Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Landscape

Landscape:
Jeremy Turner, Landscape Panorama

Jeremy Turner, Landscape Panorama

The genre of landscape photography pertains to the representation of nature and capturing the essence of nature through a photograph. Landscape photography serves to show different spaces throughout the world. Within these spaces, strongly defined landforms, weather, and light serve to make up a landscape photograph. Not only do landscape photographs expose wilderness and nature to the public eye, they convey a strong appreciation of the world to the public.

In landscape photography, nature and scenery is the only subject of the picture. This type of photograph represents little to no human activity, and sometimes even animals can not be considered a subject in landscape photography. Usually within the photo, scenery is photographed from only one viewpoint. There are three different styles of landscape photography that are representational, impressionistic, and abstract. Landscape photography captures the beauty of nature.



Jeremy Turner, Landscape Panorama

Jeremy Turner, Landscape Panorama

Cited Work:


Alexander Gardner:
Alexander Gardner, 1980
Alexander Gardner is a Scottish photographer who was recognized for his photographs of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, as well as the exploration of the assignation of Lincoln. In 1860, following Lincoln's election into presidency, sparked a great war. Gardner began his photography career by photographing soldier's in their uniforms as they were leaving for the war. Gardner's popularity sparked from his self-portraits of these uniform soldiers. 
Gettysburg, 1863
 In Gardner's photography, he often depicts soldier's that are dead or wounded from battle. He puts the soldiers in the foreground of the picture and emphasizes the landscape in the background of the war grounds. Due to the fact that the pictures are black and white, it gives them an antique look. Also, the landscape is rocky which sets the tone of the picture being dark, arid, and unsettling. How he focuses on the rocks and the way he photographs the landscape sets the mood and evokes emotion from the viewer.

Gardner became heavily influenced by the works of Matthew Bradey after he visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. After this, he began working for Matthew Bradey and he traveled throughout the country and documented the war. Gardner became an expert in portraiture photography, as well as specialized in making Imperial photographs which can be described as large prints. The outbreak of the Civil War increased the demand in Gardner's pictures and he shot battles such as Antiedem and Gettysburg. 

In 1886, Garder published a two volume work that is titled Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War. After the Civil War he focused on photographing Native Americans, following that he gave up photography in 1871. Some art critiques criticize his work and claim that he manipulated his photographs by moving bodies and weapons to get the photographic effect that he wanted. Also, Gardner was recognized for training his young apprentice Timothy O'Sullivan. 

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Timothy O' Sullivan:
Timothy O'Sullivan, 1871
Timothy O' Sullivan is an American photographer who is recognized for his photographs on the Civil War as well as Western United States. O' Sullivan like Gardner was also employed by Matthew Bradey. When photographing, O'Sullivan's picutures represented nature as a tame and industrialized land. Through his photography, he combined both science and art to capture beauty within the photograph. His photography served to attract settlers to the west. 
South Side of Inscription Rock, 1873

In O' Sullivan's work South Side of Inscription Rock, his central focus is on a rock formation in New Mexico. With this rock formation, he also includes the desert to give a dry and arid effect on the landscape. Through this landscape photograph, he captures nature and its beauty. This photograph is very sublime in that the rock formation is on a grander scale and it is awe-inspiring. He does an excellent job at capturing the strong formation of land. 

O' Sullivan created his most famous pieces of art in 1863 called "The Harvest of Death." These photographs depicted wounded and dead soldiers in the battle of Gettysburg. From this he became recognized in 1867 as the primary photographer of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel by Clarence King. O' Sullivan died at age 42 from tuberculosis. 
Ancient ruins in the Canyon de Chelle,1873
Cited Work:



Todd Hido:

"Hido's photographs reveal isolation and anonymity in contemporary suburbia. Eerily lit rooms and suddenly abandoned homes increase the effect of loneliness and loss." Tom E. Hinson (Cleveland Museum of Art)

Todd Hido is an American based contemporary photographer who is noted for taking photographs of urban and suburban houses. There is little to practically no information on Hido's life and career. In his photography, Hido emphasizes on light as well as high detail. Hido attended Rhode Island School of Design for college and went on to get his masters at Tufts University. He has been recognized for several solo exhibitions as well as group exhibitions. In several of his photographs, he focuses on subjecting nudes such in his exhibition titled Househunting Nudes in Germany.

Untitled

Untitled
In these landscape photographs, Hido does an excellent job at producing these images to be eerie and mysterious. His sense of mystery allows you to take part in the landscape he is trying to portray, but the spookiness of the photographs yield you from this decision. Also, through his photographs the viewer is able to detect loneliness as well as emptiness. He does an excellent job at capturing the beauty of the scene of suburban homes during the night time and capitalizes on the desolation detected in the photograph. The composition is created by the dramatic lighting and the negative space that darkness unveils.




Hido now resides in Northern California.


Cited Work:
Video
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Edward Burtynsky:
Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky is an artist as well as a photographer that is highly recognized and respected in Canada. He is known as one of Canada's most respected photographers and is praised for his photographs of industrialization landscapes that are displayed in several museums throughout the world. Growing up, Burtynsky attended college at Niagara College in Canada where he studied photography as well as graphic arts. Through his photography, Burtynsky tries to depict the relationship between industry and nature. Burtynsky does an excellent job at capturing the concept of consumption.
Silver Lake Operations #3, 2007
Burtynsky's photography explores subjects such as mining, quarrying, oil production, recycling, and many more industrialized concepts. His photographs are taken on a large formatted field camera that is developed in high resolution. When photographing, he tends to get an ariel view, which unveils more landscape space. In the above picture, Burtynsky focuses on the subject of a mining area and emphasizes his shot through ariel perspective. He emphasizes industrial sublime through his photography. 
Silver Lake Operations #1, 2007
Burtynsky continues to use an ariel perspective while taking landscape photographs of land mines. This perspective expands the space and strongly represents defined landforms. These landscapes appear enormous and represent distinct colors which make the composition beautiful. 

Burtynsky is recognized for many accomplishments including: the TED prize, the Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles, The Flying Elephant Fellowship, Applied Arts Magazine book award(s), and the Roloff Beny Book award. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada and given an honorary degree; Doctor of Laws, from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.



Cited Work:


Florian Maier- Aichen:
Self- Portrait 
Florian Maier- Aichen is a German landscape photographer who uses computer editing and traditional photographic techniques. Maier- Alchen edits his photographs on the computer to make them more realistic as opposed to documentation. These computer techniques allow his photographs to manipulate imperfections and fictional elements. His painterly landscapes are often shot from an ariel perspective and they can be compared to a post card. Maier- Alchen attended both the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Essen in Germany.
Untitled, 2005
In his landscape photography such as his picture above, the ariel view expands the space in the photograph and creates a vanishing point. Nature is exposed and is represented as sublime because it is so vast and the scale is so grand. Nature is almost overwhelming, which makes the beauty overwhelming. The photograph represents a sense of perfection to the viewer, and it in fact appears to be as perfect as a postcard. The colors that are represented in the photograph such as the red forest almost seem fictional to the viewer. He rejects purity and tradition and experiments with edited and infrared.

Untitled, 2002
As you can tell, Maier-Aichen continues to experiment with color throughout his landscape photography. In his picture above, his colors give a sense of mystery to the viewer. The different hues of blue give an eerie emotion. The foreground is so defined that your eyes want to wander and see beyond the one tree in the foreground. Maier-Alchen's photograph appeals to the viewers senses and you can almost feel the coldness that is represented through the photograph.


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