This July I took a solo trip to USA to participate in a 5 day workshop in the village of Snowmass near Aspen, Colorado. Nestled 8,000 feet above sea level in the Rocky Mountains, Aspen is a skiing mecca during the winter, and outdoor adventure hub in summer. The workshop was held at Anderson Ranch Arts Centre, a gorgeous mountain ranch full of art studios, wild flowers and manicured gardens. The mission of the Ranch is to enrich lives with art, inspiration and community. Throughout the year the ranch hosts weekly workshops hosted by acclaimed artists drawn from all over USA and beyond. The workshops covered a full spectrum of visual arts, from painting, to pottery, to print making, woodwork to photography. It was such a wonderful experience to be able to concentrate solely on art for an entire week in such a beautiful, supportive location. I met so many artists of all disciplines and made some wonderful new acquaintances.
Images care of Anderson Ranch Arts Centre
Workshop
The workshop I took was called 'Post Photographic Processes' taught by Mark Dorf.
Mark Dorf is a New York based artist whose practice utilizes photography, video, digital media, and sculpture. Often working directly with ecologists and technologists in the production of his works, Dorf is influenced by human’s perceptions of and interactions with what we call “Nature”, urbanism, design, and virtual environments. As opposed to seeing these subjects as categorically separate, Dorf reveals their entanglement and integration with one another as an inclusive and lively planetary ecology. Being both self-aware and critical of their own means of production, Dorf’s works craft a vision of a more inclusive ecological future helping to navigate away from environmental collapse in the Anthropocene and imagine a New Nature.
I’ve followed Mark for years and have referenced him as an inspiration for some of the bodies of work I've undertaken in my photography degree. The first 3 days of the workshop taught photoshop, 3D modelling and photogrammetry (turning multiple still images of an object into points in 3D space) interspersed with lectures on theory and contemporary artists. The final two days was spent practicing techniques, photographing Maroon Bells (the most photographed mountain range in the US), and discussing art theory. The crux of the course was a discussion about what it means to take a photograph vs. making an image within the reference of a visual artist. Mark really challenged us to make images to explore ideas and concepts, using all of the technology and techniques at our disposal. This was brought home when we visited Maroon Bells only to be asked, what’s the point of taking an image here when there are over 2.5 million indexed on google. He challenged us to make work that wasn't the immediate show stopping landscape image, but to think about culture, feelings, ideas - how to create an image that explores ideas whilst we were at the most photographed mountain range in North America.
Playing with the idea that we were discussing - what's the point in adding the to millions of images of this place that already exist.
I created a 3D model of the mountains in Blender, rendered it and composited it onto this image of Maroon Bells. I then downloaded the most 'popular' images of the mountain from google, and laid one onto each of the flat plains of the 3D model. The 'closed for revegetation' sign is a 3D object created by photographing the sign from multiple angles (around 40 images), converting it into a 3D 'point cloud' in Regard 3D, importing into Blender, and then compositing it onto this image in Photoshop.
The image is about the impact of over tourism, and the exploring the concept of so many thousands of different images of the same place. What's real and what's the point of taking yet another image?
The image on the left is an 'X-ray' rendering of a point cloud consisting of a number of rocks, logs and sign that I created using photogrammetry in Regard 3D. The image on the right is of a forest scene shot near Maroon Bells, converted from green to red, with the point cloud composited on top. The image feels post apocalyptic in a comic book way. Not an incredible work of art, but a fun experiment!
Experiments with point clouds created from images of rocks.
I had such a great time meeting Mark and my classmates, and making friends with other artists from all over the US. I’m looking forward to building some of the techniques I’ve learnt into my work over the coming months.
Aspen Landscapes
Although there wasn’t a huge amount of time making photographs, I did go on quite a few hikes before and after class given that I may never have the chance to come back here again.
Maroon Bells
I arranged for some classmates and myself to visit Maroon Bells for a couple of hours at sunrise on our last day of the workshop. This meant a 4:45am pick up to get there by 5:30am to see the sun hit the mountains. It is a breathtaking location, and I could have spent hours exploring the hiking trails and different micro environments nearby. Maroon Bells is so popular, visiting is on a reservation basis, either on a shuttle bus or on a limited number of car permits. This is to spread visitors across the day and avoid overcrowding. As we were going so early in the morning and no car permits were left I booked a private shuttle through Blazing Adventures. It was expensive, but ok between 4 of us.
Snowmass
These images are all taken from hikes on the 'Rim Trail South', along the ridgeline stretching from Snowmass Village along past Anderson Ranch. Seeing these mountains standing tall on the horizon was just breathtaking.
After the workshop I had an extra 4 nights to spend in the US, and the nearest big cities looked to be Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah. I chose to drive to Salt Lake City as the idea of photographing some of the buildings in the worldwide Mormon headquarters was super exciting. In between Aspen and Salt Lake City there’s some pretty amazing countryside, so I took a night in Arches National Park, near Moab, and the Bonneville Salt Flats, near Wendover.
Please have a read of some of my other blog entries about these incredible places!