Josh Graham

Josh Graham is the visual artist for the band Neurosis which is how I found out about him, but he also does artwork for records and whatnot for bands like A Storm of light and Red Sparrows all of whom are very cool.

The landscapes Graham digitally produces are phenomenal, huge expanses of rich detail and awesome colour, colour that you can dive into on the physical format. His work explores ecological themes and man-made product's interaction with nature when they're disposed of, and animals inhabiting places of the most strange nature.

His work is eery, unrestrained and textured. I haven't seen Neurosis live but I imagine it's a whole encompassing audio and visual experience that drowns you in senses.

Check out more of Josh Graham HERE

And I would recommend to check out Neurosis too if you haven't HERE

Thomas Moran

From yesterday's John Martin I've taken stock of what I know of landscape artists and realised Thomas Moran must receive some deserved attention.

His blazing colours and expressive form breathes movement into the earth and freezes the sea, perfectly capturing the elements. Like Martin, he also does seem to enjoy a good craggy cliff-top, and I think we all love a good craggy cliff-top every now and then, and this hits the spot.

I found out about Thomas Moran a while ago through asking some friends of who their favourite artists are, and it's sometime easy to forget in this internet age that your friends can provide some answers the Internet can not.

Then again, the Internet is pretty great too. I now capitalise the Internet because it's my friend too.

Check out this rather inventive website for more stuff HERE

And this site is another good'un too HERE

John Martin

Over the Christmas period I went to see the fantastic John Martin exhibition over at the Tate Britain titled Apocalypse, and some of his paintings truly incurred the feeling of the end. Huge canvases of lush seething colour depicting caverns and cliff-tops and hell and biblical damnations.

Even though the critics derided his work, I think Martin is pretty damn cool. It's high drama. Imagine living in that period and viewing a work like the ever popular Apocalypse (top image); it's horrifying and thrilling at the same time!

Sometimes art doesn't have to subtle or intellectualised or pretentious, it can melodramatic, bombastic, even explosive and that's what John Martin delivers in spades.

You can check out the highly antiquated John Martin website HERE

Roger Dean

I couldn't believe it going through our, admittedly rather brief, archive and finding that I have yet to mention the, frankly, brilliant Roger Dean. He's mostly known for his intergalactic and astoundingly beautiful and surreal landscapes, floating islands, dense jungles, monolithic rock formations, hive-like constructions and the odd pyramid or two.

However, above I've put two images of my favourite works by Mr Dean and they mainly focus on his creatures, that dragon up top is incredible in it's majesty and colour, and breathes a whole new way of thinking of what a dragon could be. And the octopus is there because I think the octopus is the boss. Obsessed with octopi(?) at the moment. Way cool.

His works are well-known for being used as record covers for bands like Yes and Rush and other prog rock royalty, and on his influencing many in the younger generations, the one that comes to mind the most is Arik Roper who is also a genius.

Check out his well made website HERE

Jake and Dinos Champman

Sorry I haven't posted in a while and neglected the blog. But am back for a reign of terror ;)

Jake and Dinos Champman I discovered in current project that I am doing in my Photography degree at AUCB, called Photography and Realism.

I am blessed with erratic and bizarre dreams which are elusive and clear as day and I hoped that this would be a great starting point for this Realism project. So within a meeting with the legend that is Hitesh Ambasna he guided me towards the Champman brother duo.

The work which I was introduced to was there constructed 'mini' scenes. Such as this...

Their work employs death, sex, Nazism, children and the actions in the consumer lifestyle.

There is such a splendid amount going on.

A lot of the work from these concept artists I cant help but feel is quite, (putting it plainly), 'fucked up'.

And I like 'fucked up'!

The work of these sublime artists evokes an emotion or terror from the audience or onlooker. The best form of art (in my opinion) is that, that scares the shit out of the viewer. It wouldnt be worth while otherwise.

Go along and get scared shitless yourself.

http://www.jakeanddinoschapman.com/

FIN

Andreas Gursky

It was Cherub The Great who alerted me to my ignorance of big, well known photographers. I realised that as an Internet fiend I appeared to have undercut those that are at the top, those that are well-known and well liked and hugely popular and headed straight into the unknown, missing out on that top sector.

And it seems Andreas Gursky appears to be the grand-daddy of that layer, take a look, he has the highest selling photograph ever, and that sold only a few months back in November 2011. Who knows where it'll escalate?

The image itself, that top'un, is a bit minimal, i.e it's a path with a river and some mist. BUT it's not just that, Cherub The Great tells me that that part of a path that runs alongside the Rhine in Germany is in an industrialised area and very busy with pedestrians. The image itself has been digitally edited to remove buildings and people and sidewalk furniture and the mist hides further buildings and whatnot.

So as a piece of work it's highly textural and work intensive, but for me in all honestly the image does feel rather bland. In other words, there's no colourful or shiny things to hold my attention. And I have a pretty poor attention span.

What is surprising is that there doesn't seem to be an official website for Mr. Gursky so here is the best I can do, GOOGLE IMAGES YAY: HERE

Clarence John Laughlin

I do regret being so negligent of this here little corner of the internet. But it's mine and I do enjoy it when I pay attention to it.

I stumbled across Clarence John Laughlin a while ago and it came from one of the most unlikeliest sources, from an interview with Phil Anselmo (it's probably not that one) and even a Down song is named after Laughlin's most famous book 'Ghosts Along the Mississippi'.

Reading up on him feels kind of familiar, we share a love of language and, I delusively think, had a large vocabulary, what's more he had early aspirations to be a writer, my current fair now, but then developed a keen interest in photography, same here on all counts. So it is interesting to see this familiarity around his person and his direction of photography.

His photography feels evocative, like an echo of infused memories emerging as one image. It is ghostly, phantasmal even, starker in the grainy black and white.

Join me in buying the prodigious Ghosts Along The Mississippi

See more HERE

And see even more HERE

Love it.

Some O' Mine Photographs....

(click each image to enlarge, the top image does look much better when clicked on)

So in Bath it has been glorious weather recently, absolutely beautiful sun, and it is the first day of the year where I've only gone out in a t shirt. Obviously with trousers too, not just the shirt.

On campus at Bath Spa we have a stunning lake which is brilliant for lounging around on a sunny day under a tree, which is just what I did for three hours yesterday reading Ernest Hemmingway. It was good. Then I found a spider had crawled onto my collar which was not cool. Not cool at all.

The bottom image was at a ruins of a mill by a stream which is also on campus and I had to climb through some thicket to get there. It's the view through what I guess was once a circular window.

Eadweard Muybridge: Landscape Photography

(click each image to enlarge)

Eadweard Muybridge wrote his name in to the history books for the invention of the Zoopraxiscope, a device which is essentially the first movie projector: "The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion." Muybridge had helped move photographic technology into film.

As you can see above, Eadweard Muybridge not only dabbled with the creation of film, he was also a most excellent landscape photographer, with my favourite of his subjects being the gorgeous natural beauty of Yosemite Valley in Calfornia.

Photographing Yosemite Valley didn't come without its problems, especially given as it was the late 19th century, here's a short explanation of what Muybridge had to keep in mind:

"Finding the right light and view was the challenging beginning to an equally demanding process of outdoor collodion wet-plate photography. This was the most progressive technique available, invented in 1851. Before taking shots, Muybridge's dark-tent needed to be pitched and his camera equipment and chemicals unpacked and prepared. Then wet plates were sensitised in the tent whilst exposures were made outside; to be developed immediately afterwards."

It is astounding hearing of the process it took to even take one photograph, and the fact after Muybridge's first expedition in Yosemite they came back with 260 images ready to be sold! Phew!

Eadweard Muybridge has a very able website which has all the possible information you could need on his work, including the Zoopraxiscope and Landscape work, aaaand you can access it: here

Roger Deakins

'No Country For Old Men'

'The Assassination of Jesse James'

'Wall.E'

'True Grit'

(click on each image to enlarge)

Roger Deakins is a cinematographer, and frankly he is probably the most lauded; a critically and fan acclaimed cinematographer. Roger Deakins' work is out-of-this-world brilliant. If one were to attempt counting the number of great films he's been a apart of you'd have to use more than just your fingers and toes.

Ansel Adams

Seeing as we are posting landscape at the mo, I thought I would post the greatest Landscape Photographer in the World. Ansel Adams. Just simply because his work, shot in America, is amazing!!



He also looks like someone who I would want as a Grandad!
Click here for more

Robert Adams

Burning Oil Sludge North of Denver (click to enlarge)

East from Flagstaff Mountain (click to enlarge)

Robert Adams is a relatively new name to me, after some searching for influential landscape photographers I came across a now famous 1975 exhibition: "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape" which apparently the spirit and aesthetics of the exhibition has had a profound effect on contemporary landscape photography.

For one, you can take a look at the recently discussed Edward Burtynsky to see this such effect.

Robert Adams was one of eight young Americans invited to be represented in the exhibition, and after a quick look at the other photographers I think his work is the stand out of the exhibition.

The two above images are impressive and striking to look at. The sharp, deep contrast in Burning Oil Sludge North of Denver [1973] of the poisonous black emitted from the fire against the crisp, wintry sky and ground is stunning. The exact detail of the ghastly plumes of smoke depicted by the image is remarkable and is made all the clearer by the complementary bleak snow.

In the second image, East from Flagstaff Mountain [1976], the standpoint is magnificent, it just lets the landscape fall away from the viewer. It feels like the city below sprawls out to the grey horizon. Oddly enough, this photograph makes me recall the play 'Macbeth', where Macbeth would "never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him", meaning he wouldn't be defeated until the forest travelled to the castle. Adams' image, and especially from the audiences' viewpoint, feels like these great pines are marching on to the city below, maybe to mark the end of a crazed power hungry patriarch.

You can read up on the 1975 "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape" exhibition: here.

Unfortunately Robert Adams doesn't have any official website but you can find sufficient info here, here and here.

Edward Burtynsky

The Canadian photographer, Edward Burtynsky, instantly became one of my most favourite photographers the moment I stumbled across his book 'Oil' on Amazon. One day I do hope I can adorn my bookshelf with it, but for now I have to make do with my glaring computer screen.

Burtynsky manages to marry huge, expansive landscapes that reach as far as the horizon, in hand with the head-shaking concept of man transforming nature, I say 'head-shaking' as Burtynsky's photo lens is glaringly pointed at the industrialisation of nature. Burtynsky's main focus has been the capturing of the replacement of natural beauty, the man-made, hideous landscapes that are pock-marked by fuel-gorging contraptions, gargantuan steel buildings and the discarded waste that's left along the way. His images albeit pinpoint the destructive nature of man towards earth and the perpetual greed of its resources, they do emit their own kind of mechanical and lamentable beauty.

More images and information after the jump...