Mishka Henner

I am looking at Mishka Henner's projects Dutch Landscapes and The Fields, he hasn't taken the photographs himself but sourced them from google maps and satellites that have orbited the Earth, however despite this he has manipulated them. I personally am captured by the patterns within these aerial shots taken and the distortion of part of an image and is an interesting concept to look at, also within my own work when i take my photographs and do post-production on them it is something to consider and keep in mind for if doing something like this would link in with my own work.

In Dutch Landscapes the scenes that are captured and presented to the viewers are much similar to landscapes that we see around us, only taken from a different vantage point, this makes it more appealing looking from a different perspective than one you would usually view landscapes from as they are all aerial shots looking directly down at the scene. 

"Seen from the distant gaze of Earth's orbiting satellites, the result is a landscape unlike any other; one in which polygons recently imposed on the landscape to protect the country from an imagined human menace bear more than a passing resemblance to a physical landscape designed to combat a very real and constant natural threat."

There are patterns seen in the landscapes and repetition of lines, leading your gaze around the image. The blurred/pixelated areas block colours, bringing out key colours within that area which you cannot  see, some of these you can tell would be there but others you wouldn't have noticed so much if it were not to be pixelated. Within the images you can see the joins of fields and how they stop when they meet buildings, though the images appear quite flat there is a sense of knowing things would be higher than others and the differ in levels is subtle, more focusing on the patterns in the work and the textures with how areas in the piece differ to one another to make the overall piece, contrasting harmoniously together.

The Fields is a project based on US oil fields that were photographed by satellites orbiting Earth, with each print that Mishka has produced is composed of hundreds of high-resolution satellite images of each location stitched together which shows intricate details. From looking at these pieces you can't see that they are constructed by a large amount of images, it looks like one large image so there is the feeling that the images that he took to manipulate together where very close up shots capturing little details with each area within this scene so that al things within the piece are in focus. Mishka could've recreated the view to being similar to what it actually is or he could've changed it around for it to look more visually appealing to the eye with the patterns and lines in the pieces. However if you didn't know it was more than one image edited together when looking at the image you wouldn't think about that, focusing on the structures, textures and repetitions through lines and patterns that are seen in the oil fields.

sources:

http://mishkahenner.com/filter/works/The-Fields

http://mishkahenner.com/filter/works/Dutch-Landscapes