William Eggleston

William Eggleston is one of the most renowned Photographers in the world, he changed the course of colour photography by taking the intense and super-real quality of colour transparencies and turning it into the saturated hues of dye transfer prints. In the 70's/80's Eggleston started to focus more on photographing the realities of his own landscape in the South of America; the series I have chosen to look at for this research is his project called 'Southern Suite'.

In this particular series he wanted to explore ordinary scenes and places where he could photograph 'the uncommonness of the commonplace', by using this as his rule for the series he wanted to capture the most basic and the most generic of landscapes but he wanted them to have a disturbance of something that you wouldn't normally come across within that space. This ties in with my project quite nicely with the way that he photographs the many manmade interruptions within the natural landscapes.

Information can be found at: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93824/untitled-for-the-portfolio-southern-photograph-eggleston-william/
Images can be found at: http://www.egglestontrust.com

 

Stephen Shore

Shore is one of America's most important Photographers, he is celebrated for elevating colour photography from a medium associated with the generic family snapshot to making works equivalent to black and white photography. He is considered to be the most significant photographers of our time, he rose to prominence in the 1970s by capturing the mundane aspects of American culture in straightforward, unglamorous images.

I have chosen to look at Shore's work 'The Hudson Valley' which is the first of his blind spot series. I feel that the photographs that are included in this series are very influential for my project as it includes very beautiful mundane landscapes but with the interruption of the manmade world.

Information can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Shore
Images can be found at: http://stephenshore.net/photographs/hv/index.php?page=1&menu=photographs

Dan Holdsworth

'A Machine for Living' (1999-2000) is Dan Holdsworth's series of photographs that depict Bluewater shopping complex at night. The shopping centre was built on the site of a disused quarry near a major motorway junction in suburban Kent.

In Holdsworth's long-exposure photographs he captures the landscape and the structures built within it, making them seem "other-worldly". This is created by the presence of artificial light which pollutes the scene giving it a strange, toxic glow. Bluewater shopping centre recorded at night, in the bright glow of its own streetlights, seems far removed from the consumerist Mecca we might expect.

His choice to photograph Bluewater has the underlying concept (even though he hasn't vocalised that this is a concept of his work) of photographing a manmade element that has been built into a natural location.

Information can be found at: https://imageobjecttext.com/2012/02/15/machines-for-living/
Images can be found at: https://www.danholdsworth.com

A Machine for Living 01, C-type Print, 114.5 x 92.5cm, 1999-2000

A Machine for Living 02, C-type Print, 114.5 x 92.5cm, 1999-2000

A Machine for Living 03, C-type Print, 114.5 x 92.5cm, 1999-2000

Stephen B. Smith

Stephen B. Smith is a Photographer whose work chronicles the transition of the Western landscape into suburbia. His two photographic series 'Your Mountain Is Waiting' and 'The Weather and a Place to Live' are a documentary style of Photography that show the transformation of the Western landscape being turned into a suburban housing area. These works are a perfect exploration of natural landscapes being disrupted by the presence of the manmade world.

Information can be found at: https://www.stevesmithphotography.net/about
Images can be found at: https://www.stevesmithphotography.net

Saratoga Springs, Utah, #12

Rental Fence, Rancho Santa Margarita, California, 1996

Stephen Gill

Buried is a Photographic series created by Stephen Gill, in which he chose to collaborate with the physical place. He not only photographed his locations he then played with the idea of burying his photographic C-Type prints in those places to see what they would add or subtract from the photographs, the final products are both conceptual and earthy.

"The photographs in this book were taken at Hackney Wick and they were later buried there. The amount of time the images were left underground varied depending on the amount of rainfall... Not knowing what an image would look like once it was dug up introduced an element of chance and surprise which I found appealing. This feeling of letting go and collaborating with the place - allowing it also to work in putting the finishing touches to a picture - felt fair. Maybe the spirit of the place can also make its mark".

Information can be found at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/stephen-gill-buried
Images can be found at: https://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio/nggallery/album-1-2/buried

Andy Sewell

The Heath is a series of both subtle and complex photographs of Hampstead Heath in London that were taken over a court of five years. He published a book with the same name as the series which shows a landscape of imagination as well as a record of a real and familiar place, the book and the series itself are seen as a classic understatement of observation. 

Hampstead Heath was once a beautiful countryside area that surrounded London, it is now only a small green fragment set within the urban landscape; its a place that it engulfed by ancient trees, tall grass and thickets that are dense enough to get lost in.

"I go to the Heath to be somewhere that feels natural, yet I know this is no pathless wood. The Heath is as managed as any other part of London but managed to feel wild; I am interested in this paradox".

The project is is about perceptions of what is natural, it is also an attempt to explore the human condition of "biophilia" which, according to the biologist E. O. Wilson, is an innate and genetically determined affinity of human beings with the natural world. Which means that Sewell wanted to photograph a natural area that he felt drawn to without knowing why he was drawn to it and that in itself is what makes the project so beautiful and profound.

Information can be found at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/8432619/The-Heath.html
Images can be found at: http://www.andysewell.com/the-heath-1

Robin Friend

Bastard Countryside is a Photographic series by Robin Friend, the photographs show landscapes in which the manmade and natural world collide to create a strangely beautiful, yet ugly, body of work.

"Bastard Countryside" is a phrase taken from Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables, in which he describes the city of Paris as "amphibian", which means that it has two modes of existence, this is conveyed by the manmade buildings/structures being stretched out into the countryside and devouring everything in its path.

"I see the Bastard Countryside everywhere I go, I ran with this idea of city and countryside splattering into each other, creating this hybrid nature"

Friend decided to choose areas in which the urban and rural mix, the manmade and the natural, clashing and colliding to create a strange but new form of beauty and ugliness. He would photograph things such as huge trees entangled in pylons or windmills standing lonely on the edge of riverbanks.

He uses large-format colour film to scrutinise the in-between, unkempt, and often surreal marginal areas of the countryside highlighting frictions between the pastoral sublime and the discarded, often focusing on the polluted reality of the present. His work with the traditional landscape depicted from 5x4 photographs are given heightened effect through the exaggerations of colour and composition. 

Information can be found at: https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/11/bastard-countryside-by-robin-friend/
Images can be found at: https://www.robinfriend.co.uk

Chudleigh, Pigment Print 152 x 190cm, 2005

Tower Blocks, East Reservoir, Pigment Print, 122 x 152cm, 2018

Dolly Engine Remains, Pigment Print, 122 x 152cm, 2006