Andy Hughes - Dominant Wave Theory

Andy Hughes studied Fine Art at Cardiff University and a photography MA at the Royal College of Art. He has been awarded various commisions including the Millennium Fund, South West Arts. Hughes was the first artist to have work displayed in the Tate Gallery in St Ives down in Cornwall. Hughes has also been awarded numerous prizes and awards, some of which include Winner of ELLE Magazine Talent Award, Winner of The Sunday Times Magazine Photography Award and Millennium Commission 2000. Hughes is also a very well known artist internationally as well. He has exhibited in Cornwall, Tokyo, London, New York including participating in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in the USA in 2009.

Andy Hughes is a keen surfer and accident environmentalist. One of his books showing a series of his images, The Dominant Wave Theory aims to draw attention to the unseen objects of our throwaway consumer society (basically meaning what we don't realise we throw away as humans) discarded across some of the most beautiful beaches thtoughout the world. However, when you see his images they strangely look like they have a sense of natural beauty about them. When I look at his images I see images that may sometimes look quite simple but actually look very naturally appealing to the eye. When I think about Hughes' images looking naturally appealing to the eye I think that maybe he's taking the image to look like that because even though the objects have been thrown away with no care they are actually natural objetcs that have ended up in a natural place but the negative of this is that they won't decompose naturally.

I researched Hughes because he has created images that ideally I would like to create for my final images for my client but knowing the Great British weather I doubt my images will turn out with exactly the same composition as Hughes but I wouldn't really expect them too as much as I would like them too. It also depends on whether I can find rubbish like Hughes has.

I love the image below of a used cigarette lighter as it is so colourful and doesn't even look like a cigarette lighter. The way that I view this image is that Hughes has found this lighter and then placed it in the position that it is in the picture in the sand. to me this doesn't necessarily look like a used cigarette lighter because I think that it could also look like an ice lolly which would fit into the theme as all of the pictures are taken on the beach.

I would like to try and find some big pieces of rubbish on the beach like the pieces in the two images below to try and create some images similar to Hughes but I'm not sure whether I will be able to find any as the weather at the moment is quite windy so any big pieces of rubbish probably aren't on the beach anymore unfortunately. I am hoping to find some pieces of rubbish that are colourful that will really stand out in my image.