Photographer linked to personal investigation-Brad Temkin

Brad Temkin is an American photographer based mostly in Chicago and is best known for his photographs on the subject of contemporary landscape. Brad focuses on different areas in the environment. For example his collection The State Of Water, which show the impacts of urbanisation on water typical photos in this collection would be of reservoir, covered concentration tanks, water pipes ect. Brads collection Topographic Tales showcases seemingly deserted areas of land with one object thats manmade e.g wire cages lining the side of a mountain road, a broken billboard in a field. Out of all of Brads collections i think that his collection Rooftops connects to the idea of my work the most. Rooftop photos consists of photos taken in Chicago and port lands green roofs, green roofs were created to reduce carbon footprint and improve storm water control. Event though in the UK there are green rooftops, there are no public greenrooms that i know of so i wouldn't be able to actually photograph green rooftops, however i choose this collection of work because to me it shows how because people have built upon the natural environment, we have had to create that natural environment of vegetation on top of buildings because we built onto of it. I plan to use Brad Temkins idea of photographing what people have to do to improve the environment because it was destroyed, so Brads work would link into my shoots which show re-development for a greener environement.

This photo was taken at Rush University centre Chicago.

This photograph is of the Riva building in Portland.

This photo was taken on S.Wacker Drive, Chicago

This photo was taken on top of Chicago City hall's green rooftop. The rooftop was constructed in 2001, to help improve urban air quality and combat heat island effect, so these green roofs in Chicago were viewed as unique to Chicago. The photo is off a young tree that has been planted atop of the roof and has buildings as a background surrounding the tree. I think that this photo is really important to be in this collection of photos 

This photo was taken on Lurie Children's Memorial green rooftop, looking onto a seemingly endless amount of buildings in Chicago. Out of all of the photos in Brad Temkins collection Rooftop i feel like this photo shows the most meaning and clearly shows the impact that urbanisation has had on wildlife. To me this photo symbolises how difficult some wildlife might find it to find a comfortable natural habitat to live in, as this photo included two fake cows onto of a rooftop which shows how some animals go through drastic measures and changes to find a habitat or food. The photo also shows how everything is being built higher, even though this photo was taken on a rooftop, its till difficult to see the sky as all of the other buildings surrounding this buildings are at a higher level, which blocks the natural sunlight that vegetation needs to grow.  Shadows from the taller buildings are also casted upon the shorter buildings like the hotel, which is blocking any light for people staying there, so eventually all of the surrounding buildings will just be built higher to go along with the taller ones. The thing that stands out to me the most in this photo is the positing of the cows, as i think that its important that the cows are looking out to the city and not just facing away towards the grass.