Detailed Photographer Research

Bas Losekoot
Mathew Merrett
Adam Burton
Ronya Galka

Bas Losekoot
Bas Losekoot is a dutch born artist and photographer who specialises in documentary photography. His work often contains themes of the socio-cultural issues within cities around the world. His works have taken place in cities such as New York City, Sao Paolo and Istanbul. His "Urban Millennium" project is one I have particularly focused on, as it concerns the growth of density in the world's most crowded cities. I wanted to look at Losekoot in more depth as his topic is very close to mine; he looks at the effects of urbanisation and the lifestyles, which is something a large amount of my project focuses on. Also, his style of documentary photography varies to most documentary photographers, as it is common to shoot in black and white in order to not distract the viewer from the subject matter; Losekoot goes a different way, shooting in very saturated and high contrast colours. This is something I will attempt throughout my project, which I feel will create a variation and contrast to the some of the grittier black and white images I will feature in my series.

This Photo appears to have been taken from behind a window with an advert printed onto it. Losekoot has focused the camera sharply on the background, leaving the glass in the foreground out of focus. The advert being out of focus and the buildings being in focus could be attempting to express a dislike for the increasingly commercial nature of urban environments, suggesting that the main focus should be on the sights of the city such as buildings rather than advertising products. Also, the architecture of the buildings suggests that the location is historic and has been there for a long time, which creates a contrast to the advert, which is a sign of modernity. The presence of the two together suggests that modern ideas of commercialism and consumer lifestyles are starting to become dominant within urban locations. The image also creates a suggestion that consumerism is a large part of urban life, as the advert takes up a large amount of the frame; despite not being in focus. This image has inspired me to focus parts of my shoots on the presence of advertising and commercialism, which is further shown in my physical experiments.

This was likely a candid photo, meaning the subject was not positioned there by the Photographer but happened to be in that position when the photo was taken, as this is often the nature of documentary street photography. Losekoot used the rule of thirds composition rule to capture this image, taking the image as the woman was positioned in the focus point to the left, meaning your eyes are immediately drawn to her. The woman is wearing fairly smart clothes, suggesting that she is likely from a middle class background. The architecture also suggests that the area this was taken in is fairly wealthy too. This is clearly contrasted by the graffiti shown in the foreground, which is often a sign of deprivation and poverty. The presence of the graffiti could suggest that the working classes are trying to sabotage the richer areas, as they feel that they didn't get the same opportunities. Also, the graffiti present is not images, but text in the form of tags. The presence of these tags could represent that some of the people in the working classes have created their own status as they feel the class system has failed in giving them status. The influence of this can be seen in my project, as I have captured both the wealthy and poor sides of urban life.

Fashion Portraiture - Equipment

The Keylight is the main light in your setup

Beauty Dish - Circular dish light that can create either diffused or directional light

Diffusion Sock - Spreads the light evenly across the picture

Fill Light - Points up at the subject's body to fill in the shadows

Honeycomb - Restricts the spread of the light

Back Light - Lights up the back of the subject

Lighting diagram - A Diagram that shows your lighting setup

Final Evaluation

Overall, my project I feel was successful in researching the effects of urbanisation on both lifestyle and architecture. I managed to focus on my themes, while at the same time, experimenting with different styles an developing photographic styles such as documentary photography and tilt shift. When I began my project, I wanted to portray the contrasts between urban and rural areas, making use of stop motion animation, with hopes to create a final result of a short stop motion film involving both pieces taken in rural areas and in urban areas to show contrast. However, I realised that accessing rural areas would not be practical due to living in an urban area, therefore I shifted the focus to just urban areas. For my first urban based shoot, I tried to capture urban architecture, using black and white to create a sense of urban architecture being prison like, which I feel was effective in creating a bleak atmosphere. I expanded on my look at architecture through my fifth shoot, in which I expanded on my approach of the topic by incorporating HDR processing, which gave my images a wide tonal range. While I had these two shoots, I felt that I wanted to revisit the first architecture shoot I completed, changing something about the shoot; I decided I wanted to shoot in many of the same locations I had used, but shoot them at night. I felt that this shoot expanded on my project overall, as it portrays the same location in a different mood; I decided to not make use of noise in my images this time around, creating a much less sinister mood. In addition to capturing urban architecture, I also completed several people-based documentary shoots. In my fourth shoot, I brought a tripod out to the town with a theme of the fast pace of urban life, and I captured some motion blur images of people walking quickly through town to reflect this. I shot these images in a wide angle format, which is something I carried on into my sixth shoot, in which I incorporated urban landscapes and documentary photography together, linking my architecture and people themes. I further expanded my documentary approach in my ninth shoot, removing the motion blur element and shooting without the aid of a tripod; I feel that this was my most successful shoot as the images created strong narratives about the people in the images.

To create my final portfolio, I mainly drew from the straight image that I had created throughout my shoots. First of all, I went through each straight images post and took three images which I thought were the strongest in the post. This left me short by around ten images, therefore I made another sweep through my straight images, picking some that fit strongest into either representation of people in an urban environment or representation of architecture in an urban environment. I tried to pick images in a way that my portfolio has section of photos that looked as if they worked as a series, therefore some of the straight images I re-edited to link to others, removing some black and white elements of my eighth shoot and creating a series of desaturated urban decay themed images.

I would say that I have definitely created a cohesive body of work from my project. While I did change my project focus, originally intending to focus on both urban and rural locations and the contrasts between them, I feel that once I decided to keep to urban areas, I managed to decide what my main themes were quickly;urban architecture and urban people. I explored various types of urban architecture, capturing both modern, sleek urban buildings and brutalist inspired older urban buildings. I also used this theme to look an urban decay, taking pictures at an abandoned school which had a very square and repetitive architectural design. Within the theme of people, I experimented with different approaches to portraying this. For example, I did shoots that were very impersonal to the subjects, with one of them using motion blur to portray the fast pace of life in urban   environments and also taking photos from high up on top of a car park to portrays those who live in urban environments being overshadowed by the large architecture. I also did some shoots that were far more personal to the subjects, getting closeup and showing interactions between people and their facial expressions. Overall, I would say that I have produced a cohesive body of work as all of my shoots fall under the themes of either urban people or urban architecture, and I have used a variety of photographic methods to portray these themes.

My research has heavily influenced my shooting methods and the type of photography I have incorporated. With my two early animation shoots, I drew influence from Eadweard Muybridge, who I researched for my essay. Although he didn't create animations, his method of setting up several cameras to trigger as a horse runs past was a large inspiration on my use of multiple shoot mode to capture motion while I myself was moving. There are also several photographers from my research logs that inspired the way I conducted shoots throughout this project. One example would be the Dutch documentary Photographer Bas Losekoot, who shot a series called the urban millennium, which focused on the interaction of people in urban areas, particularly of multiple cultures. The series' photographic style is usually high contrast, high saturation images which focus closely on a single subject, from which the viewer can create connotations. I tried to replicate this in my images, making use of narrow depth of field to draw attention to the main subject of the image, as well as editing them to increase the contrast and saturation, which I felt made my image create a more positive atmosphere. Another Photographer that inspired my shoots was German architectural Karl Hugo Schmolz, who was active in post war Germany and captured Bauhaus architecture, which was the popular style around the time. He put careful thought into composition, making use of golden triangle and rule of thirds composition rules to frame his image in a way that the buildings had a strong sense of depth and often incorporated leading lines. This pre-visualised composition style was something I took into consideration when shooting my architectural photography; I selected areas in which I could create a sense of depth by using the golden triangle rule to create layers in my image, as well as incorporating leading lines that lead you to the focal point of the image.

Overall, I would say that I've learned a great deal from this personal investigation. I originally set out to portray the contrasts in lifestyle and architecture between rural and urban locations, but quickly decided that I wanted to narrow my focus to exploring the lifestyles and architecture in urban environment. Through my research, I discovered different urban architectural movements and how they influence the architecture around my town. I learnt that as my town was built in the 1960s and developed a lot in the 1980s, the Brutalist movement has heavily influenced the appearance of a lot of my town. I decided that this would be an opportunity to portray urbanisation as something that is vulgar yet powerful and unstoppable; reflected in the very square, bulky and repetitive architecture. The other part of my proposal was to investigate the effects of urbanisation, both on people and on the land. From my research, I noticed that many urban photographers link fast and busy lifestyles to city life, which is something that I tried to make heavily present in my project. From my shoots, I use such techniques as motion blur to create a sense of crowd anonymity and portray this fast pace of urban life, as well as tilt shift to make people appear as if they are miniatures, creating a sense of people being overshadowed by urban architecture. Additionally, I learned of the negative impact that urbanisation has on nature, and how urban structures can be quickly built then abonded and left for nature to retake the land. This is something I incorporated into an urban decay themed shoot, in which I shot at an abandoned secondary school where plants had covered a large amount of the structures. If I had more time, I would have liked to further look into the themes of urban decay, as it was difficult to find many abandoned locations that were in walking distance of me, and I felt this was one of the key effects of rapid urbanisation.

Computer Experiments

 

I have made use of converting my images to black and white in Photoshop, as well as adding noise to give the images a gritty atmosphere. I converted to black and white by selecting the black and white adjustment in the adjustments panel above the layers box, then added noise by going to filter>noise> add noise, then dragging the percentage slider to my desired amount.

I also made use of selective colourisation. I created this image by using the quick select tool, then selecting the part I wanted to remain in colour. I did selected layer>invert, which inverted the selection so that when I converted to black and white, my desired area would remain in colour.

Another Photoshop technique I used is HDR. To create my HDR images, I shot in Camera RAW format and used auto bracketing on my camera, setting it to two steps. To merge each set of three images together to create one, I opened them in photoshop and selected file>automate>merge to HDR pro, making adjustments to brightness and contrast in HDR menu.

 

I have also experimented with the use of tilt shift filters to create miniature style effects from my low angle landscape shots. I shot images of a busy bus terminal from the top of a car park. Once I opened them in Photoshop, I went into filter>blur gallery>tilt shift, then set the blur threshold so that the people and buses in the images in focus and the area around them is blurred, making them appear as if they are miniatures. Tutorial here.


 



From my first two shoots, I created some stop motion animations, one of which can be seen below. I captured the pictures while shooting on continual shoot mode on a moving boat and created the video file in Adobe Premier Pro. I dragged all of the images onto a video timeline in the program, the right clicked the timeline and selected speed/duration and dragged the duration of each picture to be one frame per image. I then rendered and exported the project as a .MOV file. Video tutorial of this method can be seen here.

Shoot Ten - Work Diary

For my final shoot, I decided to make a final extension to my exploration of the topic of urban architecture, opting to shoot something which creates some contrast to my previous architecture shoots. I decided to shoot in similar locations to those used in my third shoot, with the variable being it would be dark when shooting this time around. I hoped to create a contrast between urban activity in the day and urban activity at night.


 

 This was taken using a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second, with an aperture of f5.6 and the ISO set to 320. I shot this with the camera mounted on the tripod, therefore I was able to increase the shutter speed in order to expose my image enough, rather than turning the ISO to a high number, and as a result the image is low in noise, creating a very smooth lighting effect throughout. The street lamps in the image give off light in a very muted shade of yellow, which creates a sense of unhappiness throughout the image, as yellow usually represents happiness therefore the fading of yellow could represent a fading of happiness. This sense of unhappiness carries in the architecture that can be seen throughout the majority of the image , which has clear Brutalist influences and creates a very cold and cynical atmosphere, suggesting that urban life itself if cynical in nature. 

 This was taken with a shutter speed of 1/3 of a second, with an aperture of f5.6 and an ISO of 320. Like the previous image, this also makes heavy use of street lights for lighting, creating another muted yellow tone that suggests that urban life can make you unhappy. This also has some presence of nature in the composition, with a tree being present underneath the lamp post. The tree is being cast underneath the lamp's yellow light, which creates a commentary on nature, despite having been in existence forever, now lives in the shadow of urban structures. This is further shown through framing; the image was taken from a high angle, meaning the building above is shown to appear as if it towers over both the viewer of the image and the tree, suggesting that people may feel as if large, dull urban structures are shadowing over human life as well as plant life.

Shoot Nine - Work Diary

For my ninth shoot, after capturing urban architecture, I wanted to expand on my previous work that involves people and how they interact in an urban environment, moving closer to my subjects and cutting out a lot of the wide angle landscapes I featured in my previous people based shoots. I went out into town without a tripod so that I could move more freely and tired to capture scenes that I thought would let the viewer of the image create their own narrative from; I shot from a documentary perspective.



I shot this using a shutterspeed of 1/250, with an aperture of f5.6 and an ISO of 200. I kept the shutterspeed relatively high as I was shooting freehand and as the subjects in this shoot are unknowing that they are being photographed, the lens was fully zoomed in so that I could remain unknown from a distance. I originally shot this in colour, but decided I wanted to make a large amount of the image black and white in editing after the shoot. I selected the image of the London Eye in the background using the quick selection tool, then inverted the selection and converted the image to black and white, with the selection meaning that area was excluded from the conversion. The use of the selective colourisation points out comparisons between poor and working class urban areas and affluent urban areas. The image of London being colourise creates the connotation that London is exciting and upbeat, and the sky blue colour that is featured heavily in the image creates the contrast between London and Harlow, which is represented as being dull through the use of the black and white.

 
 This image was taken with a shutter speed of 1/100, an aperture f7.1 and ISO 200. I set my shutter speed significantly slower than in the previously shown image, as the position I was in had the opportuntiy to capture people in motion, therefore I wanted a slower shutter speed to create some motion blur with the people in the foreground to link to the theme of the fast pace of urban life. I had my camera fully zoomed in so that I could capture my subjects closer. I focussed on the two women sitting down outside a coffee shop having a conversation, meaning the foreground is the part of the image that was out of focus. The presence of both people who are quickly walking through town and the two women sitting creates connotations of different paces of life that are present within urban environment, with some having no choice but to be constantly be busy to get by in life, while others have the freedom to participate in some leisure activities throughout the week.

Shoot Eight - Work Diary

For this shoot, I wanted to try and capture some abandoned areas, keeping to the theme of urban decay. I looked around Harlow for a location that had been left alone for a long while, as this would mean that nature has taken over what was once man made, linking to my theme. I found an abandon school ground that was open to the public, which is where I decided to complete my shoot

This is one of my straight images from my shoot. I shot this image with a shutterspeed of 1/100, with the aperture of f11. I shot on this shutter speed as I was shooting without a tripod and wanted to avoid camerashake; my aperture I set to F11 as I wanted a fairly wide depth of field, as the image is landscape style image. This image links well to my subject of urban decay as the image depicts a field on a schoolground, on which the grass has become unkempt and overgrown and has covered some of the school structures in the background. The image makes heavy use of shades of green throughout the foreground and midground, which I have emphasised by increasing the colour saturation as well as shifting the colour balance to reduce yellows and increase greens. As a result, you get both saturated and muted shades of green throughout the grass, which could be seen as a reflection of the negatives and positives of a place like this being reclaimed by nature. The bright green shades represent the positive in that the structure is unnatural and was put in place where there once was nature, therefore the process is in a way a "return to normality", whereas the muted shades could represent what is lost in the school being abandoned, as it was once a place of learning.

 

Here is another of my straight images from my shoot. Like the previous image, this was also taken at 1/100 with an aperture of f11 in order to keep the depth of field wide and avoid camerashake from handheld shooting. This photo as been editing far more than the other image, as I wanted to create a gritty and dark mood from the image. To create this mood, I converted the image to black and white, then went into photo filters and added noise to the image, creating an overall rough texture of the image. It depicts and bench that has had once of its seats broken off. The floor below it has gathered large amounts of moss, as the bench has been left untouched and the area has been rained on; this links very strongly to the themes of urban decay and urban structures being retaken by nature. The use of black and white and noise in the image creates a very sinister mood, as it creates a wide tonal range, with tonal contrast between the dark tones of the moss on the floor and the light tones on the wooden boards that cover the buildings. This contrast creates connotations of the strength of nature against urban structures that have been left unattended for a long period of time.

Connecting Essay - Anna Delany

Here is an image taken from my eighth shoot, which captured themes of urban decay and abandonment. This was taken at the site of an abandoned school that is soon set for demolition, which has not been in use for around 6 years. Parts of the school have been professionally demolished, and this professional demolition is visible in this image. I took this while just outside what was the astro turf playing field, which had been professionally pulled up, creating a very rough and uneven surface, and with that some very rough textures, which create connotations of the uncertainty of whether buildings under jeopardy will last or get abandoned like this one. In the foreground of the image is the fence that went around this astro turf field, which has since been destroyed, with most of the metal netting having peeled away and collapsed onto the floor. The fences being collapsed could represent the fact that this building was once a school, which is a protected environment but since being abandoned is now completely unprotected and open for anyone to access. I processed this image into black and white and added noise, creating the gritty and urban aesthetic that I tried to create for this shoot.



This is an image by New Zealand born, New York based urban photographer Anna Delany. This image combines rural and urban photography, as it was taken in a field, however, it contains a hut with no windows or door which has been covered in graffiti. The image has been captured in black and white, creating a wide tonal range, with the hut and the grass in the mid ground creating some light tones, which are contrasted by the dark sky and the dark trees in the background. The architecture of the hut looks very urban and links to the brutalism movement, which is something a lot of Delany's work captures. The presence of such hut within a rural environment could suggest that the rapid urbanisation from the 1960s onwards has somewhat failed, as this urban structure has clearly been abandoned. Graffiti on the hut can be taken as representing the presence of urban decay.

My image has been inspired by the image Anna Delany took. The subject matter of Delany's works is urban decay, and they are always taken in black and white; I tried to find a decayed and abandoned location in Harlow Town to reflect this theme, eventually choosing the site that was once Passmores School. Delany's use of black and white creates a wider tonal range for the image as well as being a stylistic choice, which is something I took note of throughout my shoot. You can see same sharp dark and light tones throughout my image that are present in Delany's image, creating a smooth and rich feeling to the image. I also took note of Delany's use of texture to portray urban decay, adding noise to my image to give the textures a rougher and more gritty quality.

Connecting Essay - Dylan Kasson

Here is one of my images from my fifth shoot. This is a HDR processed image, created from three different image. I set my camera to auto bracketing mode, and set the main exposure to 1/160 to avoid camera shake and any motion blur in case any people were visible in the shot. I took three image, with one being under exposed, one being over exposed and one being correctly exposed. The HDR processing used in Photoshop combined the three images to create this final image. It has a wide tonal range, due the HDR processing and the fact I shot the base images in a RAW format. There are some dark tones shown the wall to the left of the image and the path that leads along the bottom of the image. There are also some light tones shown in the building that takes up a large part of the background of the image. There are a lot rough and worn textures shown throughout the image, particularly along the path in the foreground. These textures create connotations of the rough side of urban lifestyles, like the constant presence of crime and frequent graffiti and vandalism. The railings at either side of the path create leading lines, leading the viewer to the background where the large office building stands.

Here is an image by documentary photographer Dylan Kasson. The image depicts a shopping trolley left in the middle of a storm drain, and it has been taken from the top of the storm drain at a low angle looking down on the trolley. It's in colour but the colours have been desaturated, giving the image a bleak mood. It appears that a slight purple filter has also been applied to the image, which adds some warmness to the harshness of the mostly grey colour pallete. The image has been taken in portrait orientation rather than landscape, which means that attention is drawn more to the punctum of the image, which is the trolley being left there, rather than the vastness of the storm drain. The presence of the trolley and the fact that the photo has been taken from so far away from it could suggest that the area it's taken in is deprived or abandoned; the trolley is a symbol of consumerism and it being abandoned could suggest that consumerism has died out in the area due to deprivation.

My image has some links to Kasson's image, particularly in location. Kasson's image depicts an area that is clearly urban, yet appears to be old and worn out, which is similar to the location used in my image. I also took influence from his use of texture; I tried to capture a lot of rough textures to portray the gritty side of urban life, which is the presence of old structures from the brutalist era of the 1980s being present within modern urban towns. 

Connecting Essay - Ronya Galka

Here is one of my images from one of my street photography shoots. I used a tripod in this shoot, as I wanted to capture motion blur. This image used a shutter speed of 1 second, and the result is that all of the people in the foreground are blurred to a large degree. I decided on capturing motion blur as I felt that it would link well to the theme of urban lifestyle, particularly the idea that those that live in urban environments are busy almost constantly, which results in towns being crowded. The image has been edited to increase the saturation of the colours, as well as increasing the contrast of the picture as a whole. The saturated colours help create a more positive mood than the image originally did, as the colour pallet was muted due to the rainy weather on the day I shot this. It creates connotations of the urban town being a happy environment in which people can go and spend the money they've earned on leisure activities and products. However, the higher contrast widens the tonal range, creating some darker tones in the paving slabs on the floor and the black borders around shops. These dark tones can represent the dark side of urban consumer lifestyles, such as the effects of the actions of transnational corporation, such as Starbucks, which is present in this image, on the populations of less economically developed countries.

This is a Photo by German Documentary/Street Photographer Ronya Galka. The image has been taken from a profile perspective and depicts a woman in business attire walking along a London street  while smoking a cigarette. In the Background behind her, there is a large billboard that reads "BAD GIRLS" and displays a disco ball chained to a collar next to the text. The image has been taken in black and white, and the result is a wide tonal range, with some light tones shown on the walls of the street and dark tones shown in the shadows cast by the window bays and on the dark clothing she's wearing. The presence of the words "BAD GIRLS" could be a purposeful link captured by the photographer to the woman smoking, suggesting that she is "bad" as smoking is a harmful habit. It could also be a reference to the stylisation of smoking in some media, particularly in Photography and film, as the term "bad girls" referring to smoking almost fetishises it.

My image took some inspiration from Galka's images, particularly the image above. I wanted to capture people on the move in an urban environment, as well as capture large advertisements that could be linked to the lifestyles of those living in an urban environment. Galka's photo did it by creating links between the "BAD GIRLS" text and the woman in the photo smoking, while my image created links between the presence of consumer advertising and the fast movements of people in urban environments, suggesting that people are driven to be busy around town due to availability of consumer goods and services.

Image Bank

This is strongly linked to the idea of urban decay. The image depicts an abandoned train sitting at an abandoned station. It was shot in black and white, therefore it consists mainly of shades of grey, which create connotations of civilisation fading away.

This image has been focused on a very specific point of the image; the background. The background shows a very brutalist urban structure which looks as if it is abandoned or has at least not been developed for a long while. The foreground around it is a hole in a building from which the photo was taken. The use of the torn hole in the building suggests that the area is underdeveloped and has decayed, which creates a desolate mood.

This is another image with urban decay as a key theme. This appears to have been taken at an abandoned hospital, where three beds can be seen and there is something smashed and strewn all over the floor. The presence of the abandoned hospital beds could create links to cuts in public spending in the UK, resulting in hospitals being shut down. A hospital is also a symbol of hope and seeing it destroyed could be a symbol that hope is lost.

This is very different to some of the previous images, in that it has been taken in a very modern urban environment rather than an old or decayed one. This image was taken at a very wide angle, therefore there is a large amount of lens distortion. The image captures large buildings, which create connotations of power.

This appears to have been taken at a ruined theatre. It has a very muted colour pallete, consisting of muted browns and grey, which suggest that the place was once extravagant but has since faded after being abandoned for a long time. There are some light tones in the background from the light that is pouring in to the building through the holes in the roof, which create a sense of hope.

The image above contained a wide range of colours. It depicts abandoned train cars that have heavy graffiti on them. The graffiti creates a lot of bright saturated colours in the mid ground of the image, which is contrasted by the ground in the foreground, which is grey. 

 

This is colour but has be desaturated a large amount. The result is a pallet of muted colours, creating a gritty atmosphere. There is also a large tonal range presented, with some darker tones towards the left of the image, while the mid ground displays lighter tones. The man on the escalator with his hood up represents the anonymity that you get while in an urban environment

 

The Three images above link to the theme of urban architecture. They have all being shot in black and white, therefore paint urban structures in a cynical manner. The structures shown in the images are very square, with few rounded edges and lots of repeated simple patterns shown through the buildings windows, which could represent both the repetition and the lack of individuality that is present within urban areas and the lifestyle involved in them.

 

 

 

This series of images focuses on the presence of travel and motion within urban environments, and how the people use transport to get around. The images depict popular methods of transport in urban environments, such as trains, cars and walking. Some of the images have made use of motion blur to capture the fast pace of travel which is common in cities, partly due to people often having busy work schedules.

 

 

  

 

 

This series of images portrays the people within urban environments in a documentary manner. All of the images are in black and white, giving them a wide tonal range and high contrast. The images, as a series, show the contrast between those who live "regular" lives, purchasing consumer products and working contracted jobs, and those who have rebel from this system, turning to subcultures and acts of rebellion such as graffiti.

 

 

Above is another series focussing on urban structures and architecture, however, some of these images make use of colour, creating a more positive outlook on the repetitive, pattern based designs that are often used in these areas. Leading lines are used to point the viewer to the sheer scale that urban environments have amounted to in the present day, as well as pointing towards some large high rise structures in the background of the images.

The three images above focus on the theme of urban decay. They make heavy use of texture in portraying this theme, displaying course and corroded textures throughout. Muted colours have also been used to create a sense of dread and an eerie atmosphere throughout the images, linking to the sense of waste that urban decay brings.