A camera moves along a grim upper section of a block of flats, with structures to the right forming the logo as it passes by. I don’t know why, but i didn’t think about this at all for my research and possible project ideas. This was suggested during my tutorial on Wednesday looking in particularly the movement of the camera and the surrounding landscape.

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore was interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a photographic darkroom kit at age six from a forward-thinking uncle.^[1] He began to use a 35mm camera three years later and made his first color photographs. At ten he received a copy of Walker Evans’s book, American Photographs, which influenced him greatly. His career began at the early age of fourteen. Shore then began embarking on a series of cross-country trips, making “on the road” photographs of American and Canadian landscapes. In 1972, he made the journey from Manhattan to Amarillo, Texas, that provoked his interest in color photography. Viewing the streets and towns he passed through, he conceived the idea to photograph them in color, first using 35mm and then an 4×5″ view camera before finally settling on the 8×10 format. His 1982 book, Uncommon Places was a bible for the new color photographers because, alongside William Eggleston, his work proved that a color photograph, like a painting or even a black and white photograph.

Bernd and Hilla Becher

The Bechers first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959, and had their first Gallery exhibition in 1963 at the Galerie Ruth Nohl in Siegen. They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. In addition, they were intrigued by the fact that so many of these industrial buildings seemed to have been built with a great deal of attention toward design. Together, the Bechers went out with a large format camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward “objective” point of view. The images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs. These structures included barns, water towers, storage silos, and warehouses.

The Bechers also photographed outside of Germany, including buildings from the United States and other areas of Europe. Bernd taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography industry. Former students of Bernd’s included Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Höfer.

Robert Adams

Admas was born in the industrial town of Orange, New Jersey, relocating to Colorado as a teenager with his family. Adams became interested in documenting how the western landscapes of North America, once captured by the likes of Timothy O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson, had been shaped by human influence. As part of the New Topographics in the 1970s, Adams approach to photographing these landscapes was to take a stance of apparent neutrality, refraining from any obvious judgments of the subject matter. His images are titled as documents, to establish his neutral position. However, in the words of John Szarkowski, Adams… “has, without actually lying, discovered in these dumb and artless agglomerations of boring buildings the suggestion of redeeming virtue.” Adams’s recent essays in Why People Photograph and Beauty in Photography make strong arguments for conservative and human approaches to making photography, writing clear criticism about photography, and the importance of encouraging responsible stewardship of the land.

For about five years, beginning in 1974, Adams embarked on an experiment: he made a series of photographs at night—the opposite of the high-altitude daylight used in most of his previous photographs. The project brought an element of risk he had not experienced before. Passing motorists sometimes veered toward him on rural roadsides, and in urban centers police repeatedly questioned him about his activities.

Thomas Struth

Sommerstrasse, Düsseldorf, 1980

Born in Geldern, Germany, Thomas trained at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1973 until 1980 where he initially studied painting under Peter Kleemann and Gerhard Richter before settling on Bernhard Becher’s photography studio. He won a scholarship to work at P.S. 1 in New York for the year of 1978. His early works largely consisted of black-and-white shots of streets in Japan, Europe and America. Skyscrapers were another favourite feature of his work, with many of his photographs attempting to show the relationship people have with their modern-day environment.

In the mid-1980s Struth added a new dimension to his work when he started to produce family portraits. This was after a meeting withpsychoanalyst Ingo Hartmann. As a result, these works attempt to show the underlying social dynamics within a seemingly still photograph.

Basing himself in the art capital of Germany - Düsseldorf, Struth’s profile continued to rise in the 1990s, and in 1997 he was awarded the Spectrum International Photography Prize of Lower Saxony.

Struth had his first solo exhibition in the U.S. at The Renaissance Society in Chicago in 1990. He had an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2003. The centre of the exhibition was the Museum series, which featured seemingly ordinary shots of people entering churches, museums and other public places.

Lewis Baltz

His entire work is focused on the counter-aesthetic of photography, searching beauty in desolation and destruction. Baltz images describe the architecture of the human landscape, offices, factories, and parking lots. His pictures are the reflection of control, power, and influenced by and over human beings. His minimalistic photographs in the trilogy Ronde de Nuit, Docile Bodies, and Politics of Bacteria, picture the void of the other, in 1974 he captured the anonymity and the relationships between inhabitation, settlement, and anonymity in The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California (1974).

Below are a couple of inspirations for my film shoot on Wednesday enjoy.

Canon 5D Mark II
http://vimeo.com/2581629

CANON 5D TEST
http://vimeo.com/7377338

Canon 5D montage
http://vimeo.com/14937818

Canon 7D lowlight test 2
http://vimeo.com/9317767

Canon 7D Highlight\LowLight test in Moscow
http://vimeo.com/9230160

The idea behind this is for the viewer to select a part of the building that would like to observe, providing a interactive experience for the viewer. This may be altered and improved over the next couple of months.

Please do have a look at their work on their websites.

Vince Hart
www.vincehart.co.uk

Nikitas Almpanis
www.nikitasalmpanis.com

Sofia Timotheou
www.sofiatimotheou.com

Gerry Kinson
www.gerryatkinson.com

Vikram Kushwah
www.vikramkushwah.com

For me this is realistic goal to aim for and since been studying the site for over the year and researching other practitioners work i feel confident to go forward with my project.

Over the summer i have been testing different cameras, dollies and tracking devices for my project. Also i have acquired some more 8mm cine film cameras which i have put to good use for my project. I have sent the film to germany to be processed and awaiting the final results of processing. Fingers crossed!! This has also given me the chance to sign a agreement with the Arlington House owners to have access to the building in the next coming months.

So the plan is to begin to shoot from within the High rise of Arlington focusing on the corridors, stairs, life, roof and living accommodation of the residents. For me i want to document and show to people who live outside Arlington the real experience. Rather than set stereotyped views you see from the outside of the brutalist concrete walls.

As you can see below are five text shots from the site of Arlington House in Margate. Please feel free to view and do pass comment positive or negative.

The images below do show interesting connections between all the works and the different artists that have created them, even though they use different media – from painting to sculptures, film to print they all somehow share a connection of social documentation.

If you have any further suggestions of any other artists or photographers that relate to my area that i haven’t mentioned, please comment or email me. Many thanks.

Following descriptions of each of the pieces will appear at a later date.

Edward Hopper
American Realist Painter/Printmaker
1882-1967

Nighthawks (1942)

Western Motel (1957)

Thomas Demand
German Photographer
1964-Present
www.thomasdemand.de

Presidency II (2008)

Walker Evans
American Photographer
1903-1975

Bud Fields and His Family, Hale County, Alabama - Walker Evans 1936–37

Coca-Cola Shack (1935)

Mark Lewis
Canadian Artist/Film Maker
1958-Present
www.marklewisstudio.com/index

Philip-Lorca diCorcia
American Photographer
1951-Present

Hustlers

Ike Cole, 38 years old, Los Angele

Ed Ruscha
American Artist strongly connected to the Pop Art Movement
1937-Present

Twenty Six Gasoline Stations (1962)

Jeff Wall
Canadian Artist/Photographer
1946-Present

Destroyed

Insomnia

Chris Cunningham
English Music/Film Director/Video Artist
1970-Present


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