Context on the Bechers

'Moved' by the architecture 

1958 1st images 6x9 linhoff

Siegen, Germany - autobiographical

Mining industry through family connections

Rhur region, France and Wales 1965

1972 - USA, industrial regions of Pennsylvania

Heavy industries were their subjects

Shape, form and structure

"Objects that can be compared as a historical thread"

"We wanted to keep them" - emotional attachment

"Photography" - way of keeping

"Doomed to disappear" Bernd realised they were doomed to disappear and he felt it needed recording

Classification - varieties of types

Form of presentation - typology - examining the type

In the work no.1 bare a resemblance to no.9 in the typology 

Equipment:

Telephoto lens - distortion

600 mm 2x7tripods to avoid vibration

Difficult to shoot in the winter (bare trees)

Used fog to obscure the fussy background.

Long exposure, large format, small apertures, sharp depth of field and shot on cloudy days, f32 or f45 with a 20 second exposures "lovely moment capturing the exposure times"

Composition - central and similar details. Horizon below 3/4 mark.

Format: 30x40

60x50cm prints

Gibbs Reflection on final shoot

What happened?

I took a Pentax k1000 film camera, loaded with hp5 film. I chose specifically hp5 film instead of fp4 because it has more grain, I thought this would add well to the idea of being dark, mundane and gloomy. During lesson, I walked around southend with the intention to go behind shops and photograph them. The idea was to take Gohlke's idea of photographing the backs of billboards showing the reality behind a brand and do it with a slightly different approach. The shoot only took me about an hour, I spent only a short amount of time because I was tasked with shooting, processing and printing in only about three hours. Processing went well, however because I didn't have a lot of time to print, I found that my photographs turned out quite soft, what I could have done is used a contrast filter to make the blacks a little blacker and the whites a little whiter. 

How I feel it went

I'm not completely satisfied with the outcome of my final images, if I had more time I would have gone to london and done the same thing, what I found was a bit of an issue was the back of all the shops all looked very similar, with bins and broken glass on the floor. Another thing I could have done to emphasise the dark look was put a pair of tights over the camera lens, this would have given the photograph a very grainy effect, this would have made my work slightly resemble nakahira's work.

Conclusion

Overall I'm happy with the result however I do feel there's room for improvement. I think what I should have done is been a bit more experimental with the shoot and the printing, one example would be the tights idea. With the printing I could have used a filter to up the contrast on the photograph, I could have burnt in places which are a lil overexposed from the sun, or another experimental idea would have been to scratch the film adding to the gloomy effect.

Takuma Nakahira: secondary research

What I found when researching Nakahira's work and himself I found that he was very well known for being very articulate when talking about his art and others. I found that he was an editor for a magazine called 'The New Left' in 1963. Working here, he met photographer Shomei Tomastu. Through this meeting, Nakahira found his passion for photography. Through Tomatsu he met a range of other respected photographers. With them, they created the magazine 'Provoke' which is still a leading magazine today. 

                 Something I saw a lot when researching was the articles emphasising how influential and respected he is as a photographer and artist. The ASX website described him as a 'legend'. I think what made Nakahira so successful was that he was not only a good artist but he was a very interesting character. Nakahira was described by the American suburb x as "An essayist and photography critic, a political activist, a photographer who talked too much, a photographer who lost his memory, a photographer who forgot his mother tongue, a legend…" 

Frank Gohlke: primary research

For my primary research I decided to draw up a questionnaire, and ask people I know, what they thought of Gohlke's work. My first question was 'Do you think this work is different at all from traditional landscape photography' to which the answers of this question surprised me very much. A common response was simply 'not really' the only slight difference was that all of his work was in black and white and 'that's not always used in landscape photography'. I feel the reason for this common response to his work in that it's not that different from what people are used to, is because he did this work 40 years ago and therefore, I can imagine, at his time it was never done before but now that he has influenced a lot of photographers and people have a lot more access to photography his work has become the thing he specifically set out to try and not to be, generic.

                  I then asked what people thought the purpose was for his work, to which I got a few responses saying it was fine art and was done to be hung up at a gallery. Other responses were that it looked as though it could have been used for documentation purposes, which I guess both of these responses would be correct, his work is hung in galleries and it was done to document man made constructs.

Frank Gohlke: secondary research

There is something peculiar about the way we attribute the clarity of some photographs to the world itself. I try to reinforce that paradox by making photographs that convince the viewer that those revelations, that order, that potential for meaning, are coming from the world and not the photograph.
— Frank Gohlke, 1979

This is a quote I found from Gohlke. What I think he means by this is that he's not content with how landscape photography was at the time done, it was more about the beauty of the photograph instead of what is in the photograph, what, I feel, he means that is that his photos are very unedited and are more about what the photograph is of and less about the photograph itself.

"Gohlke is unusual among photographers for his willingness and ability to articulate his ideas verbally as well visually."

Quote from placesjournel.org

This quote illustrates why Gohlke is such a successful photographer. He is able to not only photograph what he finds beautiful, he's able to talk about and explain why it's so artistically beautiful. 

Plan of final shoot

For my final shoot I will use a lot of my inspiration from Frank Gohlke in that he chose to photograph the back of billboards, I've decided to walk round to the back of shops and photograph that scene, I hope it will have a similar effect to Gohlke's work in that my concept shows reality lying behind what brands are making up and trying to sell. It will also set my work aside from traditional generic landscape photographs.

For this shoot I have decided to use a film camera because I feel it will do better in achieving a mundane look through the use of grain. I've chosen to buy hp5 ilford black and white film for it is better for 

grain than fp4.

I will use a shutter speed of 1/125

Aperture of f8

And set my ISO to 200

Plan of random landscape shoot

The random task I have been set is 'places men urinate having left the pub'

My plan for this shoot is to go to small alleyways next to pubs, and photograph where I feel men would urinate, I want a dark and gloomy effect, to do this I think I might underexposed the images slightly, giving the images more blacks.

I will use my nikon d3100 

It is a sunny day so I would normally set my white balence to sunny however, because I'm going to dark places, I shall set it to shady.

My shutter will be set at 1/250

Aperture at f8

ISO 100

Because I am shooting these images on digital, I am able to achieve that mundane look I want on photoshop if I am not satisfied with the unedited version. I only aim to spend about an hour on this shoot.