Another Walk

Another photo taken from another walk. I do like my industrial estate walks around Newport. This one stood out to me because there's a lot going on and many details, yet it's a very simple picture. And I like circles.

Raffaela Mariniello

Ffotogallery came to Newport University the other day to give us a wonderful sale on photo books, and this is where I found and bought the work of Raffaela Mariniello. She is an Italian photographer who employs a regular style and method to her work which involves mostly taking black and white images at night using long exposures. I picked up her self-titled book and I was really impressed and amazed by her images of industrial sites. The bright lights really bring the places to life, yet the images still maintain a quiet, restful feel. All photos here have been taken from her website, although they may be cropped due to the design of the website.
 

On a walk.

Went on a walk the other day around Duffryn and surrounding areas, including an industrial estate. I took this image of one of the buildings, as I really like the white sky and white building with the stark red line crossing it. Made me think a little of Edgar Martins due to the clinical feel and simple lines.

Allt-yr-yn Project

For my Final Major Project in my first year at University I did a project on the closure of one of the university campus', Allt-yr-yn (an area within Newport). I chose this because I wanted to document the last few months of it in use before it was sold to a housing company.
Before I first visited I already had in my head that I wanted to concentate on the people who work there, as the closure was going to concern them a lot. However, once I got to the campus it was the strange absence of people that struck me the most. What was once a bustling, noisy area full of staff and students was now a quiet, desolate place.
So for this reason I concentrated more on documenting the architecture that was soon to be demolished, and the packing up of all the stuff within the building, whether it was to be sold, moved or thrown away.
Here are a few images from the project. All were taken on a 6x6 Yashica Twin Lens.

All Images Copyright to Katrina Forey 2011

The Company Book

Recently we had a really good lecture from one of my tutors Paul Reas that included photographers who create company work books. Here are a few that were mentioned...

Josef Koudelka - Limestone. (2001)
This was a book made over two years for Lhoist Group who run qarries all over America and Europe. The book itself is large and very wide, allowing the panoramic photos to spread over two pages. The images are beautiful landscapes of the quarries and have quite a romantic feel to them. Here, nature has been transformed because of our consumeristic lives.

Bart Sorgedrager - Unilever (2008)

Sorgedrager actually came to Newport University last year as a guest lecture, so I feel I have quite an insight into this project. What's different about him compared to other photographers who have created company books, is that he approaches the company and asks to photograph their factory, usually because it's about to close. He then takes images of the staff at work, and a formal portrait of them and gives a copy of the book to each member of staff (all funded by the company).

His Unilever projects cover three factories in The Netherlands that were about to close down, each of them manufactoring different products and each getting a seperate book, although they do form part of a collection. What Sorgedrager does that is also quite different, is that he designs all of his own books, and when he is taking the image he knows how he wants it to look on a page. For example, he wanted a group shot of staff members from a particular factory, he knew he wanted the photo to spread over a double page, so he put objects in the center of the group so that no one would end up being in the gutter.

Brian Griffin - The Water People.
From what seemed like a dull commission by Reykjavik Energy to photograph their geothermal and hydroelectric plants in Iceland, turned into a wild story and journey into the heart of where The Water People come from. Griffin has always had a bit of a wacky side to him, but this book is simply magical. He creates a narrative in which he is travelling off to almost another planet, he sits in the 'meeting room' (the canteen) to be met by some of the crew who will take him underground to meet the strange, liquid life forms of The Water People. He photographs the landscape as if it is unknown territory and he photographs the people with either water dripping down their faces or layers of water over a glass screen causing a rippling effect, distorting them in odd ways.

Gursky in recent news

Andreas Gursky has been in the news this week for being the photographer of the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.
His print 'Rhein II' was sold at Christies in New York for $4.3m (£2.7m). It is 1 in a series of 6, this one being the largest. One already hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and another is in London's Tate Modern.
It shows the Rhine, europes longest river as it runs through Gursky's home town of Dosseldorf. The image was digitally manipuated to take away any impurities surrounding the river, like factories, people..etc.

Although I am a fan of Gursky and I do like this image, I'm not sure it's worth £2.7m! Despite this, I am glad to see that the value of photography is rising, it's still not worth as much as paintings can be, but it is on the up!

Mark Power - A380 Project

I found these images a few years ago, but it was only recently that I found out they were taken by Mark Power, one of my current favourite photographers. Power was commissioned in 2002 by Airbus to cover the construction of the A380 and, because of its huge size, the construction of the infrastructure (the warehouses, factories and transport systems, including a specially built ship).
I think the A380 is an extraordinary feat of engineering, as the largest passenger plane in the world, it's a double-decker airliner that can transport up to 853 people in one trip. The first test flight was made in 2005 and was available for commercial service in 2007. These images show the incredible size of the aircraft and all the effort, labour and materials that have gone into its manufacture.
I realise that because Power was commissioned by Airbus the images are going to have a positive light to them, but I like to think that even if Power was undertaking this project out of his own interest the images would still look very similar. Personally, I find the photos tell a story from beginning to end, they document an important moment in history, and a milestone in technological advancement, as well as being incredible images.

All Images have been taken from Mark Powers website.