Summative Assessment Commission Unit-Part 1

Neda Mockeviciute

Introduction
Signs 'No tresspassing' or 'Private property' haunts us more and more frequently, not allowing to enter places that once had public access. Houses in rural areas that once were standing near woodlands now are facing factories, dwellings or high fences. Seeing Jo Spence work and how she constructs her images, creating photographs for expressing her opinion on arising gender, power, control, class problems. She inspared me to work on something what is important and interesting for me. Because of these ideas my body of work is about present-day protuberant issue which is land privatization.
Definition of privatization - 'the transfer of ownership of property or businesses from a government to a privately owned entity. '

Contextual research
European Environment Agency states: 1. that agricultural zones, forests, semi-natural and natural areas, are disappearing in favour of the development of artificial surfaces. This affects biodiversity since it decreases the living space of a number of species.
2. In general, more forests, natural grasslands and open spaces were taken by artificial land development then in the previous decade. This meant a higher loss of natural ecosystems. Europe is one of the most intensively used continents on the globe, with the highest share of land (up to 80%) used for settlement, production systems (including agriculture and forestry) and infrastructure.

3.

European Environment Agency (2013a) 'Land Take (CSI 014)' At: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/land-take2/assessment-2

 The numbers of private land sector in other parts of the world: 1. Between 1990 and 1996 the New Zealand's government sold more than 530 000 hectares of planted government-owned forests to the private sector. 'The Forestry Commission' the Scottish-based agency responsible for managing 2.7 million acres of woodland, has been able to dispose of 'surplus land' - defined as not needed for forest development.'

2.

3.

According to Smith 423 million acres out of 751 million acre of forest land in the U.S. is owned by private entities such as private individuals, corporations, and other private groups.
FAO Corporate document repository (1999) Devolving forest ownership through privatization in New Zealand. In: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x3030e/x3030e0a.htm The Guardian (1991) Forest sale programme accelerated by stealth: David Hencke reports on secretive privatisation of land which could spell the end of public rights of access. In: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian The dissertation of Taeyoung Kim (2012) Three Essays on Private Landowners Response to Incentives for Carbon Sequestration through Forest Management and Afforestation. In: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/35894/KimTaeyoung2 012.pdf?sequence=2

1. 2. 3.

'Seized! The 2008 land grab for food and financial security' states: Article written by: 'Grain', 2008 This article states that land grabbing in economically unstable countries: enhance the possibility of collapse of local markets, farmers rather than sustain and encourage peasant agriculture for local and national markets and for future generations. accelerate eco-system destruction and the climate crisis. destroys livelihoods.

Its the restructuring. For these lands will be transformed from smallholdings or forests, whatever they may be, into large industrial estates connected to large far-off markets. Farmers will never be real farmers again, job or no job. This will probably be the biggest consequence. http://www.grain.org/article/entries/93-seized-the-2008-landgrab-for-foodand-financial-security

'Private Property, Community Development, and Eminent Domain', Edited by: Robin Paul Malloy 'Hysteria versus History: Public Use in the Public Eye'

The Supreme Court in 2005 in Washington accepted a ruling that local governments may seize peoples homes and businesses even against their will for private economic development that would not have an immediate public benefit. News announcer then brought the decision The US Supreme Court today made it a whole lot easier for someone to come in and take your house, take your private property, against your will, as long as the state can prove theres a better public use for it. ' The land deprivation will mostly affect poor and working-class people.
And there are many cities that want to expand their tax base, bring in some more jobs. And so they literally can bulldoze your house and give you the market value.

Visual references

Jo Spence
Remodelling Photo History makes daily, institutionalized and normalized practices and codes seem strange, so that their common sense becomes disrupted. This photograph had influenced my choice for changing my idea from relationship between nature and man to land privatization.

Remodelling Photohistory (Victimization), 1982

Also, it encouraged me to experiment to include real people in my images, because they might help transfer the notion of 'No trespassing'.

Anna Fox
'The Village' is a body of work looking at domestic life in a rural West Sussex village, which on closer inspection appears to be 'everyday things which are semi public, semi private.' Mine and Anna's concept differ as you can say from the quotation above. Nevertheless, the images that author took in the garden can be an example of how I can transfer my idea.

'The Village' , 1991-1993

The author to create that notion of inhospitality used bushes to block the view and I have done a similar thing (blocking the This particular image was useful view with gates, fences and etc.) to for me, because of the composition established that sense. which creates a notion of inhospitality.

Gina Glover
'Shifting time. Figure in the landscape is not only about passing time, but also influenced by personal experience from anti-malaria drugs which caused various visual shifts (grey tones or intense colors).

Gina Glover - 'Shifting time.Figure in the landscape Red Cap, Cape Cod, USA

Central composition suggests that viewers attention should be drawn to a man figure in the frame.

Regardless different concept Gina Glover had for her images, the man standing near the sea is more or less in quite sharp focus and the environment around him is blurry. This type of focus and the mans posture applied in my concept might indicate that the person is in control of our sight.

Susan Trangmar
Consistent focus of work 'Untitled landscapes' is on landscape and place (place as a state of mind). The photographs are of UK urban and rural scenes. The audience is confronted with a woman against what normally would be an empty landscape. The silhouette by blocking the scenery implies that it has power over the viewer.

Untitled landscapes, 1985

In the photograph the person is out of focus, while the green-land is in sharp focus which suggests that the main focus is land and the person is only a subsidiary implement to convey the concept of nature being owned and controlled by someone.

 I found Susan Trangmar's and Gina Glover's works quite influential while experimenting. Both photographers with help of people facing back to the camera more or less succeeded in sense of control over the audience. Even if I decide to take final photographs without people these images encouraged me to experiment with focus.

Red Riding Hood, Lochinvar, Scotland

Untitled Landscapes, 1985

Hans Haacke
Work titled 'Shapolsky et al Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System as of May 1, 1971' presented a documentation photographs of 142 properties, owned by two or three families, who had assembled vast Hans Haacke- 'Shapolsky et al Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, empires of slum housing A Real-Time Social System as of May 1, 1971 in New York. Hans Haacke images arouse my interest not only because of its 'background' story, but also due to the camera position and composition. The composition is quite simple, static, nevertheless, the camera position appears to have a notion of control over and a power of devaluating the viewer.

Michael Kenna
Michaels series of images from 'Concentration Camps' were most relative to how I can transfer the notion of something being controlled by someone.

The fog might indicate the unknown that lurks just beyond that fence.
Double Fence, Natzweiler-Struthof, France, 1993

This photograph caught my attention due to the composition. The fence extends through the entire frame which might suggest what huge territory is paled.

I am intrigued to try to convey my idea not only by objects(sign, fence) or composition in the photograph, but also capture the right moment (sky, fog).

Stanley Spencer
I have chosen these pictorial art works because it sustains my idea of exploring private land. It represents the impact on landscape that private landowners leave, such as blacktops, fences, buildings, gardens.

Stanley Spencer - 'Extensive landscape with a wrought-iron gate'

People who are not allowed to go there leave a trace too, for instance, pathway around the fence.

 The composition of these paintings is interesting and useful for me too. The fence is still blocking the view, although we are still able to see the land behind it. It appears these images are not about the notion of 'control over something' but more about looking through the fence, exploring the forbidden landscape.

Stanley Spencer, Landscape in North Wales, 1938

Test shoots
Experimented with a man figure standing back to the camera. Close-up images. Took pictures of buildings and walls.
Unfortunately, none of those images completely underpinned my idea and I had to search for other ways.

 I like the composition of this image, but from my point of view it still does not fully represent my idea.

I do like the composition of this shot. Although, in my estimation it still does not underpin my idea.

 While searching for the most suitable composition I used low angle and photographed my objects on eye level. I have focused on fences, gates, signs. Nevertheless, also experimented by focusing the subjects beyond the fence, such as trees, etc.

Contact Sheets

I have decided to take photographs on eye level but also slightly point up the lens because low angle gives a sense of powerlessness to viewers within the frame. I have used natural lighting to keep notion of reality in the pictures. Focus is on fences because it seperates public from private property.

Final Prints

 I chose this image because of trace,the pathway, people, who are not alowed to go beyond that fence, created. Sharp focus is on the fence and the beginning of the pathway. Everything else goes out of focus within the distance.

 The fence takes 2/3 of the frame giving the viewer no choice but to focus on the fence. The photographic choices of 50mm lens and low angle was essential to me because it slightly exaggerates the size of fence and the added height of the object may inspire fear and insecurity to the viewer.

 Used long shoot because even if the focus is on fence the details in the background still emerges, for instance, factory smokes behind the bush. Slightly underexposed, the sky becomes darker and does not distract the viewer from main focus- the fence, dwelling.

Self Evaluation
Project is based on current societies desire to fulfill their endless and blakness needs by taking what they can under their control. At first it may not be seen as a big issue, nonetheless, as you could have seen from my contextual research it effects so many aspects of our life: nutrition, dwelling, leisure time that later or sooner we will perceive the after-effects. In my estimation, I managed my studies quite well. Although,the next term I wouldnt delay printing to the last week leaving myself no time to reshoot the places if needed. In the future I need to do more test shoots which as I now understand are really essential for developing visual choices and better visual achievements in the end. I had problems with printing. I wanted to make all of the prints to match color-wise, nevertheless, as I started to talk about this with one of the techniques he said that one of the prints then would turn out really artificial and still would not match the others. That is why I decided to print them as they are and adjusting colors as far as I can. According to this I will be more considered the next shooting time.

 The most challenging part of this unit was looking for appropriate idea which would answer the brief question and controlling all the photographic choices so that they all communicate the same thing. I will definitely be more aware of these choices when photographing now. Furthermore, I think the images could be stronger in communicating the idea of the land privatization.

Also, I did not get lucky with weather. I wanted to capture fog but unfortunately the weahter was not what forecaster said it would be that week and I couldnt wait any longer. If I would continue this project, I would have wait for fog.
The second image in my estimation is the weakest because of the dull colour scheme and flatness caused by overcast day lighting. If I would carry on with this project I would have waited for better weather or found a better place for shooting. It made me aware of how important every aspect of the image is. I found contextual and visual research quite challenging in the beginning because I have never done it before. Now when I have a better knowledge how to do that I know it helps a lot to visualise your idea.