With the night photography I wanted to create an eeriness with lots of bright lights comparing to the dark night time with multiple faces we really see how distorted and dark and and scary our faces are at night because we only think of others as scary not us as scaring others. However, I have also created a serene nature linking to my other projects in the last red images.
WWW: These images work well with the theme of night. They are very striking and each one comes out unique. I like how I have used the person in the image as they add an element of eeriness to the image especially when they are quite blurry.
EBI: I could have tried some different colours in the lights. I also could have done a bit more interesting backgrounds or less in the background so it is dark.
Second Attempt:
Third Attempt:
In this attempt I aimed to develop with more of an interesting background and different colours of the lights. I decided with trees as the background as they really interest me. The man made light compared with the nature background but trees also produce oxygen for humans to breath, they come in all shapes and sizes and they are beautiful with character just like humans.
WWW: The background is much better and adds more nature into the images which contrasts a lot to the bright lights and making them more interesting. The colours are also very affective adding variety to the images. Some are close up and some are further away and the shapes are very interesting that have been created. The last ones look like water which is a really cool effect. It is interesting to try and make shapes out of the shapes.
EBI: The images don't look very neat I should have drawn with a smaller torch to get more defined lines.
Woods in the snow
In this development I aimed to use the weather to affect the images but this time to compare man made and the natural world. I aimed to show how beautiful the world could be without pollution and how the weather reflects how damaging climate change is which links back to my previous images.
First attempt:
www: Each image comes out unique and different and links to my other work well with the idea of what we should see at night and what we actually see because of pollution. It is surreal looking and very unusual to anything using flash on snow which I really like. The trees are very interesting shapes and very different to one another. The depth of the images are striking where you can clearly see the flakes of snow bigger if they are closer to the camera and smaller if they are further away.
EBI: The colour should have matched in each of them of the background as a black sky and I could have tried some different angles of the trees or done more sky in the last few.
Second attempt: Man made
WWW: Its good to try different perspectives as I have done nature throughout this project and I wanted to see how it works with man made. It is interesting because even in these images there is more sky than man made as most of the image is sky. it really shows off the beauty of the sky compared to the road and cars. The image is also very symmetrical on the road then random with the bits of snow which shows what nature is like compared to man made.
EBI: The street lamp obscures some of the snow and because the road is very bright it doesn't create as much of a good effect as the nature images.
Woods at Night
In this shoot I aimed to capture the textures of the woods with the damp soil and eerie curly nature of the roots around the trees and the peeling of the bark. I also aimed to create a more eerie close up dark image at night to just about see the roots . Also I wanted to present trees as living things with veins and bases and mouths. They are very human like and this is a very powerful statement as they provide oxygen for us just by existing and how important they are. The night element relates them to their natural habitat as they create shade and a canopy of protection but also a canopy of darkness juxtaposing each other as to what the audience sees in the images. They collect together very well and the close up allows us to explore things we take for granted. I wanted to move on to trees as they really interest me they have such an interesting texture and each one is so different.
WWW: They are very unique as they are very closeup which really allows for focus on a small part but I also focused it on parts so some of the image is blurry which . The different colours in the images are effective; I have chosen interesting parts of the nature that pop out looking quite surreal compared to the dark soil. They look like mouths and body parts which compares them directly to the man made.
EBI: I could of tried to do different lightings of day as well to see how that worked.
First development: changing our view of the world
Rodney Graham
Graham photographed this in 1990. He uses isolated trees to create a sense of loneliness. He puts them upside down which defies our sense of gravity and what we have known and what we expect to see isn't what we get.
The colours are what really stand out in some of my earlier images and how the colour changes with being affected but here I manually changed the image to black and white which dramatically changes the feeling of the image it becomes eerie. I also chose to do them upside-down to change our perspective as we look at the images but also to make them look more like the human body connecting to nature.
David Hockney
These are called joiners where he put lots of closeups together into on image. I think they are really effective because you've done something interesting to the image but it takes looking properly at it to notice.
Second Development
In this project I aim to create some images that are more arty but also I aim to change to image manually and see how that differs from being physically changed. I also want to make it look like one image but also interesting differences so you are intrigued to look more closely.
First attempt:
Second attempt:
WWW: I like how I have a mixture of trees in the second image and one tree put back together in the first image to test out what worked best. They are really interesting especially the second one with so many different textures of the different trees. I also like the unique shapes of both images- in the first one it looks twisted and interesting. The white background is interesting as it isolates the tree from its location.
EBI: I could have tried doing more to the background.
Third Development:
Nadav Kander
These question photography being a 'decisive moment'. The only thing in these images are nature but none of it is nature it is lit by man made lighting and it is created with manmade views. I like how unnatural and eerie they are. They are so dark in the background and so bright on the fields which creates a sharp contrast with a beginning middle and end just like a story. Like a story our eyes read it from bottom to top and each elements give different feelings. They are so surreal and this is why they question photography being a 'decisive moment' because it takes so many elements to take this one image perfectly where some photographers take in a moment without anything artificial but it could be argued that we get the same chills from both.
MY RESPONSE:
In this shoot I aimed to use flash to create an ominous looking background of the sky at night compared to the trees up close lit by the flash. I aimed to use elements of Nadav Kanders work and
WWW: The look really effective and the parts of nature I chose look really unique, the hanging branches create the same eeriness that Nadav Kander achieved. I like how dark the images are with brighter bits closer to the flash contrasting to the background which is black.
EBI: There are some background lights so I should have tried to go somewhere out of the way of lights to use the flash on my camera more accurately.
Fourth Development Slow Shutter Speed:
In this project I aimed to develop from my last project by seeing if another element of the trees at night with a slow shutter speed to create a kind of smoke around the tree which creates an eerie scene and adds a sense of unknown to the trees and makes it less defined adding to the atmosphere. I used the slowest shutter speed on my camera of 1/
WWW: These images are very eerie and spooky which was exactly what I was going for but they are also include so many elements making them so interesting of nature and man made and double exposure and flash. Each one comes out so unique. I used a slow shutter speed well by moving the camera the tiniest bit to achieve the double exposure. The fog looks really effective almost like they ar taken in a studio because they are taken at night.
EBI: I could have not used as much of a variety to focus in on one aspect like the smoke or the double exposure. next time I should test out all the different slow shutter speeds.
Fifth Development:
STEPHEN GILL
Here Stephen Gill takes an image of somewhere and buries his image where he took the image and waits to see what it turns out like. This really interested me as it is physically affecting the image and it is so unexpected what will come out which is exciting and just burying an image changes it massively which is so impressive.
My Response:
In this series I buried my images on a variety of paper types to begin the development of changing the image physically. I was interested in how they changed: They became faded and the colours changes. It is really interesting as all of them come out differently.
WWW: I really like the fading colour and the bits of dirt on the image. This time I tested out all different types of paper which worked really well especially the baking paper which has so. may colours.
EBI: I could have tested out different time for how long each was developed for which could have shown me more dramatic outcomes.
Investingating pollution: documentary photography- the welsh harp
This project helped me to know what pollution is doing to the environment face to face. This motivated me to use photography to address this issue. The sky being grey is really effective to enhance to image. the use of the buildings around are also effective to show man is what is doing this to the environment when the environment has done nothing to us.
Sixth Development POLLUTED IMAGE DEVELOPMENT:
Brandon Seidler:
Seidler bathes film negatives in chemical pollutants to affect the image. He finds places which have been contaminated and bathes the film in the same chemical that has been spilled onto the environment. He says "I want my work to make people think, if this is the effect of these chemicals on a plastic piece of film, what is it doing to the environment we are polluting?".
First attempts:
In these images I aimed to create a double meaning of two things I want to change: Trees being polluted by fumes in the atmosphere- climate change and fossil fuels but also trees symbolising veins being polluted by mental health conditions and how in some images they are slowly creeping up getting infected and in some the whole picture is polluted.
HERE I USED BLEACH:
HERE I POURED INK PRINTER CAPSULES ONTO THE IMAGE:
HERE I MELTED WAX AND POURED IT OVER THE IMAGE:
WWW: They are very striking and different.
EBI: I should have scanned the images to make them clearer to see. I also need to test more chemicals out to find out what works best. It needs more change to happen to the image.
Barbara Murray:
Murray uses film and film souping which inspired me as she likes experimenting with different soups so I tries with a mixture of chemicals
Second attempts:
I decided that unnatural products on these images created more of an affect and emphasised my point of trees being veins being polluted overtime so here i chose images that looked most like veins and affected them in different ways to compare.
Here i soaked the image in water then poured in limescale bleach, persil and blue fabric conditioner for two days:
Here i poured bleach onto half of the image:
I soaked this image in water with limescale bleach in it after printing it on the matt side:
Here i squeezed lemon juice onto the image:
I squeezed toothpaste thickly onto this image and let it soak in for three days:
Here i poured white spirit onto this image and lit a match on it then put it out:
Here i splattered bleach onto the image:
Here I poured milk onto the image then left it on top of a radiator to mould:
WWW: These are so much more improved than the last attempt as I tried lots of different techniques. Each attempt is unique. There were lots of colour changes which creates such a different image to how it started off. They make such a good statement of what is happening to the environment. I used chemicals which actually harm the environment therefore showing the effect of these chemicals.
EBI: I haven't tried different types of paper yet.
Seventh development: POLAROIDS
First attempt at bleach:
Second attempt at bleach:
I boiled this polaroid with potatoes to try and see what starch would do to it:
Here I cracked the plastic over the image and spread the ink over the image:
WWW: It is interesting to try a new type of paper and the effect it has on the polaroid compared to the paper. I love the dramatic effect the bleach had on the image it has so may colours which adds so much texture to the sky and creates a distorted image.
EBI: The last two images didn't have such a dramatic effect as I was looking for colour changes.
Eighth development:
Oliver Blohm:
Blohm puts his polaroid images into the microwave for 2-3mins and they come out with acid washed colours, burnt sections and random shapes. this really interested me as I wanted to develop a new technique of how to destroy film and this makes each image unique and random as to how they come out which is so unique and unusual.
My Response:
First attempt:
In my first attempt I aimed to test out timing in the microwave and I found out it starts burning after a few seconds on the highest intensity of 800 so I tried it on an intensity of 90 and it took longer to burn. Sometimes they cracked and sometimes they were discoloured and the image went bending in different shapes.
BEFORE:
AFTER: 800 Intensity, 2 seconds
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 800, 3 seconds
WWW: This first attempt came out really well with so much potential and the effects are different every time. Having the boarder which was once clean and white shows the effect putting them in the microwave does to them. The colour slightly fades which I wasn't expecting but looks good. The picture comes out so different from the original creating this whole new effect from just putting it in the microwave.
EBI: The images come out slightly darker on the polaroid so it is hard to see the trees clearly therefore I should develop into day images and see if that looks better. I also need to change the intensity of the microwave to see how it works.
Second attempt:
The trees in my first attempt were not as prominent in the picture as I would have liked so in my second attempt I am developing to day time images of trees and they worked really well the brightness was discoloured which creates such a difference to the original image which was one of my inspirations because it shows the effect of pollutants on trees but also how your mind can trick you into seeing something so differently to how it really is.
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 800, 1 second
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 90, 9 seconds
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 90, 10 seconds
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 800, 4 seconds
BEFORE:
AFTER: Intensity 90, 2 seconds then back in for 2 more seconds
WWW: The technique works really well and dramatically changes the image. I love the cracks and the changes in colour. It makes the image look destroyed to show the effects on the environment. I also really like the the edges being destroyed as well.
EBI: Maybe I could have left them in the microwave longer.
Ninth development: Polluting negatives
Brandon Seidler:
This project is called 'polluted film'. He polluted his images in the place they were taken and found that the chemicals near where he lived are more harsh than they seem and did this to the images.
Process:
I used a film scanner to scan my images from negatives into digital positives.
End Product:
I soaked these in red bull:
Here I used oven pride:
Here I painted bleach:
Here I bathed the negative in a soup of persil, cif, bleach and water:
Final Development: affecting the printed final piece
Projected portraits of my destroyed images put directly onto people: