For the controlled test question I have decided to choose the theme of water.
Water takes many different forms on earth: water vapour and clouds in the sky, waves and icebergs in the sea, glaciers in the mountains, aquifers in the ground, to name but a few. Through evaporation, precipitation, and runoff, water is continuously flowing from one form to another, in what is called the water cycle.
Because of the importance of precipitation to agriculture, and to mankind in general, different names are given to its various forms, rain being common in most countries. Other phenomena are quite surprising when seen for the first time. Hail, snow, fog or dew are examples. When appropriately lit, water drops in the air can refract sunlight to produce rainbows.
Similarly, water runoffs have played major roles in human history as rivers and irrigation brought the water needed for agriculture. Rivers and seas offered opportunity for travel and commerce. Through erosion, runoffs played a major part in shaping the environment creating river valleys and deltas, which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centres.
Civilizations have historically flourished around rivers and major waterways; Mesopotamia, (a Greek word, meaning 'land between the rivers’) the so-called cradle of civilization, is situated between two major rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Large cities like London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. Islands with safe water ports, like Singapore and Hong Kong, have flourished for precisely this reason. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is scarcer, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.
Life on earth has evolved with and adapted itself to the important features of water. The existence of liquid, vapour and ice on Earth has been an important factor in the abundant colonization of Earth's various environments. If there was no water, life as we know it would not exist.
The two photographers that I will be looking at for inspiration for this project are Sally Mann and Imogen Cunningham. Both these artists have been greatly inspired by nature and the beauty it has to offer, but each went about capturing it in a different way. Cunningham chose to look at flowers closely and capture the shape and texture of petals from abstract angles. Mann, on the other hand, looked at the whole landscape from a distance, using it as a canvas, the focus being her children.
