Assignment 4: Final Series

 Wait, These are Permanent?

             

I wanted to try to add a black border to each of the photos, but I couldn't quite get what I wanted with the filed-out 35mm-negative-holders. I then decided to use the 120mm-negative-holders to project the entire width of the film onto the photo paper. The only issue I had with the extra light coming through was that the light reflected off of the metal bars that are below the focusing part of the enlarger. I just taped the bottom of each bar and I was good to go.

I produced most of these prints at with a contrast setting of 3, and luckily I was able to keep the height consistent (setting 54) for all of them. Nearly all of the prints made with contrast setting of 3 took about a 30-second exposure. The couple I had to do at contrast 4 took 45 seconds, and the other two at setting 5 took 60 seconds.

I really liked the look of the film-edges showing in the final prints because it looked somewhat like a roll of positive film when I had them all lined up on the wall. It gave me the feeling that I was looking through a reel of memories, and I wanted to emulate that through my display.

I spotted each of these prints (albeit not very well); I chose to spot the main image to get rid of as many dust marks as I could, and I deliberately left any imperfections in the film-edge part of the prints to give it an air of use and history.

The Display

I did not have enough space to back up and take a single photo featuring the entire series, though it would have been nice to do so. Overall, although there are some things I would like to do better (like the spotting), I am happy with how these photos turned out.

Thank you for a great semester!

Assignment 4: The Process

Contact Sheets

For my series, the idea of showcasing different people's tattoos just kind of came to me on a whim, but that doesn't mean that I didn't have a deeper message. I find that tattoos are a creative way of self-expression, and that every tattoo has a story. That story could be: "I lost a bet", "it's an important part of my culture", "it reminds me of a family member", "I just thought it was cool," or one of the many other reasons that people have to allow an artist to put their work on their body, permanently.

I greatly appreciate the participation that my tattooed friends from this class, friends from other classes, and my roommate gave to make this project happen. Seeing all of these images now, I wish I could have included each of everybody's tattoos in my final series.

(Can you guess which tattoo is mine?)

I found this experience very intimate because I got to learn more about my friends in a unique way. I am sincerely grateful that they shared with me pieces of themselves that I hadn't known before. In turn, I tried to share these elements in a creative way that highlights the different ways my friends express their individuality. 

Early Draft

Originally, I wanted to enlarge the exposures across the entire dimensions of the paper to draw most of the viewers' focus to the tattoos. I love the way that the photos themselves turned out, but I wanted to find a way to utilize the paper in a more unique way...

(continued in more recent post)

Assignment 3: Full-Frame Enlargements

Zero-Exposure Final Print

I created this print from my film negative for the correct exposure that I had for the exposure latitude portion of the assignment. It includes elements of various colours and textures, as shown in the previous post. After many print attempts, I was able to produce a print with good tonality (but a few dust marks).

For the exposure, I took the photo with the aperture set to 5.6 and the shutter speed set to 1/60th of a second. My makeshift tripod definitely helped with the sharpness. Additionally, I used 125 ISO film for this shot.

Depth of Field Final Print (Low Aperture)

The gentleman has returned. I featured Justin in my first blog post, and his visage was too incredible not to appear again. There are minimal dust marks here, but I did not achieve the contrast that I wanted. I believe that I could have spent more time to perfect the tonality of this print, and the one below.

In the photo, Justin is in focus, with the exit sign and cactus slightly blurred behind him, and the landscape out the window out of focus as well. I set the aperture to 3.5 and the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second. For this shot, I used 400 ISO film.

Depth of Field Final Print (High Aperture)

Although I took some other photos at a higher aperture, this exposure that I took with the aperture set to 8 (and a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second, also with 400 ISO film) turned out the best, and still showcases a change in depth of field from the photo above. The exit sign and cactus are now in focus as well as the main subject, and even some elements in the background are now a bit sharper. I think I could have improved these two shots with the use of a tripod to get higher quality photos.

Assignment 3: The Great Border Fiasco

The Great Border Fiasco

Now, I know what you're thinking. My obsession with borders was excessive. It was. I blame my stubbornness in using the same easel, which I later discovered was a little wonky, repeatedly trying to make a perfect 6 x 9 full-frame enlargement on an 8 x 10 sheet of photo paper. After switching easels, I got a nearly-perfect border in about 6 prints, so I should have done that a lot sooner. 

Left image:

For the first 5 attempts, you'll notice that I had the film emulsion-side up instead of down, so that's why everything is backwards (as are a few of the prints in the centre photo). After realizing that I put the film in the enlarger incorrectly, I had already made 5 prints, but the borders weren't perfect so I had another opportunity to try again. I continued along with the same easel (the same one that I used for all of the prints in the centre image), yet I just could not get them straight. On another day in the lab, I used a different easel, and then I had a nearly-perfect print in about 6 attempts which was really nice. I feel bad, though, for using so much paper and not considering that the easel could be a little funky.

Centre image:

Like the previous image, I had the emulsion side of the film facing the wrong way in the enlarger, so the first few prints are backwards. I also chose to photograph a rather difficult scene because of such contrasting tones. While I tried to perfect the borders, I attempted to dodge the area with the garbage can and burn the area with the sky to balance the tones. This was definitely good practice, but for the life of me I could not get the borders correct. I should have tried different easels (it turns out that the cropping mechanisms were not quite square), but I convinced myself that I could achieve perfection with this easel. The easel defeated me, so I had to move on. Additionally, the exposures didn't quite show a clear difference in depth of field, so in the end the best move was to use some different shots.

Right Image:

After switching subjects for the depth-of-field assignment, I was determined to perfect the border-making process. I tried to locate the easel that I had used to complete my best zero-exposure print, but another student had gotten to it first. After I found another and calibrated it, it took far less attempts to get decent borders, but for some reason I struggled to get the contrast right. Also, I did not check the fix during this process, so that's why a lot of the images have a red hue. After swapping out the fix -very important to check it frequently, by the way- I got some satisfactory prints.

I really should have tried some different easels earlier in the process, especially since other students were getting better results much more quickly. 

IMPORTANT: I would like to make it clear, though, that this did not at all sour my experience in this class. Even though I joke about how many sheets of photo paper I used, I really did enjoy the learning process.

They now call me the Border Man.

Assignment 3: Photo-Taking Process

My Photography Studio

Welcome to my setup. I rented the Nikon FM10 film camera from the university, and unfortunately I timed my photoshoot poorly so that I could not rent a tripod. I improvised, though, as I put that long pinhole camera to use once again. I taped it to one of my balcony chairs and with it I was able to get some quality exposures.

My outdoor still-life scene consisted of a few of my roommate's various knick-knacks, one of my plants, coffee mug, binder, and my 18% grey card to top it all off.

On a chair just out of frame, to the left, I set up a lamp so that the scene had enough light to keep the shutter speeds relatively low.

A Latitude of Exposures

I found it extremely satisfying to hold a roll of film up to the light after developing it, and see all the negatives lined up. Especially this one, since it ranges from 5 stops under the correct exposure to 5 stops over (11 shots total).

Contact Sheets

There's something so visually appealing to me about seeing all of the exposures from a roll of film arranged neatly, all in their positive forms. The grease pencil was very helpful in selecting shots for my final prints so that I could easily reference them.In the top contact sheet, the first photo and a half were taken to to get the film to its exposure labelled "1". Then you'll see the correct exposure for my still-life shot along with the range of exposures for that scene (same aperture for all). These photos were for the exposure latitude portion of the assignment.The following shots utilize different depths of field, but I chose a scene with too much contrast, and I was too close to my subject to display a proper range of depth of field throughout the exposures. I tried to fix the contrast by dodging and burning the prints (which you'll see in the next post). Because of these factors, David suggested that I take some more shots of a better subject, and I am glad that I did so.In the bottom contact sheet, you will see the photos I used for my final prints of the depth-of-field portion of the assignment. With less contrasting tones in this scene, I did not have to do any dodging. I did, however, end up burning the right side in the final prints so that I could differentiate that section of each photo with its border. I also decreased the distance between my main subject and other elements of the photo so that I could better showcase changes in depth of field.

Assignment 2: Photos

Self-Portrait:

On the left is the scanned negative, and on the right is the positive with some touch-ups.

Shot with a pinhole camera made from a gift box, with an aperture the size of a pushpin shaft in a piece of aluminum can.

• exposure time was seconds
• photo paper was 2.5cm away from pinhole

Assignment 2: Cameras

 Camera 1:

        

    

    For camera 1, I used a small gift box (12cm x 5cm x 2cm) from the dollar store. I spray-painted the inside matte black to minimize reflections, and put the pinhole in the centre of the lid. Originally, I had the pinhole straight through box. Since the photo paper was so close to the pinhole, my images were quite small, so I made the hole bigger which greatly reduced the image sharpness. Then I just replaced the hole with a piece of aluminum can with a pinpoint through that, so I settled for the smaller images. Additionally, since the photo paper was so close to the aperture, I had to keep the exposure time very low (less than 5 seconds) in proper lighting.