The Umbrellas (1984-1991)
Photo. Art-Direction Project 4
' The Umbrellas, a temporary work of art realized in two countries at the same time, reflected the similarities and differences in the ways of life and the use of the land in two inland valleys in Japan and the USA. '
' The Umbrellas, a temporary work of art realized in two countries at the same time, reflected the similarities and differences in the ways of life and the use of the land in two inland valleys in Japan and the USA. '
My Final Interpretations...
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The Originals...
Image i was given
Background...
Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned to have yellow umbrellas set up in California and blue umbrellas in Japan at the same time. After much preparation the couple in December 1990 installed the first steel bases for the Umbrellas. At the bases 80 cm long anchors were fastened to the ground to withstand tensions of 1,500 kgf. In September 1991 the umbrellas were brought to their places by 2,000 workers. In California, some of the bases were transported to the site by helicopter. The final cost of the project totaled $26 million US Dollars. By September 7, 1,340 blue umbrellas in Ibaraki and 1,760 yellow umbrellas at the Tejon Ranch in southern California had been set up; the exhibition opened on 9 October 1991. In total, 3 million people saw the umbrellas, each measuring 6 meters in height and 8.66 meters in diameter. The umbrellas became a huge tourist attraction, finding use as everything from picnic spots to wedding altars. On 26 October 1991, one of the umbrellas in California was toppled by high winds, killing one woman and injuring several others. The exhibit was ordered closed immediately. A second death occurred during the removal of the umbrellas.
Preparation...
these are examples of images which were prepared and developed in preparation of their work.
Construction...
Completed...
www.christojeanneclaude.net
www.nytimes.com
Burt Chernow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: A Biography, St. Martin's Press, New York, USA 2002
Development...
My idea to either use one of the following three umbrellas, cocktail, garden or regular.
Cocktail - I could recreate a scaled down version using smaller umbrellas with a smaller landscape recreation.
Garden - Would be extremely similar to the original which is what i will be going for but this depends on sourcing the product and location.
Regular - Everyday brolly which i could quite easierly source and would be easier to produce this on a landscape with out too many logisical problems.
* Has to be blue or yellow else i feel i will be going off message of the original
Been as i live close to a large area of moorland, i will probably use this as i feel its ideal and i no the surroundings pretty well as there is various slight inclines, different colours and textures with various different countryside characteristics.
(when the snow clears ! )
Bolehall Moors, Tamworth, Staffordshire
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=google+maps&rlz=1C1DVCL_enGB474GB474&aq=f&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wl
Another location chosen was the university nature reserve on the leek road.
Creative Direction
This is umbrellas in a field…
It might seem that simple but upon delivery it was harder than it looks as having limited funds and only being able to use one umbrella proved to be tricky. The ever changing British weather never seems to keep to one shade of sky. This was hard as when moving the umbrellas, shadows were different and wind movement not helping the position. This was up to me in post-production to edit the images to make the image believable.
During the editing process each image taken was laid upon each other and the erased and colour match to create my final outcome.
Objects
I have used a blue parasol umbrella which represents Christo. The umbrella has width of 190cm and can be extended to over 5 feet tall.
Landscape
Despite having an original location in mind, I had changed my mind in to using the back of the university within the ‘nature reserve’ which provided a hill to show depth and distance and various other terrain and greenary.
Composition
A random composition of the umbrellas being spread around with various shots taken.
Technical Considerations
Lights
Natural lighting
Camera
Shot on a Nikon D90 with an ISO setting of 200.
Set entirely on ‘manual’ with a shutter speed of 1/640th.
Aperture was set to f6.3.
Action
The shoot took around 3/4 hours including set-up.
I managed to take a total of 82 shots – which consisted of around 10 test shots to get the angles and lighting perfect with about 15 shots being taken of each variation.
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Ben Watson - Master Piece - Photography Art Direction Level 5
