Sophie Grogan

Compare and contrast the styles and messages of Faye Godwin, Edward Burtynsky and Christoffer Relander

“The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for

the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it's all of our responsibility

to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it.”

Through the centuries, the environment around us has always been seen as somewhat

beautiful and miraculous but how can we

remain with that opinion when so much of

what we’ve come to love, is being destroyed

beneath our feet? Maybe even without our

conscious awareness of it happening.

Nevertheless, every decision we make; whether

to walk to the nearest bin or just leave it on the

wall, to walk to college or save a couple of pounds and walk the whole way, has an impact on

how we will see the world 100 years from now. For that reason, I think it’s important to

underline how humans and the environment come together because after all, we both exist

simultaneously. To do this, I will be analysing the work of Faye Godwin, Edward Burtynsky

and Christoffer Relander and the message they convey to a wider audience of naturalists.

Faye Godwin, a British

photographer who was and still is, despite her

death, continuously known for capturing

images of the coast and countryside but not

just their own mere existence, more often than

not there would be the influence of a man

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made object in the background either distinctly or vaguely. However, these objects are never

obvious, it requires you to search for a part of the image that no longer makes the photograph

peaceful or beautiful and makes you step back and look at it again with a whole new mindset.

For example, in this image the central image would be the mountain with attention to detail

towards the snow and the path along the left-hand side. However due to the image being in

black and white, this further enhances the outlying aspect being the road using leading lines

techniques and with the contrast boosted, which I see in the dark and light areas within the

mountain that differs to that of the road, the whites become whiter and highlights the fact that

the mountain is one of the main aspects of the image as It is central which I think was done

purposefully. The dark road also gives the illusion of movement; you can’t help but feel like

you’re in a car on the way to the mountain in question. Due to the graininess and

monochrome effect of the image, I believe it

may be possible that her collection of images

we’re created using dark room chemicals and

developers. Furthermore, there is some

negative space at the top of the image which I

think was give the image a tinge of normality

as it helps balance out the image. It begs the question; why did she do that? Was she trying to

imply that our natural landscape isn’t as important as the landscape we’ve come to know? I

think she did this because she wanted to really focus on texture and the contrast between

natural and artificial objects and how she believes that she “owed something back to the land

she loved so much” (1). She wanted to justify how beautiful the landscape was by

photographing moments she deemed spectacular. The message this conveys is that we pay

extra attention to the things that don’t look nice than we do to the things that look beautiful.

Her images also have a vignette around the corners to give it a worn out, vintage polaroid

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effect which I think further enhances the idea that landscapes can become old, dull and that

may be why there are alterations. The general mood, given the colours contained within the

image, are quite sinister and dull yet calm and collected at the same time. In an article

published in 2011 she stated that she believed England was very much about the "melting

corpses of farms" (2) describing the black

chimneys and the “millstone grit” which I think

describes how her viewpoint was masked by a

sense of perfection. When this wasn’t seen,

everything appeared to be ugly and dark. This

suggests it’s important to display something in a

way that makes people appreciate it rather than see It as an opportunity to change it. The

uncertainty of the images gives it an added interest; it makes me see the images from a

different perspective each time as there is so much to take, such aspects include the vast

variety of gradients or the subject matter. The underlying meaning, I believe to be behind

these images is obviously the ever changing composition of the world’s natural state

nevertheless Faye Godwin could have also used the hidden and discrete destruction of the

landscape in a psychological manner to mirror the destruction we as human beings feel in our

lifetime. We change our environment in an

attempt to change ourselves. Similarly, Edward

Burtynsky also directly addresses the issue of

today’s society; “manufactured landscapes”.

He uses low angles to capture a larger area

below which contains artificial material which

in this image the object is roads/motorways.

Burtnysky believes the idea of showing these unfamiliar landscapes is to reconnect us to them

Sophie Grogan

(3), make us see the impact we’re having on the environment we ultimately have to live in for

the duration of time we spend on earth. The image presented above illustrates how the

majority of a special area consists mainly of things that wouldn’t be there without humans.

The composition of the roads exaggerated the imposing nature of the barriers which adds to

the contrast along the outside. The lines of the roads running parallel to the opposing roads

keeps the eye moving constantly around the shot to keep the viewer intrigued at all times

(4). The eye however distracts from the central image to the colour of the distained

greenspace. This area of the image addresses the aftermath of alterations to the

environment in that even though there is some greenspace left for us to see, it’s

discoloured, tatty and not worth looking at which as human beings is shameful. The colours

used are very generically monochrome with high attention to contrast, highlights can be

seen throughout on the motorway lines. The

composition of the photograph can be seen

horizontally or vertically as the ‘twisty’ roads

flow in all directions using repetition of

curves. Especially in the second image, the

texture I can see is very rusty and gritty as the

vehicles are worn out, old and faded

suggesting they have been there a long time to be left to rot away. The lighting is diffused as

the image isn’t too bright or too dull which suggests the light source was very broad to allow

the image to be a lot softer. (5) “Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are

all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a

daily basis.” (6) Edward uses the images as metaphors of what is to come of our economic

greed for success meanwhile we unconsciously make decisions that we are unware of how

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will affect the environment yet still continue to do so. Everybody wants to live a good life

with good resources and those resources derive from good materials which can sometimes

only be found naturally. While we are

succeeding in our own field, we are allowing

the world to suffer and to deteriorate

gradually until one day, it will give up and

have nothing left to offer us. Negative space

within all of Edward Burtynsky’s work is minimal as each image is filled with activity as there

is always more than one subject matter keeping your eyes busy searching at all times.

Judging by how much content is identified within the images, it’s clear that the image was

taken a fair distance away and cropped down also. Due to the image being taken in 2003 (7)

it may be possible the photograph was edited in Photoshop or Lightroom but this isn’t

obvious which indicates there is high levels of control to keep the photograph as genuine

and clean as possible. At first the image is quite satisfying and interesting because it makes

you interact with it by turning the paper around to view all the different angles and maybe

to solve which way the image was actually meant to be presented. However, the longer you

observe and analysis the image, you realize it’s not pretty and in actual fact you were paying

attention to it for the wrong reasons. I admired the twisty roads as a clever technique as a

central image but then started thinking about all the destruction and time and polluted area

that went into constructing this ‘marvelous’ structure. The busy roads give a sense of a

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cluttered loud atmosphere which I find deafening for the wrong reasons again. When I’m

walking through a field I am consumed with

the noises of birds engaging in conversation

and trees whipping their branches at one

another and those noises are enjoyable and

filled with mystery that is lingering in my

mind all day but this scene, this scene I

would be happy to flee from. The colours

drag the image down even though they are well highlighted, they are still dark and dreary

and make me feel almost sad to see a once luminous green scene only making up 10% of the

final image. The key to Burtynsky’s images is that he photographs areas that aren’t only just

beginning their descent into destruction, he photographs them in their absolute peak to

accentuate the brutality of the damage, he does this to open the eyes of his viewers and to

scream the words ‘this must stop’ through each image of this particular project. Through

research, I have also found this isn’t the only project where he seems passionate and

determined about raising awareness of the environmental impact that we have using gas

emissions, deforestation and climate change. This makes it clear to me that his area of

interest spreads not only across manufactured landscapes but also photographing oil,

shipbreaking, salt pans and mass consumerism which, in respect they are things we need to

survive but on such a mass scale? The idea of constructing buildings derives from creating a

more aesthetic environment that makes people feel comfortable and open to new ideas

however the underlying knock on effect is ignored which makes me feel manipulated into

believing that industrialization is only a good thing and ignorant to the fact that I never

thought of the bad. One final

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photographer who captures the relationship between humans and the landscape is

Christoffer Relander. “The series is not about any specific individual; it is about man and

nature itself. By keeping the identities of my models anonymous, it leaves space for the

viewer’s own perception. Our perception is subjective.” (8)

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His images evidently combine the to types of photography through layering and blending

two images together to create a silhouette of a human with transparency to allow the

underneath layer, the landscape, to shine through to become visible. Relander calls this

collection of images ‘We are nature’ which for me couldn’t be more accurate. Unlike Edward

Burtynsky, these images don’t illustrate destruction or damage In anyway in fact they show

quite the opposite. They suggest that as humans we have an aspect of nature in all of us in

that we are beautiful creatures who just want to live, make the world better and see places

that leave a mark on us psychologically. The genre remains landscape but also bringing in

more portraiture. The colour of the images within the 5 collections; volume 1-5 switches

between entirely monochrome and some that are green. The monochrome images are very

contrasted with a large variation between highlights and shadows which makes the images,

ironically more brighter despite being in black and white. The shape of the images doesn’t

finish with a solid line around the image, the neck or wrist used as the body part to layer

with a portrait image is blended away to create the illusion of the hand or head breaking

away and becoming an object in their own

right. Relander uses lead in lines through the

branches especially in the black and white

image used above, the branches migrate

towards the center of the body almost going

towards the heart as if to say that nature is

inside all of us and that elements of the environment construct our personality. All images

are centered with minimal negative space surrounding it while maintaining a strong positive

space with strong definition towards the facial features. The lack of negative space suggests

that the subject matter is what we should be focusing on, that nothing is more important

Sophie Grogan

than what is in the middle of the image, it’s in the middle for a reason in order to draw our

attention to it. The prints are printed onto German Etching Paper which is age resistant,

which cleverly illustrates how nature will never grow old, it will always be around us maybe

in the same state it was 500 years ago but it still remains. The work is developed through

manually setting double exposure onto his DSLR camera taking two pictures one after the

other to automatically allow the images to join and morph into one. Powerful and beautiful

are the words that come to mind because it’s such a strong play on nature as opposed to

Faye Godwin and Edward Burtynsky who focus solely on man-made objects interfering with

our natural environment. Relander ignores how involved we are with our world by instead

zooming on how much nature is involved with us. It almost makes me want to go outside

and lie in a field filled with daisies and buttercups and have a new found admiration for

nature, it’s that beautiful. That’s the aim of the pictures I think, to make you forget about all

that’s wrong with the world; all the war, the politics, the crime and just think of instead

everything that’s right; the animals that allow us to walk with them, the trees that create

magical tunes as we pass by, the sky creating a spectrum of portals through colour when the

sun meets rain. The work was essentially made for anyone who needs to escape reality, to

find tranquility in an otherwise chaotic

atmosphere or just for anyone who wanted

to see just one beautiful thing that day.