Revised Topographics under the Coat of Tradition

   The Sustainability on Guard portfolio aims to represent The New Topographics in a revised, more up-to-date form with an emphasis on the mainstream topic of sustainable energy while maintaining the traditional style of capturing photographs on a monochromatic scale.

Looking at the Portfolio from the Point of the Brief

   After capturing the first image of the portfolio I did not feel the image met my visions and ideas of what I intended to represent myself with. The reason why the first image lacked its visual impact struck me when I was listing through a biography book of Robert Capa. I was not close enough to my subject (Capa, cited in Whelan, 1985) which elicited a decision to return to the wind farm to get as close to the windmills as I could to portray them more satisfactorily. At the same time, I bore in mind that I ought to create a portfolio of related images rather than a set of randomly taken photographs. Therefore, I have chosen this single topic and worked it to exhaustion (Lange, cited in Gordon, 2009)

Technical Review of the Portfolio

   The portfolio consists of a series of 9 images all captured in the same area of Little Cheyn Court Wind Farm, Romney Marsh, Kent.

The strength of the portfolio is a demonstration of creativity with various types of natural lighting and the gradual development of my photographs e.g.:

• The images of silhouettes of the windmills were captured in the early morning hours with the sun rising behind them.
• Capturing the turbines with their blades in motion (blurred), meant being at the place in the evening twilight hour and use of additional camera equipment, a tripod to allow a long shutter speed setting together with a shutter remote control to avoid an unwanted camera shake.

The limitations of the portfolio are:

• Lack of camera equipment as the entire set of images was captured using a 50mm prime lens, limiting variability of the framing of the photographs. The drawback is a slight vertical distortion.
• The windmills are more than 100m tall and scattered over a large flat area thus I was facing several challenges with the perspective.
• All the images repeat a similar type of perspective due to the absence of an elevated spot in the location, affecting the depth of field.

   Alternatively, trying to break the stereotype of repetitive imagery, I have incorporated two images that are close-ups of the platform of the tower and of the nacelle with rotor blades. In addition, all the images have been post-processed in Adobe Lightroom to enhance the black-and-white contrast.

Reflecting on the Travel Hours on the Morning of the Final Day

   Eventually, I found a well-appreciated spot allowing me to capture the windmills from a different perspective while capturing an image that lessens the visual impact of the turbines on the landscape and portrays them in an aesthetically acceptable way. The last photo of the portfolio summarizes a few travels to the area and hours of strolling around the wind farm to find the most appropriate place for composition.