Landscapes are accessible, permanent and familiar. To produce photographs of a landscape that is familiar to me I must add my own personality and experience to the photographs, by giving these photographs my own sense of style they will differentiate from postcards and images taken by other photographers of that same location. I am going to think about photographing a personal location and a place that has memories.
I have got a few initial ideas of where and what I could photograph and I will discuss these below.
I think my hometown of Rishton has quite a lot of potential for this area of landscapes. I have lived in Rishton for all my life and have lived in three houses on the same road. My life has been spent living on this same road so perhaps an interesting idea would be to photograph the road that I live on, I could possibly photograph the outside of different houses along the road, ones that have interesting features or a quirkiness to them.
Another idea is to photograph parts of my hometown that I often spent time in as a child. Perhaps re-visit areas of the town where me and my friends used to go as children, this could be the different parks or the library etc. I will think about these areas I could photograph in more detail if I decide to use this idea.
I am going to Move away from the idea of photographing my home town because I want to broaden my idea of locations to photograph before I decide on where and what I want my familiar landscapes to include.
I like the idea of photographing places I visited a lot as a child because it will give me a chance to re visit these locations and compare what it looks like and what the atmosphere is like compared to when I was a child. I feel the concept of 'Childhood memories' will work well for familiar landscapes and I am going to look at the work of photographers to give me some inspiration on how to develop this idea.
Denis Thorpe
I knew I wanted to look at the work of Denis Thorpe because of his documentation of British social history. I am going to review some of his photographs taken in Britain as he portrays cityscapes and the countryside.
I adore the photograph above, I love the shapes of the cloud formations that contrast with the steam from the train and how the Whalley viaduct is the main focus because of the dark and intense contrast it has with the background. When editing my own photographs perhaps I could play around with strong contrasts of black and white to see if it makes my images look as powerful as Thorpe's. I instantly took a liking to this photograph after looking at his book 'On home ground' where he has photographed Britain and his home town, so perhaps he was thinking about memories he had in his home town when taking his photographs. Before deciding on exactly where to take my images I am going to research into more photographers.
Gustave Le Gray
Gustave Le Gray is considered as the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century because of his technical innovations. He helped to establish photography as an important art form with pioneers such as William Henry Fox Talbot and Roger Fenton. Le Gray had a strong interest in chemistry, which helped him to develop new methods of creating images such as the waxed paper process. Le Gray's work is known to stand out as one of the most significant of the nineteenth century because of all his technical innovations and the endless possibilities of this medium shown through his works. By 1855 Le Gray had influenced almost every important photographer in France.
Seascape, study of clouds is an albumen print from a collodion glass negative. Le Gray produced two negatives one for the clouds and the other for the sea, this technique was suitable for conveying both the compact movement of the waves and the light of the sky as these two elements needed different exposure times. I love the contrast in the tones created and the colours in the photograph. This has inspired me to think about taking my own landscape shots including perhaps the sea/clouds, these could be taken at Blackpool, Lytham or St Annes. Those Locations are familiar to me as I visited them a lot when I was a child and would be good for capturing beautiful landscape shots. I am going to continue looking at the work of Le Gray and other photographers works before deciding on what to photograph for my familiar Landscape.
The photograph above is the beach at St-Adresse, with the Dumont Baths, it is an albumen print from a wet collodion on glass negative. I love the composition of this photograph and the contrast in colours. Taken in the 1850's or 60's it has a vintage feel to the photograph that I would like to create in my own images. As I am going to photograph my familiar place around the theme 'Childhood memories' Editing my images in sepia tone or creating a vintage edit to them will convey the fact that they are memories. After looking at Le Gray's work it has given me some more initial ideas of what to photograph and how to convey my idea of childhood memories. I am now thinking about photographing Blackpool and around that area as it has a lot of potential because of the landscapes I could capture on the beaches/the piers etc. I am going to continue researching other photographers to gather more inspiration and ideas.
Humphrey Spender was a pioneer of the documentary photography style that suited the mass-observation methods of gathering information. I decided to look at his photographs of Blackpool as I am thinking about taking my own photographs here. Blackpool was a popular holiday destination for Bolton residents before the war. These photographs were taken in the 1930's so I find them quite interesting to look at as they were taken around 80 years ago. I like The composition of the photograph above and the contrast of black and whites. Its obvious that this was taken in Blackpool as the tower is pictured in the background, I could perhaps photograph landmarks that make it obvious to where the location is.
I love the framing and composition of the above photograph, the negative space really works well in this photograph as a third of the photograph is quite busy. I have been looking at a lot of Humphrey Spender's photographs from his Holiday-town set, all taken in Blackpool because I am quite familiar with this location, not only did I visit Blackpool a lot when I was child but have recently been travelling there a a lot more within the past year. I love his photograph's of the busy sands, the illuminations and his photographs that are taken at night.
I have decided to take my photographs in Lytham and Blackpool and visit the parts of the towns that I used to visit as a child.
Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Mayerowitz started out by photographing the streets of New York in 1971 and was inspired by the works of Robert Frank, and then in 1976 he switched to large format colour photography which he has practiced most notably in Manhatten, Cape Cod, Tuscany and also photographing Ground zero. Meyerowitz was inspired by William Eggleston's use of colour and I have decided to look at Joel Mayerowitz because of the colours created in his photographs.
I chose to look at the photograph above because of the wonderful mix of colours and depth of field created. The blue, yellow and green blend in together perfectly creating a nice feeling when looking at this image. Also just by having a third of this photograph in focus and the rest misty and hazy constructs a beautiful composition. I have looked at the photographers works above because of their locations and compositions but I am looking at Joel Meyerowitz because of the lovely colours in his works. I hope to achieve a bright and calm mix of colours just like in the image above in my own photographs.
Meyerowitz made his most significant contribution to the history of photography when he took photographs of Cape Cod. His work from Cape Cod magnifies its beauty and simplicity and shows breathtaking images of light. Meyerowitz was captivated by Cape Cod as he continued to return every summer to photograph this location because it had become so familiar to him but yet always revealed new possibilities for his photographs. Blackpool has become such a familiar place to me and yet every time I go it always has the potential for new and different photographs. I want to generate colourful but vintage images to show my childhood memories of that location. I want my photographs to have an element of colour to show happy memories, although I also feel the use of black and white may convey the idea of a 'memory' better. I will test out my ideas during the editing process of my photographs to see what works best for my idea and what I feel fulfills the aims of the brief.
Contact Sheets
Editing
When editing my photographs from Lytham I used several software programmes such as Photoshop, Aperture and Vintage Scene. As my theme for these photographs is 'Childhood memories' I experimented a lot using sepia and black and white. I think my most successful edited images were the ones created in Vintage Scene, this software allows me to add a number of different textures, colours and frames to my photographs to create a 'vintage effect' it makes photographs look as if they were taken many years ago. Below I am going to display screen shots to illustrate what tools I used during the editing process.
Photoshop
I used the sharpening tool quite often in my photographs. I found this tool to be useful because when editing my photographs in Vintage Scene I sometimes used textures and these textures made the subject blend into the background but by using the sharpening tool I could pick out the detail of my subject and put it back in to focus. I also used the sharpening tool on Aperture also so then I didn't have to keep opening all my images in three different software programmes.
Photoshop I found is good for making slight adjustments to the whole of the image, rather than editing detailed parts. I increased the brightness slider slightly as I wanted my photographs to convey bright and happy memories. By not increasing the brightness tool too much or the contrast tool I was able to find the right amount needed for my photographs.
Vintage Scene
On Vintage Scene there are 63 presets I can choose from to use on my images. I haven't used many of these presets as I wanted to choose my own colours, textures and borders for my photographs. The above screen shot illustrates the control I have when deciding on what colour I want my image, how powerful the photograph is and the texture. I am using this software as I want the vintage effect to convey my theme of childhood memories.
The overlay tool allows me to choose out of a range of different textures to go over my photographs, I can adjust the strength of the overlay so they don't over power my photographs. I found some of these textures helped to add more depth and detail to my more simple photographs that have more negative space than others. There is also a tool where I have a choice of what borders I can use on my photographs. I think this software adds a very artistic feel to my photographs and also adds an element of my personality and memories. Below I am going to show one of my images from Lytham edited in Vintage Scene with a preset and then how I adjusted it to make it my own.
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| Preset/Adjusted |
Aperture
Above the screen shot shows the adjustments tool in Aperture. These adjustments are helpful for making changes to the whole of my photograph and also for editing detail. These tools allowed me to experiment with the use of black and white and sepia tones and then allowed me to adjust them. I will show some examples below of my results of experimentation with this tool.
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| Experimenting with black and white. |
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| Experimenting with Sepia. |
Over all I am happy with my shots from Lytham and think they will work perfectly with the photos I am planning to take in Blackpool. Below I am going to show my best shots from lytham and then below that I will put in my contact sheets from Blackpool.
Best Shots
William Eggleston
William Eggleston is known as 'the father of colour photography' he wasn't just known for his use of colour, he was also known for his choice of subjects as he photographed the ordinary world around him. He originally photographed in black and white and was inspired by the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank.
I feel in this photograph William Eggleston succeeds in combining colour photography with everyday, ordinary life. I loved the tones of the photograph above as the colour palette is quite plain but the colours are still vibrant and beautiful. The negative space at the top of the photograph makes up for the busy patterns at the bottom which creates a beautiful composition. When taking my own images at Blackpool I will carefully think about the composition and think about the use colours later on during the editing process as that is something I can change.
I love the simpleness of Eggleston's photographs and his use of colour blocking. I realise that Blackpool will not have the clarity and relaxing feel to the scenes in Eggleston's work because Blackpool will be busy especially when its a lovely day and also I think my photographs will be bursting of colour because of the tackiness and brightness of the town. I want the sense of the atmosphere of what its like to be in that location in my photographs but also I want to depict that these images are my childhood memories. To keep with the theme of childhood memories I am going to photograph in various places that I visited in Blackpool as a child, the obvious places being the beach and the pier. I am hoping to be instantly inspired when I get to this location as I want to think about the time I spent as a child in these places.
Below are my contact sheets from my day in Blackpool, I have annotated and reviewed each image and decided which photographs will fit the brief, my ideas and my aims successfully.
Contact Sheets
Editing
Again during the editing process I used the programme named 'Vintage Scene' as this software went perfectly for the style I wanted to create for this set of photographs. I also used photoshop to bring out the main features and to slightly adjust images.
Vintage Scene
Photoshop
Again during the editing process I used the programme named 'Vintage Scene' as this software went perfectly for the style I wanted to create for this set of photographs. I also used photoshop to bring out the main features and to slightly adjust images.
Vintage Scene
In the above screen shot I have shown some of the overlays I can select to be used over my photographs to add more texture. As I wanted to create the vintage/memories effect I used overlays like crinkled paper, and quite fuzzy ones to enhance the idea of memories. I didn't choose ones that were too busy as I didn't want my photographs to be over powered by the textures.
This next screen shot is of some borders that I can choose out of for my photographs. I decided to go for ones that were more square because these would be better for printing my images. Vintage scene is such a brilliant piece of software as it has given my own sense of style to my photographs and has also depicted the old memory theme I was aiming for.
Here are the adjustment sliders in Vintage Scene. I increased the 'Image strength' slider as I wanted my photograph to shine through the textures as much as possible as I didn't want them to be over powered by the overlays. I increased the Texture strength but not as much as the image strength, this means by overlay will provide texture and depth to my image and still allowing the photograph to be strong. when decreasing the image age this means the original colours of my photograph will still be showing. This tool is perfect for allowing me to handle the adjustments for my photographs.
I have used the sharpen tool when editing my photographs after adding the textures, colours and borders in Vintage Scene. This tool lets me bring out my main subject into focus. I have used this tool in many of my photographs.
On some of my shots of the ferris wheel, this circle shape kept appearing on my photographs I think it was because of the direct sunlight, on some photographs this was distracting so I removed them with the spot healing tool and healing brush tool.
I found these useful to get rid of the unwanted marks in my photographs.
My photographs have turned out just the way I have imagined them and I am happy with the outcome. I have managed to capture places where I have happy memories of being a child and edited them in a vintage way to convey memories. Below I am going to show my best shots from my day at Blackpool.
Best shots
