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.

Final Portfolio

Connecting Essay - Bas Losekoot

Here is one of my documentary street photographs. I shot this using a reasonably slow shutter speed, which means that some light motion blur is captured in the foreground. This creates some contrast to the background of the image, in which there are two women at a table outside a coffee shop, which have been frozen still with no motion blur at all. The presence of both the people who are still and those who are moving at a fast pace can be used to suggest that within an urban environment, there are some that have to frequently be in places such as in the workplace in order to survive, whereas others have the financial luxury to be able to engage in leisure activities throughout the day. In editing this image, I increased the saturation of the colours, as well as increasing the contrast of the image. The image creates a positive mood as a result, which I feel is added to by my choice to focus on the two women have a friendly conversation at the table rather than the people walking by.




 

 The above image is by Dutch Documentary Photographer Bas Losekoot, and it was taken in Sao Paolo, Brazil. This image has a very muted colour palette; the foreground of the image depicts three men and a woman, all in smart shirts, with one man holding a clipboard, and the shirts consist of muted shades of blue and grey. The presence of formal shirts and the clipboard suggests that they are out doing some kind of work project. Therefore, within the context, we can draw the connotations that the muted shades of their shirts can suggest the mundaneness of everyday work life in an urban environment. The muted colours captured in the image are contrasted by the colour manipulation used in editing, which has added a lot of saturation to the image, therefore giving the image a much warmer tone.

My image was directly inspired by the work of Bas Losekoot. A lot of his images have one of two people in them that particularly stand out, which is the area of the image he focuses on. This is something I have tried to capture in my image; I focused on the two women on the table as I felt that they were the ones that you could tell a story from by looking at them. Losekoot's image uses a similar concept with the man with the clipboard, as he is framed using the rule of thirds composition rule meaning that you notice him first, and that you then create connotations based on what he is wearing, the clipboard he is holding and his facial expression. My use of colour is also heavy inspired by Losekoot's work; his image all follow the style of having saturated colours and high contrast, which is something I tried to imitate in editing the photo.