Natural Destruction
Introduction:
In this modern era society has been sheltered from
destruction and the many forms it takes. Be it from flooding, tornadoes,
tsunamis, earthquakes – air, fire, water and earth all possess the ability to
inflict damage. The most interesting method of destruction is also the slowest:
decay. Whether we are cremated or buried we must return to the earth along with
all other organic matter in this world.
The process of breaking down the components of what
was once alive is painstaking and finite, the microorganisms responsible for decomposition
sit in two camps: bacteria and fungus. On a molecular level fungus is larger
than bacteria and are typically multicellular. A subtype of fungus is mould
which is responsible for turning food into fuzzy lumps which slightly resemble
their original shape. The physical process and aesthetic have entranced humans
for hundreds of years dating back to ritual sacrifices that can be found near
the Geographical marvel of the Nasca lines which are some two thousand years
old.
A freelance photographer called Joe Buglwicz has
completed a series of images that depict all the food that had begun to mould
in his refrigerator as a statement towards the current poverty in America.
Another photographer that is a beginning influence on this project is Billy
Kidd a famous portrait photographer that photographed decaying flowers in low
lighting resulting in an eerie beauty captured in the images.
From the beginning of time humans have been fascinated with destruction
and the subsequent deaths that follow it. One of the most famous artists who
was known for his drawings and art was Leonardo Da Vinci. To the right is an
image of one of his anatomical drawings from 1510 that he would create while
dissecting cadavers after being granted permission by the Hospital of Santa
Maria Nuova, Florence and then later gained permission from hospitals in Milan
and Rome. This displays humanities innate curiosity with death and the need to
record a moment, some three hundred years before the creation of the first
photo-etching.
Also, among his many
pursuits, Leonardo Da Vinci observed the effect of sunlight from a neighbouring
valley from within a cave which then projected an inverted image onto a piece
of paper. He called this naturally occurring phenomenon a ‘camera obscura’.
The work photography
stems from the Greek words phos meaning light and graphe meaning lines or
drawing. The final product translates to drawing with light; the word
photography didn’t come into international linguistics until 1980 due to the
research of one Boris Kossoy into the original ‘inventor’ of the word –
Hercules Florence.
During the further
development of photography there will be countless other individuals that have
experimented with the macabre subject of death within their images however,
Irving Penn is one of the most famous photographers. Penn is known for his
still life images and memento mori photographs that challenge the boundaries of
which is socially acceptable as aesthetically pleasing.
The first successful colour process was created in 1907 by the Lumiere
brothers, the pursuit was later developed by the company ‘Kodak’ which made the
first commercially available colour film. However, this film required a complex
processing procedure which was subsequently incredibly expensive, meaning the
film was only realistically available to a niche market.
Taken in 1979 this
platinum-palladium print (left) was favoured over colour film for the warm
tones that aren’t achievable while using colour prints, while also maintaining
the classic aesthetic of black and white film. Called ‘The Poor Lovers’ this
image depicts two skulls nestled on top of one another.
The main connotations of skulls are death, and so two skulls
would suggest two losses. However, the two skulls placement suggests a trivial
atmosphere such as that of a carnival game meant for children. It is almost as
if Penn was posing that for a few pennies it would be possible to attempt
knocking them from their stance and win a small prize. There is deeper
significance to this image due to the skulls positioning because if Irving Penn
truly meant for this image to be reminiscent of a fare ground game then as soon
as an individual strikes the ‘target’ then the skulls shall shatter. This may
be a commentary from Penn regarding the fragility of love and attachments that will
become fragments in death.
Photographer’s
Research
Irving
Penn:
Born in 1917 to
immigrant parents, he lived in New Jersey and studies at the Philadelphia
Museum School of Industrial Arts. One of his peers was the Russian émigré
Alexey Brodovitch, who later hired Penn as his assistant in New York. In 1943
he became an assistant director at Vouge, then shortly later became one of the
most famous photographers for Vogue magazine. During his sixty-year reign he
revolutionised the manner in which lighting was used in commercial avenues.
Irving Penn was fascinated with the macabre which in the early 1950’s resulted
in him being re-directed towards advertising which he took to like a bird to
water.
The below image is
called ‘Red Apples’ and was taken in 1985. This would have been after Penn had
re-opened a studio in Manhattan to continue with commercial photography
alongside printing his own photographs
using platinum and palladium metals and hand-sensitized paper which produced a
higher quality than Vouge at the time.
Depicted in the image
are a dozen or more apples that are slowly rotting. There is an old proverb
saying that ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’, and this image is a witness to
the truth of that statement as all of the apples in this shot are moulding.
This shot is a dye destruction print, this means that the dyes embedded in the
paper are removed one by one to leave a residue of the colours present in the
shot. The use of the white background creates contrast between the lush colours
of the fruit and the browning areas that have spoiled.
Another interesting feature in this image is
the lighting as it is diffused which is typically a technique reserved for
portraits to soften the features of the face. The soft lighting is also
incongruous with the subject as rotting fruits are considered unattractive and
yet the apples have been lit using a technique that enhances the subject. This
conveys Penn’s desire to challenge the conventionally attractive. This ties
directly into natural destruction as Irving Penn is documenting the
transitioning stage between edible and rotten, whole and destroyed, a feat that
most individuals from 1985 would have thought of unsightly and peculiar.
Billy
Kidd:
Billy Kidd is an American photographer that is
widely known for his portraits of various celebrities. He completed a shoot
called Decaying Flowers which uses low lighting and a small aperture to create
an intense focus on their rich natural colours and the veins that run just
beneath the surface.
In the image to the
right there is a greying rose that has begun wilting, this is evident by the
curling at the edge of the petals which implies that the moisture is slowly
evaporating. The large usage of negative space creates an intense focus on the
flower thus perpetuating an atmosphere of insolation and sorrow in the last
legs of this dying organism. Kidd has documented the excruciating limbo that
must be faced before eventual death. The rich green of the leaf is symbolistic
of the life that used to inhabit the flower, never the less the leaf is also
beginning to darken.
The next image from
this shoot is of a lily. Typically, a flower of death present at funerals their
blinding white pigment represent the innocence of individuals soul once they
have departed. Due to this, the image has a sick sense of irony as the symbol
of death itself has died. The once beautiful white petals have turned ashen. Consequently
this links directly to natural destruction as it is documented the decaying of
flowers from their once glamourous state to the shrivelled shells that are
discarded once deemed unattractive.
David
McNew:
Natural Destruction
is present in many forms and due to climate change natural disasters are
becoming a more frequent phenomenon. One photo-journalist who captures these
anomalies is David McNew. As a resident of Pasadena, California, McNew was one
of the first documenting the rush of wildfires that swept through America.
Despite the tragedy of people losing their homes and their lives McNew was able
to document the event as it happened - the flames destroying childhood homes
and businesses and document the possessions people took with them.
The image above is of
a Wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains that is still burning after several
weeks. The smouldering embers in the landscape reflect the stars that glint in
the sky. In the foreground all of the burnt wasteland is pitch black as there
is nothing left to burn, thus creating a contrast to the bright flames that
continue to destroy the earth. As the image was shot at night the viewer is
able to see the silhouettes of the pine trees in the foreground. This paired
with the layer of mist covering the midground creates an almost fantastical
atmosphere further highlighting the warm glow in the background that would be
beautiful if it wasn’t so tragic. The effect of this on the viewer is a sense
of amazement at the serenity of the photographer’s position and also the immense
act of natural destruction that stands before them. Acres and acres of land has
been scorched by the fire.
The image below is of
smoke rising in front of a sunset and some 500 homes that have been destroyed
by a wildfire in Sylmar, California.
The burnt trees that
are left mangled by the flames and the eerie morning light creates a
postapocalyptic atmosphere within the image. The effect of this is that it
conveys the severity of the damage caused by the fire which had completely
obliterated everything in its path. There are also a few small fires in the
background of the image that suggest the chaos of the scene. The lack of people
in the vicinity suggests the danger involved, further reinforcing the idea of a
post – apocalyptic landscape.
Another photographer
who is well versed in natural destruction is photographer Susan Meiselas. One
of her more grewsome images is ‘Cuesta del Plomo’ in which half a body lays on
the top of a picturesque hillside. This image was taken in 1988 while Meiselas
was in Nicaragua for six weeks working as a war photographer, trying to convey
how the current population were living. During Susan Meiselas visit to
Nicaragua the current population were revolting against the Somoza Dynasty who
had ruled the country as a dictatorship for years.
The above image is of
two school children running from smoke illuminated in the night by a
streetlamp. The truth behind this image is that the school children are student
that were participating in a demonstration. The group was dispersed by the
National Guard using tear gas, which is the smoke the children are running from
in the image. Taken in 1978 the Nicaraguan revolution was rife with conflict
resulting in even the young children of the community caught in the crosshairs.
The effect of this on the viewer is confusion. How could a group of guards
knowingly throw tear gas at children? The answer is a Government that has
forgotten the value of human life. The grainy effect of the film informs the
viewer that the image is aged, this hints at this being an old conflict.
However, one of the main catalysts for aggression between the people of
Nicaragua was the American involvement, an issue that is still prevalent in today’s
society.
My research into
these different photographers links directly to my shoots. My theme for this
project is Natural Destruction, throughout the project this evolved into a
focus on fire as a destructive force. I first began investigating fire in my
fifth shoot looking at burnt matches and the way the flames spewed different
colours as it consumed the wood.
After this shoot I wanted to
investigate the physical effect that fire can have on photographs and so
completed a series of burnt physical experiments. I then furthered the theme of
fire in my work by investigating David McNew’s style of photojournalism which
influenced my seventh shoot. In this shoot I documented the effect of fire on
leaves and pinecones, items that would be on the forest floors of the Wildfires
McNew has documented.
For this shoot I used a Macro lens
and low f-stop, the opposite of camera settings and equipment that would be
used by David McNew in his documentary projects. However, I feel my images link
to McNew’s work as I have used the same subject matter as him in my work and
demonstrated on a smaller scale what happens in his images.
Another photographer that links
strongly to my body of work is Billy Kidd, usually a portrait photographer he
made an exception and captured dead and dried flowers. I wanted to incorporate Kidd’s
appreciation of the dead flowers despite them being past their best. To
accomplish this, I conducted a Macro shoot involving dead flowers, a concept
that I later revisited when I was investigating a photographer called Susan
Meiselas. In this image I am using an F-stop of 3-5 allowing for a shallow;
depth of field creating an intense focus on the flowers.
For Meiselas I incorporated both
the dead flowers and the gruesome reminder of mortality – bones.
Destruction in any form clears the
path so that new growth is able to fill the gap and so it can be said that
destruction is a part of life. Living means sacrifice, something must be given
before it can be taken, life must therefore end for there to be new spring
buds. I believe in many ways Natural Destruction is a vital element to living,
however the current damage being caused to the Earth is becoming irreversible.
With new satellites being launched and different drone cameras being developed
we have a better view than ever before of what we are doing to the world. More
awareness needs to be spread across the Planet so that more actions can be
taken to lessen the damage being caused by humans and photography is a large
part of this communication. In the past photojournalism has been used as a tool
to support the aid in underdeveloped countries and the starvation and water
crisis that is present in third world countries. Photojournalism must be used
in the same manner demonstrated by David McNew. He is raising awareness to
political and environmental issues that fall inside and out the realm of
Natural Destruction through thought provoking images that demand the
participation of the viewer.
In the beginning of this project I
was focused on Decay and how decay slowly destroys organic matter that was once
alive. As I progressed in this project, I shifted my focus of organic decay to
natural destruction as they are more similar than one may think, and simply
work at different speed to achieve the end result. Due to this I wanted to
further my investigation into Natural Destruction as this created a wider
umbrella term that allowed me to investigate how forest fires are destroying
America’s woodlands and how food waste decomposes, bringing morbidly
interesting processes to light. For example, at the beginning of the project I
investigated a portrait photographer that specialised in shooting celebrities
and yet thought a vase of dead flowers was worth photographing. This moved my
investigation forward to looking at organic waste by Joe Buglewicz, a
photographer interested in mould and the vast amounts of food that is left
uneaten and mouldy in people’s homes and how this food decomposes.
Progressing further into my shoots inspired by
David McNew I created physical experiments of burnt photographs that I then
returned to the scene of the original image to demonstrate a contrast between
the current environmental climate and the direction it is heading if no action
is taken to prevent it. Throughout this project I have been interested in the
way things decay and fall back to the Earth they came from and investigated
this through looking at fire and decay. I plan to incorporate fire into my
images as this will provide a better contrast than the simply the burnt and the
unburnt. It will show the cause and effect of the destructive nature of fire. I
would like to also create GIFs in my work to show the warmth and dangerous sway
of the flames.
References:
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
- Last accessed 20/05/19
