos around the Medway Area. I want to show the naturally occurring waste in and around the area. To show people what is happening in their own area and also to show other people of the waste that is occurring.

In one of my photos there is a place that looks like it could be used as bedding for a homeless person. These waste objects have been use to create a home for a person, as unpleasant as the home is, it is still a home. It's sad to think that this is how someone lives.

The commission- Olof Jarlbro

Olof Jarlbro

The Commission- Jonathan Lewis

Jonathan Lewis

Lewis is a documentary photography and i've decided that for the next stage of my project I should look at documentary photographers as i've already got some research on waste photography. I really do like this spur of the moment, capturing that specific time on camera. Showing viewers in an artistic way what is going on in the world.

The commission

From doing my digital photos and my artist research i really do like the idea of the whole natural documentary work idea. I am going to look at some more documentary photographers to get further ideas for my final photos. I think in my final photos I will wander around the Medway area in search if waste to take photos of.

The Commission- Digital photos

I took these digital photos of waste after i'd gathered some ideas after doing my artist research. The photos like the photos from my artist research are all naturally occurring waste in environments that I have managed to capture. I like the idea of this naturalness that I am capturing as it is showing the viewers what is actually happening in our world. It is not fake, it is one hundred per cent real.  It is not set up, this waste is actually in the street.

The Commission- Pieter Hugo

Pieter Hugo

For a whole year Hugo photographed a dump in Ghana and called this collection permanent error. 

We as viewers can see how in this photo the waste in the background and the infertility of the earth. It is just mud and grit surrounded but waste. However there is still the farmer there with his truck and stick ready to work. This brings the photo closer to home and easier to relate to. These normal human beings like us are in these surroundings. It brings into the question as to whether this is right or moral for these people.

I like the level of physical clarity in Hugo's photos. The photos are pristine and to the best possible quality. I think this shows off the wasted lands to it's greatest potential as there is a great contrast between the messy, dirty wastelands and the pristine, clean quality of the photos themselves. I therefore feel I would like to dot he same with my photos. Keep them clear and to the best possible quality.

The Comission- Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan

Remains of a business, St Bernard Parish

I decided that i would start off this project with a little artist research. Im going to look at the photographer Chris Jordan. He manages to create beautiful photos of waste. I really think there is something in the ability to be able to do this that is truly interesting. It brings a slight edge to taking photos of an already beautiful landscape. The trick to this is to make something not particularly beautiful look beautiful. It also then begins to dive into the question 'What is beauty?'. Who says that these waste landscapes are not beautiful? However Chris jordan does not take this view. Chris Jordan said that he 'uses beauty as a tool for seduction' to draw people in to show them the grave issues at hand.

Ballfield, St Bernard Parish

Pants Rack in a women's clothing store, St Bernard Parish

Remains of a home, Ninth Ward neighbourhood, New Orleans

The Commission - Brief Task 1

BA (HONS) PHOTOGRAPHY,CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE -LEVEL 1 


You are required to submit a set of images (minimum of three) based upon your personal 
conceptual approach to representing the theme of waste. 
Drawing upon the knowledge of your references, you must formulate your
must select one of the following photographic genres: portraiture, still-life, 
fashion or environment. 
There may be political or environmental aspects you may wish to consider, 
or investigate the relationship between recycling and fashion, or there may 
be ideas of the worker dealing with waste refusal that interest you. You may
also consider ideas of the archive in that some contemporary photographers  
rework existing archival images as an act of recycling. 
Whatever area you wish to work, it is paramount to consider the relationship
between your visual strategy and how that affects the representation of the theme of waste

Object and Body Evaluation

I am again not completely satisfied with my final prints. For the object print I think my kitchen floor fails to come across as a kitchen floor as you can't see any corners in the walls. I think a way I could improve this would be to haver skirting boards put around the edges. This would create an elusion of a wall that would be more  convincing than what it is now. I wanted to use harsh colours so that it would not be pleasing to the viewers eyes as i am trying to show drinking in a negative light. Had i used more gentle easy on the eye colouring then the picture would be have been more inviting for the viewers and this is not what I wanted from the photo. I purposely didn't have the Sminoff ice label facing the camera because I didn't think that you would be allowed to show a particular brand in a bad light. However i have hinted at the fact it is vodka but having a slogan taken from a vodka advert. Also regular smirnoff vodka drinkers would recognise the bottle from the hints shown. I had  the background blurred so that the main focus would be on the slogan and the vodka bottle at the front however i failed in completely blurring the background like i had wanted. Over all i do like my image but i can see the areas that should be improved which are the things i mentioned above.

I do like my body imagfe. I like the spontaneity of going up to random people at uni and asking to photo them and tehn having to capture their personality in that final photo. I liked the challenge of it because you have to first of all convince them to let you take their picture, then you have to quickly suss out their personality and quickly decide how you can portray this. All the while trying to seem professional and seem like you know what you are doing. There is a slight thrill in this, which I enjoy. I chose this as my final image because i think it does capture the jokey aspect of his personailty. He was already eating the chocolate and he wished for it to b in the photo. It is quite a serious pose but then he is holding a half chocolate bar which shows that he is not a serious person at all. Even in a serious pose he wants to joke around. I think i could have printed this photo better, I think the contrast is to harsh. His body is too dark against the harsh light on his face, I think this is an area in which i could improve.

Environment- Evaluation

I am a lot more pleased with my work this term, than last term. I feel as though I have a clear idea. I have also experimented with both of the techniques i have been taught, colour and black and white film. I have conducted thorough artist research and have taken digital test shots. If i were to improve on one thing it would be my time management. I believe that I could have taken this project further had i managed my time better, however i believe that since my last attempt at this project my time management skills have already increased hugely and I think the further into this course I go, the better and better i will get at managing my time. As i can already see that I have greatly improved. The reason it upsets me that i did not manage my time correctly is because although I have managed to take all my photos and conduct all the necessary research, I have not had enough to print them. This means that my final photos are sloppy and are not to the highest standard that they could be. This upsets me because i have taken so much time and thought into researching and taken the photos but i can not show them off to their full potential. To me this weakens my ideas as a whole. People are no longer looking at the photo but the wonky boarders and the added in frame from the next photo in the negative. My photo of the two homeless men is a classic example of this. The boarders are wonky and it has an added in frame at the bottom which I really wouldn't like to be there. Im disappointed in myself that my poor time management skills have resulted in weakened final prints as I think I had a strong idea that really could have worked.

I have really enjoyed working on this project this term. I think last term i was really distracted with moving into halls, meeting everyone new and making friends and this really lead my work to slip. However this term now that i am settled in, i've been concentrating on work a lot more. Getting out and taking more photos and doing more research has really rekindled my love for photography. Last term i really forgot how much I loved photography and how it gave me a thrill to go out and take photos. I love the whole process from research, to test shots, to developing film, to printing to get to your final image. It is really satisfying looking at a great final image after all the work you've out in to get there. That is why I am so disappointed that my final prints haven't come out the way i'd hoped.

I also haven't had enough time to print all my final shoots, this disappoints me further. However although this is disappointing at least I know where I have gone wrong and i can work on this. It is great to have lots of research but not if it is stopping you from having enough time to print final images. I know my greatest set back is my time management skills, but I know this now and I think the amount of work I have done this term compared to last already shows that I have improved in this area.

Landscape Environment- Final ideas

I've decided that I want to take  pictures near coast, rivers or lakes but have a city, town, or house with view still. I want to show how humans are corrupting landscapes. How even when i am doing a landscape project, man made elements are coming into it.

Landscape Environment- Coastal photos

I really like these photos of the city in the background area of these ocean photos as it  shows how more and more humans are corrupting landscapes with man made objects. Here by the sea you look to the left and you see an ocean, you look to the right and you see a city. two completely opposite settings literally meters away from each other. I want to create images of landscapes that have been corrupted by humans.

Landscape Environment- Graham Dunn

In Dunn's photo above there are windmills in the middle of an ocean. After looking at Grahum Dunn I think oceans and river's are even more interesting landscapes to look at than land ones for this project, particularly because we live on land so it makes more sense as to why we would corrupt it, however we don't live in water and yet we still put our an made produce in and around it.

Dunn's photo above demonstrates how beautiful a landscape looks with no buildings and house surrounding it. I say this but then we do need places to live, thats how we survive. So maybe i shouldn't show the buildings around rivers, lakes and oceans in a complete bad light.

landscape Environment- Stephen Garnett

I came across the photographer Stephen Garnett. He takes landscape photographer but I like the way he has man made elements within his photography.

The photo above is a landscape but it has the men running through doing some sort of running event. The landscape you could almost say has been corrupted by man made objects. I need to decide whether in my final photos I want it to come across as the man made objects corrupting a beautiful landscape or man made objects enhancing the natural beauty of the landscape. In the photo above the men are tearing though the landscape, squishing the grass and making a path without second thought. The angry, powerful looking cloud, along with the tired, determined look on the mans face add's power to the whole image.

Here again in the above photo, a man made brick wall among a landscape.

Landscape Environment- Digital photos

I decided that after looking at and becoming inspired by these landscape photographers that I would take my own landscape digital photos. I went to a local nature reserve to take some pictures. I realised that with this project unlike the urban environment project that it wasn't so much about which particular location the photos were taken and the portrayal of these photos, it was more about the the actual landscape itself and not so much which landscape it was.