Idea for Commission Project Part 1: The Environment

My Idea for Landscape is going to be about how humans consume food, the demand for it and how producers keep up with demand by growing and producing food artificially in greenhouses rather than using traditional methods such as using the earth to produce food. I aim to show this idea visually by photographing plastic play food to emphasize this notion of artificialness.  

Peter Henry Emerson

The reason why I wanted to look at Emerson because his work is the anti-picturesque, like it is not about how lovely and beautiful the agricultural landscape was but it was about the hard day to day lives of farmers during that time. 

Albert-Renger Patzsch

   

I wanted to look at Renger Patzsch because I admire the Uniformity element in some of his photographs because of the hard lines and shapes. This is a just a visual reference of what I want my photographs to look like in terms of my idea. 

Simone Nieweg

The Lighting in this image doesn't work well with the landscape because the colours  are brown and the overcast lighting makes everything look monochrome 

I think the lighting works better with the landscape because it has more even  lighting  working with the greens. 

With the camera position  I like how she has looked down onto the landscape which shows the detail of the plants. 

In this Series "Nature-Man Made" Nieweg is interested in the small scale working on the land and the interaction between man and the land rather than industrial farming. The series has a sense of tranquillity to it because of the soft lighting used where there is no shadows or bright light. There is also a presence of man in the photographs even though there are no people in the photographs. Also I find the series quite intimate because of the choice of camera height and distance. 

I am looking at Articles about the current Food Price Crisis that is happening due to bad weather conditions this summer, how this effects farmers and more importantly how it effects us as consumers :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19715504

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/17/charity-food-banks-record-numbers?newsfeed=t

So far I have negotiated access to land in Broad Oak, Canterbury and a allotment near where I live which I will be test-shooting this weekend.  

I have also been inspired by the Biblical Story of Adam and Eve and researched a painter called Lucas Cranach who was a German Renaissance painter and  painted a series on Adam and Eve and The Garden of Eden:

In the series Cranach makes many visual references to himself like his monogram inscribed on the tree of knowledge combined with the lion's outwards gaze. The Animals in the painting also make a reference to Christ like how the deer and the lion living together amicably in paradise. 

Frans Snyders 

Another Painter I wanted to Research was Flemish Painter Frans Snyders who painted Still life of Animals, Fruits and Vegetables. This series of images represents the abundance and fertility of the land, the celebration of fairly modern agricultural methods but also shows the toil and hard work required to make the bountiful harvest in the top left and right hand corners.