Possible locations and expected shots

Locations

Knebworth house & Grounds [http://www.knebworthhouse.com]

• Stark lone trees (Island Trees)
• Gardens
• Wildlife

Willingham Woods [http://www.willinghamwoods.com]

• Forestry
• Deforestation
• Tracks
• Lanes

Yorkshire Dales [http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk]

• Farmland
• Lanes
• Tracks
• Domestication

Local Area

• Farmland
• Lanes
• Tracks

National Parks

• The New Forest [http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk]
• The Broads [http://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/index.html;jsessionid=0CB6B588A3B01DB6322F83A508051D20]
• Peak District [http://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk]
• Lake District [http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk]

Welwyn North / Garden City

Dorest

• Seascapes

Cleethorpes [http://www.thepiercleethorpes.co.uk]

• Seascapes
• Pier

Cornwall

• Seascape
• Farmland

Scotland

Wales

Hatfield House [http://www.hatfield-house.co.uk]

Hertford Castle

Ricksmanworth

• Abandoned railway line

Berkhamsted

Hertford

St Albans

Nottingham Forest

Wittering, Sussex

A couple of days ago I went to Wittering in Sussex for a few days to try and capture some seascapes featuring some human interference in some way. The location was good, the beach had sea defences built on to it, perfect for the shots I wanted to get, seascapes with manmade structures. The weather however was not good. All week it rained, and by the end of the week it got very stormy, making it quite hard to get any shots. I took every available opportunity to get out on the beach when the rain slowed or stopped, but there was never much of a gap, and so resulted in the majority of photographs featuring water droplets all over the lens causing blurred and unsharp images and generally just ruining what I set out to achieve. Despite the set backs I kept trying, even if I didn't get any usable images from this trip at least I found one location with a scene that was perfect providing it is captured under better weather conditions. Perhaps another trip to this location is in order in the future. 

All images were taken using either a 10-stop ND filter and/or a 0.6 grad ND filter in bulb mode. All images have splotches across them from either the rain or spray from the sea due it being so windy, I was able to take a lot out with Photoshop but some still remain, although they are hard to see in these low res images, they are definitely noticeable and have caused unwanted blurring.  

The following are the better images I was able to salvage from the poor weather situation. I will continue editing to try and get more images from this trip.

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Important Dates

Notable dates

16^th - 18^th November

Research Bruges

19^th – 21^st November

Bruges – Shooting city urbanscapes

X-mas Break

Research artists

Research locations

Updating blog

Research Landscape photography

Research Wittering

December 30^th – January 2^nd

Sussix, Wittering – Shooting seascapes

January 3^rd - 12^th

Artist research

Updating blog

Editing images from Dorset

January 13^th

Blog hand in

All other dates are for artist research and/or other projects. Dates above are just notable dates that need to be remembered. 

Mind Map of Ideas

Jakob Wagner

http://www.jakobwagner.eu

Jakob Wagner is a German photographer who started out by completing a three year apprenticeship as a photographer. He works as a freelance photographer based in Duesseldorf. As well as being a photographer Wagner also works as a image editor and photo assistant. Wagner has been commissioned all over the world, some of his clients include; Emirates, Audi, Siemens, Jim Bean and many more. When not working on commission Wagner fills his time by completing personal photography projects. Wagners work is available in limited edition prints, books and can also be seen in exhibitions. 

As my project will be a running series of man made objects in the landscape growing by intensity as the series goes on, I will most likely end the series with a cityscape, as its one of the biggest locations man has had an impact on the environment. A lot of Wagner's work features cityscapes and is full of inspiration for my own projects.

Looking through Wagner's cityscapes I notice that cities seem to be best portrayed at night. So that the cities lights are the main light source in the image and really make certain elements stand out, as well as make the city appear like its full of life. As I was following a minimalist style im not sure how a cityscape can be portrayed using the same aesthetic as of yet.

All of Wagners shots are so clear and detailed. Viewing them from his website doesn't do the images justice, they need to be seen in large prints to get a grasp of the scale inside of the subjects in the photos.

As well as shooting landscapes and cityscape Wagner also does some work shooting thunderstorms. Once again this is another alternative method and fresh perspective on unnatural landscapes. Thunderstorms aren’t that common in some areas and so seeing an area while there is a storm raging above would show an a scene that could be percieved as unnatural. This could be applied to all different weather conditions, but it would take a very long time to complete such a project and would be hard to run a project that is so dependant on weather conditions. Of course you could chase the weather around country, but under the time frame and with costs to consider, its not a plausible direction to take the project in. 

Jakob Wagner's work can be seen here on his website: http://www.jakobwagner.eu

Hengki Koentjoro

http://500px.com/hengki24

Hengki Koentjoro is a Indonesian videographer and editor who majored in video production and minored in fine art photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography, Santa Barbara, California. Although his primary profession is working with the video medium, Koentjoro is a part time fine art photographer who works solely with black and white. Koentjoro has a statement on his 500 px profile saying 'Photography can never be separated from the aspects of making the common things unusual, welcoming the unexpected, indulging and embracing ourselves with the joy of photography.' (H. Koentjoro. http://500px.com/hengki24. [Accessed:04/01/14])

After looking through Koentjoro's images it brought a fresh perspective to my idea of a unnatural landscape. A lot of Koentjoro's work on landscape features misty, dark, quite dramatic scenes. The scenes are of what you expect from a landscape, but using the aesthetic that he does makes them something more. It gives them a unnatural look, a look you don't normally witness, perhaps a scene that only the camera can see. This got me thinking about another perspective to take on my project, another way to photograph landscapes and make them appear unnatural. Using the dark and misty aesthetic of Koentjoro to make a natural scene seem unnatural. Utilising extreme weather, or perhaps shooting at night could create a unnatural look about environment, basically finding a different way of depicting the scene as to how its normally seen in daylight would make any landscape look unnatural. I think shooting solely in black and white adds to this effect as well because we don't see the world through back and white, we see colour so thats what were use to, presenting in black and white adds yet another seeming unnatural element to the photographs.

As well as shooting landscapes Koentjoro also shoots a lot of work underwater. This opens up new possibilities as its a scene not often seen, so nearly anything seen underwater can be depicted as unnatural in someway. Particularly of the photographs portraying the reefs, some of those images looked just like landscapes because you couldn't see the water, and so looked like something from another world, something unnatural. Although underwater shots will be a bit extreme, costly and take up too much time for my project, perhaps another project in the future.

Hengki Koentjoro's work can be seen on his 500 px profile here:

http://500px.com/hengki24

Particular photographs by Koenjoro that attrated my attention are:

'Sway'

'SkyHigh'

'Silhouettes'

'DeepForest' 

'Gorgonian' 

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

http://www.noemiegoudal.com

NOÉMIE GOUDAL is a French fine art photographer who originally studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins, London and then after studied photography at Royal College of Art where she graduated with distinction. A lot of Goudal's work involves landscape and presenting it in an abstract way in a studio environment, a 'unnatural' landscape if you will. Quite a bit of Goudal's work involves large scale prints of landscape scenes hung up in a studio and then parts of that landscape brought into the studio and set up in front of the print so that it looks like a continuous image, except the obvious border around the print and props where it lets you see that everything is in an indoor environment. I find the work to be quite unique and works very well, some works are better suited and better executed than others, but all are high quality and well thought out, they are quite inspirational.

Goudal has had commissions for her work, but the majority seems to be exhibited all across Europe and in the USA. Goudal has picked up many awards for her work including D&AD, Student of the year and Leica Prize, shortlisted for the Exhibition, amongst several others of note.

Goudal's work is quite abstract, quite traditional in the fine art scene, but stands out from the rest, for me at least. Her work portrays crafted dream like scenes that show landscape and studio skills combined. I find her work to be quite inspirational, particularly with this project I'm currently doing as it provides another method of presenting an abstract, unnatural landscape (placing the landscape away from its natural place, and presenting it in the abstract way). The aesthetic of looking at a print portraying a room with another print inside gives the feeling of glancing through several windows into a completely different world, you see the print, and then the room (our world) and then you see the hung print (the other world), this is what gives the images a dream like quality about them, perhaps it will be reiterated when seeing the prints themselves. The glimpse of the studio or building is what anchors the viewer to thinking that the room is the real, and the print is a portal to another world, making the abstract image.

Goudal has her work printed quite large when exhibited so that all detail within the scene can be seen, from looking at the images on her website the prints are quite impressive.  

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

NOÉMIE GOUDAL

NOÉMIE GOUDAL