Freddie Ardley...

Freddie Ardley is a British photographer, who takes photos of landscape and architectural work. His love for landscape and landscape photography inspires him to take simple settings and turn them into emotional and though provoking pieces of work through positioning an editing of deep and warm colours and environments such as woods and rivers. He also takes images of roads as a way of portraying the world and surrounding we live in day by day and interprets the busy and chaotic side to places that are normal crowded and photographing them to be serene and peaceful. He does this to also show a journey of emotion and empathy.

His love for landscape photography started in 2011 at the age of 19 when he visited Nepal. He visited vast and crowded architecture and landscapes that set him on a journey of creativity to bring that vastness back to British landscapes and create peaceful and calm photographs.

I have chosen to use this artist as I feel like he links the literal with the imaginative in terms of vast landscapes. He also creates eerie looking shots through natural environments such as woods or roads. He links to my title of 'Track' because he takes images of naturally formed routes and tracks either made by people leaving their tracks behind or even just a forest of trees,roads or lakes that represents someone's journey or track they've left. However he also takes photos of more literal forms of tracks,such as simply a track made by car tyres in the middle of a field, and also he goes further into the imaginative by taking thoughtful images that represent a person or someone's story.

Image Analysis...

 Although Ardley likes to take
photographs of landscapes to create a literal track of someone's journey he also incorporates the more imaginative side of keeping track and leaving a track. In this image there is objectively, a pathway in the middle of two areas of grass. On the concrete path there is a disorganised line of big open books all opened to the middle pages. The image has been edited to black and white slightly however there is still some depth of desaturated eerie colour left in the image.  In the top image, the middle, and in focus book has one stray page misshapen maybe by wind or strategically positioned to symbolise something else within the photo, maybe subjectively representing a turning point of someone's life like turning a page.

Subjectively the image suggests a narrative of someone's life or thoughts or memories that they have left open for every one to see. It could represent the way someone is emotionally feeling or be something more literal as to suggest someone laying out their memories and track of their life for people to see. As the image looks derelict and somewhat abandoned it creates empathy with the viewer as it suggests a journey that someone has once been on and left the remains and the memories behind. The shadowing around the outside of the picture frames the books and makes them stand out which then makes them the focal point for the viewer as they are emphasised.

... ''the conceptual, yet very real nature of these curious pieces continues to inspire me to create photographs of fascination and story telling.''~Ardley


My responses…

These images are of literal tracks made by people, or vehicles. Also I took photos of pathways as a form of walking track. I edited them in photoshop to create the shadows and make the track more defined.

These images are taken in the more literal or descriptive perspective of 'track' and in response to Ardley's work. I took photos of pathways and natural and man made formations such as roads and telephone poles to trees, and walking tracks. I edited them in Photoshop to create a more earthy and authentic feel to the images, using large shadows and curves to create an eerie atmosphere to simple images.

These images are taken in a more interpretive and imaginative perspective of the title 'track'. Ardley took photos of books in a row ,blowing in the wind, and I interpreted this to relate to my topic. The books symbolise someone's personal journey, they create a way of visually tracking your journey and how far you've come and how far you've got to go. I edited them in photoshop to make the background and surface more shadowed and make the books stand out to be the main focal point of the photo. I took these images as a starting point and I will now take images of other materialistic things that can represent the same visual journey instead of books and develop Ardleys idea further...