Walking the High Line
In his series of photographs of an abandoned elevated railway in New York, Joel Sternfeld has exposed a strip of land running through the heart of one of the world’s densest cities which has somehow escaped the clutches of the real-estate developers for the last 25 years. Raised 30 feet in the air, cutting through converted factories and dividing city blocks, the “High Line” runs from Manhattan’s West Village up to 34th Street. It was built in the 1930s to accommodate the traffic from ships docking at the piers on the Hudson River. The line saw its last train in 1980 and has since languished in a state of sublime oblivion.
Like much of Sternfeld’s seminal work this landscape series is both celebration and memorial. It shows a walk along the rail tracks once known as the lifeline of New York where the urban inner city has been reclaimed by nature. An elegy to the city’s past, the pictures frequently foreground wilderness encroaching on the industrial infrastructure showing the city’s conflict between nature’s temporal processes and man’s monumental engineering. – http://thedrawbridge.org.uk/issue_2/walking_the_high_line/
I have chosen to research Joel Sternfield in an attempt to deconstruct his images, allowing further investigation of the elements and techniques that are used to create his photographs. I have chosen his project ‘Walking the High Line’ as I felt this body of work had characteristics that linked to my own work at Berkeley. Focusing on other photographers work that employ the style and tonality that you want to create, can often provide great inspiration when aiming to improve. Below I have selected four of his images from the series and analysed their content and make up.
From the tonality in the shadows it is evident that Sternfield has photographed this body of work on film. Being known for his large format work this would not come as a surprise. Using colour film has complimented his subject choice in the way the derelict and un touched environment has grown around the city. In the image above the warm tones work with the buildings, whilst the virtually detail free sky allows the complexity of the lower partition (of the composition) to work will full effect. In most of Sternfield’s images in this series he has utilised perspective and depth. Using a wide lens on the large format camera has allowed him to pull together multiple elements whist using the a powerful composition of sky and ground to compliment the buildings form.
In this image it is clear that Sternfield is shooting at similar times in the evening. He is aiming to shoot as the sun is setting, therefore providing him with a softer, warmer light. The softer light allows greater detail in the shadows and stronger tonality throughout the frame. In the image above he has used an almost 50/50 composition of land and sky. This allows the lower half of the image to be analysed just as much as the upper half. He has been able to combine textures, for instance the red bricked building to the right works with the red of the soil on the ground. This creates an aesthetically pleasing image which is necessary to draw the viewer into the reasoning behind the project. Shooting each of the images with the same focal length has allowed the pictures to work together, therefore making the series as a document stronger.
This image features more dominant characteristics compared to the other images. The large formality of the buildings look imposing and the lines of the tracks lead the viewers eyes straight to these buildings. Sternfield has combined lines with the formality of the buildings, whilst using elements such as reflection and contrast to pick out the detail. This is one of his images that features less sky, this changes the portrayal of the buildings and gives the feeling of a dense, urban, city landscape. The viewer is also able to link the darkness of the sky to the imposing look of the buildings, creating further intensity.
This is the final image I have looked at in Sternfield’s series ‘Walking the High Line.’ This is personally my favourite image due to the use of colour and perspective. Sternfield has combined depth, lines, context, positioning and forground detail, allowing an image to be made that is both capturing initially and interesting once the surrounding history and reasoning has been taken into account. The square format of the camera has allowed Sternfield to hide any distractions to the left or right side of the frame, this forces the viewer to look down the centre of the image first. Once the centre of the image has been viewed the audience this then able to pick out the detail in the surrounding buildings. Although Sternfield is not above his subject he has still got higher to provide a greater idea of the tracks positioning amongst the sky scrapers.
Joel Sternfield’s work has shown me how depth and perspective has the ability to provide a better understanding of the environment and the location in which that environment is found. I will aim to employ the techniques that I have seen in my own work, although elements from these images may not work in my own photography it is still worth experimenting with.
AD6802 Landscape: Social and Environmental 