TASK ONE
Lesson 1 - Text And Image
In our first practical lesson we were learning about text and image and exploring the relationship between them both. we also looked and considered how the text informs the viewer and could create a juxtapostion to clarify or confuse communication. To be able to do this we where asked to get out on location and take an image that we could find relatable text to go along with it. For my Text and Images Photograph i decided to take an image of someone holding a image of a smile. i then got the subject to come up with a quote about how she was feeling, she simple said "you never know the true felling behind a fake smile" which i thought fit the image really well with the image. i then thought about how i was going to put the text onto the image. i tried three different formats, one being scribbling the quote on a print out of the image, the other being writing it on a Polaroid print of the image and the third being cut and pasting letters from magazine articles together in order to create a ransom style notes effect on the image. this is how my images turned out.
this was my first idea. i think that this works as its an images because the image is much more cropped than the rest. it focuses on the 'face' more as opposed to the whole image which has more body in proportion to the smily face. also putting it in black and white creates a tone for the image, makes it look much more moody which i think fits the quote more better as the quote is rather moody, sad and upsetting.
This was my second way of adding the text. i thought that this way worked the best out of all three as i had a much more rougher scarier look than the rest of my image. i think that adding the text in this way was the closest to how i originally wanted my image to look. i think that the srunched up image give a very broken look to the image which was something i was aiming for when thinking of the image and quote together.
Lesson 2 - Montage
in out second lesson we where learning about montage and photomontage. this is the combination of two or more image to make a larger image most of the time with a statement to make or political message, from example Jamie Reid who create the famous sex pistols god save the queen image. in this lesson we went out shooting to get two or more images which we thought would work well together either aesthetically or contextually. i decided that i wanted to keep my image simple and go with matching two images that i thought would go well together well aesthetically as apposed to contextually. for my montage image i decided to collect two image of a subject in the same place at the same time, this way i would be able to add these together without any faults in the background. these to images consisted of the subject pulling to different faces that would make her appear as though she was two different people, almost as though she has a twin sister next to her. Here is my final image;
Lesson 3 - Double Exposure
In our third lesson we looked at double exposure images. A double exposure is a negative or a piece of photographic paper being exposed multiple times. the negative is exposed to light more than once creating an overlay effect on the image, this techniques allows you to create a montage of image, through the camera or darkroom. in this lesson we where put into small groups and sent out with a 5x4 camera and a tripod. where where then told to setup the camera next to a window with a lot of light, take one exposure with no one stood in front of the window, close the shutter, then place a subject in front of the window, take another exposure. while doing this we has trouble getting the exposure time right so we had to do rather a lot of test shots before we worked out what was right, in the end we found that a second on each exposure was correct. when we had exposed the image twice we took the paper, still in the camera, back to the darkroom. we then developed the images and found that we got a negative image of the window with a ghostly like figure in front.
after i got this image i decided that i would make a positive from this image to see how the image would turn out to do this i put my negative image over a blank piece of paper and exposed it for about 8 seconds. then we developed the paper as normal and this is how it came out.
i think that the double exposure is a really cool technique to use as i think that it create very cool and ghostly images.
Lesson 4 - Photograms
in our fourth lesson we looked at photograms. a photogram is an a piece of photographic paper that has been exposed in the darkroom, with objects on top. this can create a very cool and abstract image and is simple to do. during this session we where asked to bring in objects that could be put together to portray a message or a meaning. i decided to bring in a few object that where all given to me as presents, that i though would give a very interesting look when made into a photogram. we took our objects down to the darkroom and set up our enlargers to make test shot. for our test shots we took an object and placed it on top of the photographic paper, three time, and then exposed each piece of paper for three different time, each time double the previous time. first at 2, then 4, then 8. here are how my test strips turned out.
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| 8 seconds 4 seconds 2 seconds |
on looking at my test strips i thought that 2 seconds would be a long enough exposure to get a perfect photogram as in this test strip my blacks look black and my whites looked white, where as 4 and 8 seconds looked too dark. i decided to place all my image on the photo-paper and expose the image for 2 seconds. however when i went to put the photo paper in the developing chemicals the image came out too light. the blacks in the background came out a light grey colour which is not how a wanted my image to look. along with this there was also marks on the paper such a finger prints and scratches from where is had been touched.
after looking at this image i thought that it would be best in i reprinted the image in order to get a better quality image. for this print and decided to take the exposure time up another second to 3 seconds. which i think this print came out much better as the blacks where pure blacks and the whites pure white.
TASK 2
Proposal
For
this project I will be using a medium format camera and black white film, along
with different experimental techniques to create a coherent set of images. The
techniques I will be using will be double exposure, image and text and painting
my black and white prints. Using these techniques I will produce a set of three
images each containing a double exposure fashion portrait, and text and image.
I want to create images in the styles of Jim Goldberg, using text and image to
tell a story of the subject or to show their feelings. To produce this I will
book out a medium format camera and go out during lessons to take these
photographs. I’ll take the image separately and then overlay the negatives on a
scanner and then scan them on to the computer. After this is done I will paint
on to the image, in order to add colour to the image. I want to be able to take the fashion images
on location, using the portable studio lighting, however this may be difficult
because of the technology needed to hook the camera up to the lights. If it is
impossible to use the D-Lights, then I will find away around this by using
other equipment, such as using a flashgun. I think that taking these images out
on location would give me a wide Varity of backdrops, which would make my
images more interesting. For the second image in my double exposure I want to
take landscape images to overlay on to the portrait images. I think that this
would create a nice contrast between the busy, city based fashion image to the
calmness of the tranquil landscapes.
In this image Jasper James has used double
exposure. I like this image because even though there is an image overlaid in
the background the focus of the image is still on the portrait in the
foreground, which is the way that I want my images to look. Even though I’m
going to have the landscapes I still want to pull the main focus towards the
subject in my image. I also really like the amount of contrast on the subject I
think that this is what helps to pull the focus of the image. I also like how
this image is composed. The subject is on an angle that could look like she
looking out of a window in her city apartment. I think that jasper james shot
this image so that there was one image, the background, on the first exposure
and then added the person in on the second because the subject fits to the
background, it all works as an image. Although I want my images to look like
this I think it may be difficult as I’m using scanning as a technique to layer
my images together.
Although I really like this image and this is the type of image which I will be basing my work on, I think that maybe the image could have been made to look more interesting. As I think that using a cityscape for the background could be quite boring.
Jim Goldberg is a photographer that incorporates text and image into is work. He does this by taking image of people and writing there life stories or quotes that they have said onto Polaroid prints. I really like Jim Goldberg work as i find it raw, for example in the image above a man is on his death bed. The image that Jim Goldberg has taken could be the last image taken of the man alive, Similarly the words on the image could be his last. I find the image has a lot of meaning for the subject as well as the viewer because the words on the image are very meaningful. The text of the image is also written in the subjects handwriting, which i also think makes the image look very raw. you can see in the handwriting that the man in the image has had difficulty writing as the its very rough which i think adds to the rawness. Along with this i also like the composition of the image. I think that because the image is only small in comparison to the background it means that the image is the accessory to text as apposed to the other way round (as i find the it usually is). I really like the work of Jim Goldberg and the techniques he uses is something that i want incorporate into my own work as i think that this will add much more meaning to my work.
First Shoot
On my first shoot i took the medium format camera into the studio to take my portrait image for the foreground of my double exposure. to take these images i used a one light setup. i set the light up to the side of my subject and then raised it so that it was shining down from above. I knew that for these images i wanted to get the subject looking up to the light. This way there would be minimal shadowing on the face. i started by taking images like these. i made sure to get a variety of different image with different people, but first i got a set of 3-6 images using the same lighting. after i got these image i decided that i could get some images of people being kinda crazy and it would be interesting to see the final outcome of merging these images together.
I really enjoyed using the medium format camera as it was something different that i hadn't used before. However i thought that using the camera was rather complicated because it was very hard to focus the camera correctly. i still enjoyed using the camera for the first time and i think that i got some really good quality images out of it.
Group Crit.
During the middle of our project we had a group crit session in which we judged each others work. In this session where asked to make trial versions of our ideas this way we could see how our ideas where going to work and what wasn't working so well. My first image was a black and white image made up from 2 medium format images of the same person. In my group people said that from the two image they found that this one was the most interesting. The images where overlaid so that you could see one image very clearly and the second image was more like a ghost. They said that the image was interesting as you could see the person in two different ways, one being wild and crazy the other being calm. i thought that this image was the stronger image because both the image look like they fit together. i thought that the image could have been put together in a much more creative way. i want this to be something that i think about when it comes to creating my final images.
For my second image people within my group said that they thought that it had very good colour. My second image was pretty much like my first, the only difference between the two was that my background image was a digital colour image. I think using a coloured background created a lot of contrast between the foreground and background images. I personally thought that this image wasn't as strong as the first image, which my group agreed with. They said that the foreground image looked as it had just been placed there, that it didn't look like it had been blended. i wasn't too keen of the background but i was one that i had to use as i had been on my second shoot and could not overlay another film image because i didn't have one. From this lesson i have found that i need to play around with blending the image, and the types of images that i want to put together.
Research
Although I really like this image and this is the type of image which I will be basing my work on, I think that maybe the image could have been made to look more interesting. As I think that using a cityscape for the background could be quite boring.
Jim Goldberg is a photographer that incorporates text and image into is work. He does this by taking image of people and writing there life stories or quotes that they have said onto Polaroid prints. I really like Jim Goldberg work as i find it raw, for example in the image above a man is on his death bed. The image that Jim Goldberg has taken could be the last image taken of the man alive, Similarly the words on the image could be his last. I find the image has a lot of meaning for the subject as well as the viewer because the words on the image are very meaningful. The text of the image is also written in the subjects handwriting, which i also think makes the image look very raw. you can see in the handwriting that the man in the image has had difficulty writing as the its very rough which i think adds to the rawness. Along with this i also like the composition of the image. I think that because the image is only small in comparison to the background it means that the image is the accessory to text as apposed to the other way round (as i find the it usually is). I really like the work of Jim Goldberg and the techniques he uses is something that i want incorporate into my own work as i think that this will add much more meaning to my work.
Jamie Reid is a text and image artist mostly known for his work with the sex pistols. I have chosen his most famous piece of work his "god save the queen" image. I like this image and the way that he has encorpirated the text into the image. i like the rugged way that his a place the text into box over the eyes and mouth of the queen. I think that the positioning of the image makes it very symbolic because the way that it is places over the eyes and mouth make the queen very powerless. i also think the punky feel to the image. this image was made in the hight of the punk era and had some of the key characteristics of the art from back then. For example the banners covering the eyes of the key as something that jamie reid used famously in some of his art work form back in the day. i like the way that even the text is image back and white along with the image, by doing this jamie reid has created alot of contrast between the flag and the portrait. i think this may need to be a technique that i adapt into my own work as many of my image will be in black and white. i think that by adding something like this into my work it may make it look much more effective.
First Shoot
On my first shoot i took the medium format camera into the studio to take my portrait image for the foreground of my double exposure. to take these images i used a one light setup. i set the light up to the side of my subject and then raised it so that it was shining down from above. I knew that for these images i wanted to get the subject looking up to the light. This way there would be minimal shadowing on the face. i started by taking images like these. i made sure to get a variety of different image with different people, but first i got a set of 3-6 images using the same lighting. after i got these image i decided that i could get some images of people being kinda crazy and it would be interesting to see the final outcome of merging these images together.
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| Contact Sheet For Shoot 1 |
Group Crit.
During the middle of our project we had a group crit session in which we judged each others work. In this session where asked to make trial versions of our ideas this way we could see how our ideas where going to work and what wasn't working so well. My first image was a black and white image made up from 2 medium format images of the same person. In my group people said that from the two image they found that this one was the most interesting. The images where overlaid so that you could see one image very clearly and the second image was more like a ghost. They said that the image was interesting as you could see the person in two different ways, one being wild and crazy the other being calm. i thought that this image was the stronger image because both the image look like they fit together. i thought that the image could have been put together in a much more creative way. i want this to be something that i think about when it comes to creating my final images.
For my second image people within my group said that they thought that it had very good colour. My second image was pretty much like my first, the only difference between the two was that my background image was a digital colour image. I think using a coloured background created a lot of contrast between the foreground and background images. I personally thought that this image wasn't as strong as the first image, which my group agreed with. They said that the foreground image looked as it had just been placed there, that it didn't look like it had been blended. i wasn't too keen of the background but i was one that i had to use as i had been on my second shoot and could not overlay another film image because i didn't have one. From this lesson i have found that i need to play around with blending the image, and the types of images that i want to put together.
thought that this would create a nice contrast between the woodland and nature images i was planning to add in the background. however i found that when i came to develop my film for this shoot some of the film was wasted rolling the film into the camera. this meant that all the background image that i took where not on the film. I still need to get some background images however i do not have the money to buy another roll of film. i need to think about a way to create my image, in a less costly way that i could see get the feeling of it being taken on a film camera. The portrait images that i took on this roll of film came out really nice and came out how i wanted to look. When taking these images i overexposed the film during shooting. To fix this problem during developing i reduced the time by 4-5 minutes to ensure that the film was correctly exposed. i was really please with the end result.
Final Image And Evaluation
Final Image 1
For my first final image i decided to play around with the idea of my trial image and mixing together two images of the same person. I think that this image came out much stronger than the first attempt. I used two images from my second shoot as i thought that both of these images worked very well together as a pair, even better when they've been overplayed. I like this image better as i feel like it shows more of the subjects personality and more of who they are and what they do, For example smoking. I used two medium format images to create this image. I like the effect that using the medium format camera gave, because i think that using the black and white film gave a much moodier look, which was my intention when creating the image. i found that using the medium format is was easier to merge the images together as they laid over each other quick nicely without much fiddling around and created a strong image. i really like the idea of showing two sides of a person with the double exposure image and was something that i tried to improve from my trial images. In this image, like my trial image, shows a rather rebellious side to the person as well as a rather calm side also. in this image i really like the amount of contrast in the image, on both images i manged to get an equal amount of contrast on each layer. As they are both even i creates the look of the image being exposed twice with in the camera. Along with this the opacity on the top layer is balanced correctly. I think that the amount that i put on the top layer was just enough to be able to still clearly see that the layer is there while still drawing detail to the bottom layer.
Although i'm really pleased with how the final image came out there is a few things in the image that i think could have been improved. For example there is a few things that i think pulls the attention in the image that shouldn't, such as the id tag around the subjects neck. Although this isn't something major i think that it is still something that shouldn't have been in the image and when taking image in the future i need to be aware of things like this that should not be on the image. As well as this i think that fact that they eyes in each image are not level is something that could be improved in the image. When overlaying the images i found that trying to place the top image level with that of the bottom layer meant that i was cropping out most of the image. As a result i decided that it would be best to move to top level above the bottom. I think that next time planning the images more careful would be useful. This way i would be able to then put the camera on a tripod and ensure that the eyes will be almost level at all times making it easier to merge together.
Final Image 2
For this image i wanted to create a much more abstract image so for this i decided to mix a portrait image with a rather large background together with another background image. i was really pleased with how the final image turned out. I think that mixing the two backgrounds together created a really abstract image. As the one of the images was a rural scape and the other a graffiti wall i think that the two mix together and contrast well. Then adding the portrait image on top created a really ghostly effect on the image as you cannot see the eyes. i think that all these elements of the image makes it quite abstract. I found that mixing image like these together, background and portraits, was much easier than my other image and creating much strong, more artist and stronger images. i also like how by overlaying the background image over the portrait image, the girl almost looks translucent, for example her skirt is showing the background clearly as this was overlayed.
I think that the downfalls of this image is the image appears to be flat. By this i mean there is not much contrast between the highlights and the shadows i think that this image could be made stronger by adding alot more contrast between the colour. i think that this would add much more depth to the image and would make the different layed images clearer against one another.
Final Image 3
This was my third final image. I really did not like this image. As apposed to my other 2 image i think that this image is very weak. I wanted to try something different from what i did in my other images, so for this i decided that i would overlay a digital image of some tree branches over the face of the subject. I think that the use of the branches over the face turned out to be to busy and create a really fussy image. In this image you could also tell that the image had been overlayed. There wasn't much blending that went into the image, rather than i just layed it over the top. I think that this image seemed boring in comparison to my other image as this image seem flat where as the other image where rather abstract and held some kind of meaning where as in this image i just used two different image to create a double exposure image, not much thought went into the image. i feel that more experimental techniques could have been used on this image, such a coloring the negative, that would have made the image much more interesting and creative.
Final Image And Evaluation
Final Image 1
For my first final image i decided to play around with the idea of my trial image and mixing together two images of the same person. I think that this image came out much stronger than the first attempt. I used two images from my second shoot as i thought that both of these images worked very well together as a pair, even better when they've been overplayed. I like this image better as i feel like it shows more of the subjects personality and more of who they are and what they do, For example smoking. I used two medium format images to create this image. I like the effect that using the medium format camera gave, because i think that using the black and white film gave a much moodier look, which was my intention when creating the image. i found that using the medium format is was easier to merge the images together as they laid over each other quick nicely without much fiddling around and created a strong image. i really like the idea of showing two sides of a person with the double exposure image and was something that i tried to improve from my trial images. In this image, like my trial image, shows a rather rebellious side to the person as well as a rather calm side also. in this image i really like the amount of contrast in the image, on both images i manged to get an equal amount of contrast on each layer. As they are both even i creates the look of the image being exposed twice with in the camera. Along with this the opacity on the top layer is balanced correctly. I think that the amount that i put on the top layer was just enough to be able to still clearly see that the layer is there while still drawing detail to the bottom layer.
Although i'm really pleased with how the final image came out there is a few things in the image that i think could have been improved. For example there is a few things that i think pulls the attention in the image that shouldn't, such as the id tag around the subjects neck. Although this isn't something major i think that it is still something that shouldn't have been in the image and when taking image in the future i need to be aware of things like this that should not be on the image. As well as this i think that fact that they eyes in each image are not level is something that could be improved in the image. When overlaying the images i found that trying to place the top image level with that of the bottom layer meant that i was cropping out most of the image. As a result i decided that it would be best to move to top level above the bottom. I think that next time planning the images more careful would be useful. This way i would be able to then put the camera on a tripod and ensure that the eyes will be almost level at all times making it easier to merge together.
Final Image 2
For this image i wanted to create a much more abstract image so for this i decided to mix a portrait image with a rather large background together with another background image. i was really pleased with how the final image turned out. I think that mixing the two backgrounds together created a really abstract image. As the one of the images was a rural scape and the other a graffiti wall i think that the two mix together and contrast well. Then adding the portrait image on top created a really ghostly effect on the image as you cannot see the eyes. i think that all these elements of the image makes it quite abstract. I found that mixing image like these together, background and portraits, was much easier than my other image and creating much strong, more artist and stronger images. i also like how by overlaying the background image over the portrait image, the girl almost looks translucent, for example her skirt is showing the background clearly as this was overlayed.
I think that the downfalls of this image is the image appears to be flat. By this i mean there is not much contrast between the highlights and the shadows i think that this image could be made stronger by adding alot more contrast between the colour. i think that this would add much more depth to the image and would make the different layed images clearer against one another.
Final Image 3
This was my third final image. I really did not like this image. As apposed to my other 2 image i think that this image is very weak. I wanted to try something different from what i did in my other images, so for this i decided that i would overlay a digital image of some tree branches over the face of the subject. I think that the use of the branches over the face turned out to be to busy and create a really fussy image. In this image you could also tell that the image had been overlayed. There wasn't much blending that went into the image, rather than i just layed it over the top. I think that this image seemed boring in comparison to my other image as this image seem flat where as the other image where rather abstract and held some kind of meaning where as in this image i just used two different image to create a double exposure image, not much thought went into the image. i feel that more experimental techniques could have been used on this image, such a coloring the negative, that would have made the image much more interesting and creative.
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