Nature Nurtured in the Urban Age

Nature Nurtured in the Urban Age

I realized that sometimes unintentionally I had taken a series of photographs that examined nature versus the manmade. Whether that is trash or construction zones battling it out between neatly planted lines of almost man-made flowers, the struggle between the real planet and our made planet was there all around me. For my final collection of images I decided to juxtapose nature and those man made idiosyncrasies.

It is really eye opening once you examine that strangeness of our lives. We look as plants that grow on their own, fighting for life in sidewalk cracks and call them weeds. At the same time flowers are planted intentionally around our urban landscapes to make us “appreciate nature.” In all reality we appreciate it by covering it with cement and concrete and throwing our refuse all over it without a second thought.

We continue to create and build and construct modern technologies from roadways to computers and machines and it’s confusing where earth’s real place is in our plans.

 Sometimes it’s good to just lie in the grass and be quiet, while we still have the chance.

Enjoy,

Akasha

~ 

Back Alley Ways by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Filth by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Broken by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Loving Outside by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Bottle Neck by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Mc'Flurry  by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Technology by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Man Made Trash on Grass by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Controlled Nature by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Two types of ground by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Construction Zone by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Caution by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Cathedral by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Tufts in the Wind by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Make a Wish for the Future by Akasha Brandt. Digital photography class @ Point Park University 2012.  albrand1@pointpark.edu

Portraits

Candid

The Best Thing Until the Day after Forever

Serious /Fun

My portraits are of a couple. I photographed Sarah and Bob at Schenley Park. They had a fun time playing on the playground and hamming it up. The pictures turned out to be interesting because Sarah was serious and posed and in most pictures Bob was being very silly. It was an interesting dynamic to see visualized, like it is in Serious/Fun.

Panorama

Oakland Party

Phipps Conservatory

Frick Park

HDR

The Cathedral of Learning- Strong despite the Bomb Threats

Dandelion

Phipps Conservatory

I really enjoyed the ability to add vibrancy to these pictures with HDR. I think they look so colorful and almost other-worldly perfect. All of them were taken at twilight, yet they look so bright.

Abstraction

I made this set with old time-y writing devices. As a writer I often get frustrated with a piece and feel it looming over me oppressively staring me down. I can imagine a movie where a writer is struggling with writers block and different parts of the type writer just stare at him judgmentally.

Gears

unFocus

Word Disassociation