COMMISSION UNIT ASSESSMENTJareth Fletcher-Miller

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 1: Landscape Concept

For this task I chose to look at the crumbling costal lines of the UK. This is a subject that I had to study during my geography A-level, and during the research I had to do into it I felt that it was a widely overlooked issue due to the fact we still haven’t found any way of fully preventing the issues caused by the costal erosion. During this project I did a lot of wider reading which helped me to expand my knowledge of the subject. I found that there were whole villages that had been washed away by the encroaching seas, and more recently houses and peoples properties falling off cliff edges.

! I was hoping to create a series of images that would draw attention to the effect of costal erosion and the reasons that we should put more effort into stopping our coast lines from shrinking.

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 1: Landscape Research

Jem Southam

I looked at Southam’s work due to his clever use of framing and angle.

Although his work wasn’t trying to get across the same message as mine I felt his style would suit my concept well.

Elger Esser

I really liked Esser’s work because of his use of colours and the stillness of his images, it

makes them really picturesque. I originally took my photos with the intention of them

looking like this but soon realized that it wouldn’t fit in with my concept.

David Benjamin Sherry

Originally I was planning on putting a cast on my work so I looked at Sherry’s work. After fighting a lot with colour correction I realized that without a lot of help to make it look right it could easily

go bad where as my images should speak for themselves.

Part 1: Environment (Task 1)Landscape Contact Sheets

Part 1: Environment (Task 1)Landscape Contact Sheets

Part 1: Environment (Task 1) Landscape Final Prints

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 1: Landscape Critical AppraisalFor this project I was hoping to draw attention to costal erosion. I looked into a few artists mainly for their photographic techniques but also did extensive research into costal erosion in the UK. In doing this research I found that the scale of the issue was actually worse than I had originally realized with whole villages disappearing and more recently houses and properties falling off the edges of crumbling cliffs.

! I started this project taking my photos of the Dover cliffs, this is because I know due to the cliffs being made from a sedimentary rock it meant that costal erosion would be a big issue. Even though I really liked some of the images that I captured I felt that the images were to pretty and didn’t really get my point across of the danger due to there being little or no interaction with actual people or buildings.

! I then went on to take my photos between Brighton and Seaford stopping a a few destinations along the way. These images worked a lot better because I made sure that I had some form or artificial structure involved within my images either on top of or protruding from the cliff face. This helped link the effect of the natural on the man made.

! I had a few technical issues with cameras when taking my images so in the end had to stick with the images that I got, but I feel if my time planning was better I would have been able to take the trip down again and potentially capture more images to choose from. Even though I felt I could have taken more images I am happy with the progression I have made and I am happy with the final outcome of my images and think they serve the purpose they intended.

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 2: Urban Concept

For the urban task I chose to look at the architecture of tower blocks. I feel that there was a lot of though that went into the architecture of these buildings, but that it is widely overlooked. More so in recent times due to the negative press that is linked with tower blocks and the communities within them. I looked into a few artists and also did some wider reading to get a better understanding of the tower blocks and their structure.

! My concept was to try and create a documentation of the tower blocks them selfs, the only agenda was to show the repetitive nature of the buildings and that even though they aren’t all the same it is still hard to tell them apart.

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 2: Urban Research

Russ Blees-Luxemburg

I really liked the effect of Blees-Luxemburg’s images due to her use of lighting and her long

exposure times. I soon realized that this would be impractical for me to do due to the low lighting where I took my images and people closing their

curtains.

Catherine Opie

Originally because I wanted to show the run down side to tower blocks Opie’s work was really useful to me due to the fact her images

have a grotty rundown feel to them. After taking my test shots I decided this wouldn’t

work because it made the images look to snap shot like.

Andreas Gursky

After I had taken my test shoots at the Barbican and decided on my final shoot I found that

Gursky’s work fitted in really well. His images of tower blocks are very repetitive which was what I was hoping to ultimately get from my images.

Part 1: Environment (Task 1)Urban Contact Sheets

Part 1: Environment (Task 1)Urban Contact Sheets

Part 1: Environment (Task 2)Urban Final Prints

Part 1: EnvironmentTask 1: Landscape Critical AppraisalMy concept behind this task was to document the repetitive nature of tower blocks. I looked into a few artists who took photos of tower blocks or urban environments to draw inspiration from. I also did a lot of wider reading again into this project and looked a lot at original floor plans for tower blocks and architectural blueprints. I found this information really interesting because it showed that originally tower block had a few general designs which fitted in with my concept really well.

! Originally I also wanted to cover what peoples perceptions of tower blocks were by taking very opinionated photographs of the blocks, but not blocks in rough areas. I felt that this would play on the idea that because they get a lot of bad press people see them generally as bad places where all sort of crime derives from but in theory it would depend on where they were. After test shooting this I found that these style of images were very snap shot looking and it made the photographs look more like tourist photos rather than what I was hoping to represent. Eventually I came up with the idea of taking closeup photos of the tower blocks to just show the repetitive nature of the blocks.

! I felt with my wider researching that my images represented my final concept really well due to the fact that the printed images don’t differ a lot and they almost look at a glance although I have just printed the same picture repeatedly. Although I am really happy with the outcome of my images if I had more time or had planned my time better I would have liked to reshoot my final images just so I could straighten up the lines a little better so they would flow better.

Part 2: WasteWaste Concept

For my waste concept I decided to look into wasted opportunities when it came to organ donation. I feel that this is a very important topic because although a lot of people agree with organ donation not a lot of people actually follow through with it, this is becoming a larger issue because there are always hundreds of people on a waiting list and if more people were donors more lives could be saved.

! My concept was to try and produce a body of work that would show the organ donation statistics. But I also wanted my images to have a slight shocking aspect to them due to the severity of the issue.

Part 1: EnvironmentWaste Research

Joel-Peter Witkin

I looked at Witkin’s photographs because of his use of organs in still lives. Even when I wasn’t sure how I was going to depict my concept I knew I was going to use organs.

John Moore

I looked at Moore because of how his images are simplistic but still have a lot of emotion

attached to them. I also looked at these images due to the fact he uses a cemetery in his images aswell which was the main concept

I was interested in.

James Nachtwey

I looked at Nachtwey’s work firstly because I found it whilst looking at Moore’s images. Looking more into it though it helped me to realized that location and whether I took it in back and white

or colour it would completely effect my final outcome.

Part 2: WasteWaste Contact Sheets

Part 2: WasteWaste Contact Sheets

Part 2: WasteWaste Final Prints

Part 2: WasteWaste Critical AppraisalMy concept behind my images was to show how many wasted opportunities there are when it comes to organ donation. I always knew that there was issues when it came to the numbers of available organs and the numbers of people who were waiting due to its coverage on the news. When looking into statistics I realized the dire need for organ donors.

! I toyed with a few ways in which I could display this work and took some test shots. I started by finding out reasons why people don't donate and presenting them more as a graphics project, I felt that this was good due to the fact it had a lot of information within the images but the images them selves would have been quite boring. I then looked into having the reasons linked with the organs and interacting with the organs, although I liked this idea I felt that it might have been too shocking (because I wanted the reasons to be coming out of the organ its self) and I wanted my images to be more subtle. I eventually stuck with what was my favorite idea from the start which was to have an organ on a grave stone to represent a donated organ and the other graves being all the people who haven't donated showing a statistical side to my images.

! Although I was pleased with the outcome of my images I had issues when the films were processed and it caused there to be permanent marks to be left on my negatives, although I washed away some residue there were obvious marks left. I also feel I could have played more with the depth of focus within the images to try and make the images flow a little better.