On a webpage called Time Light box, both
Rickard and Henner explain their reasons for using Google street view by
explaining how they think the quality and use of the pictures present
themselves to a viewer.
'The
pictures that I chose don’t really have a strong feeling of spying; the
pixilation and the broken elements actually emphasize the subtext and the
emotion that I wanted to impart, which was America in a devastated form, almost
the inverse of the American dream. The aesthetic that I used heightens that
sense'[1]. When
looking at Rickard’s statement, I feel that he has a lot more to say about his
reasons for using Google street view. Here is a statement from Henner “In its
raw form, satellite imagery can be quite dull. Cropping, adjusting, and forming
a body of work out of them completely transforms these images into something
that can be beautiful, terrifying and also insightful.”[2] He
says that cropping and adjusting the images that can be found on Google Street
view ‘Transforms the images into something that can be beautiful, terrifying
and also insightful’. This is very similar to this line in Rickard’s statement
‘the pixilation and the broken element actually emphasize the subtext and the emotion
that I wanted to impart.’ They both use the quality of Google street view to
their advantage; they are insightful and very real. Although Rickard uses the
pixilation to his advantage as it really emphasises the concept of his work. He
is looking at run down, poverty struck neighbourhoods, and I feel that the use
of pixilation adds to the devastating areas you see via these images. It makes
they images look more like the area itself, a worn, decaying feeling; a feeling
of brokenness by poverty. Although I feel that with Henner’s images he doesn’t
see pixilation as an advantage, but making sure that the curser on the screen
in angled in the correct way to make the image speak out for itself. In a video
Rickard talks about how he also adjusts his camera on his computer screen to
make a shot that he is wanted to show. ‘My wheel started turning and I was
sitting there and picked up my iPhone and I started taking a picture of the
screen, like this, sort of moving it around and moving the curser and composing
these scenes.’[3]
This is very similar to what Henner was saying in his statement, when he talks
about cropping and adjusting the images transforms their meaning. I feel both
photographers use the Google map to their advantage, and still use all the
necessary tools and a street photographer to come up with an image that states
something.
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