My personal subject has been urban landscape and in particular the city of Munich, my home for the last 18 years. As I write this I have already commenced on my second course, Social Documentary, once again with Munich as my subject, but this time an emphasis on the people rather than the topography. As I progress it is this unifying theme of my home city that drives my photography. It is there, near by, ever changing and yet constant. The more I look the more there is to see.
Thus this project is an apt way to close my course work. As every photo I have taken thus far is of a man made space, rather than go out and find 3 man made landscapes, here are 3 photographs of man-made landscapes taken during the course that mean a lot to me
This is the winter image from my portfolio, showing the area in the Englischer Garten in which I photographed Assignment 3, a study of a small area of parkland as Summer turned to Autumn and then Winter. I visited again and again, developing an afinity with a space that I never thought I could have. It helped me to understand that good photography is not a lucky or even a brilliant press of a shutter, it is hard graft and the progressive development of an idea.
Not used in an assignment, this shot was part of the development work for Assignment 1. It represents a geometrical view of the world, at this stage an exercise in perspective. Whilst taking these photographs I made the decision to stick within the city for the course; at the time I was still considering working on the edge of the city, looking at how we sprawl out into the countryside.
A development image for Assignment 2, still thinking in colour, but with an almost B&W feel to it. This image is very representative of the aesthetic I was developing towards and that which I adopted for Assignment 5. It is very planar, carefully constructed and crossing the line from Landscape into Social Documentary.
I think my recent photography is strongly trending towards being a series of Documentary studies, not Social Documentary as such, but linked studies of locations. I also feel that I am now evolving an own style or "voice", still imature, but beginning to grow. The last photo in this brief commentary is a good example of that style.
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