History of photography
Photography really began in the 16th century during the rennisence, with artists becoming interested in the representation of nature and portraying its reality.The first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1826. In order to achive realism artist began to develop instruments to help them capture their perspectives, one of these i called a camera obscura which is i an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography and the camera
The dark room
There are three main chemicals we use in the dark room, developer is the first chemical I use in which the photo must be in for 2 miniutes, this makes the image appear. the developer is mixed 9:1 ratio water to developer, you can tell if the developer is old if it is gritty and has turned brown. The second chemical we use Is stop, this stops the picture from developing and the picture stays in here for 30 seconds, you can tell if it is old as it turns purple. the last chemical we use is fix, this finishes the photograph, the way in which we tell how long to leave our photograhy paper in for is by taking a piece of film and timing how long it takes for the film to go see through we then take this time and double it, that is the time you should leave your photograph in the chemical for it also helps us work out if the fix is old.
Pinhole cameras
We started off our course by making pinhole cameras, we used black card a created a box with a flap on one side, we covered one side in tin foil and poked a pin size hole through it, the result was a light tight box that one photo paper was loaded could be exposed for a number of seconds and produce an image, we took our cameras outside and lifted up the small flap we had made over the hole after many tries i concluded that 7 seconds was the perfect amount of exposure for my camera, we then took our cameras into the dark room and began developing our images by putting them through the developer, stop and fix we then had a negative image. to turn these images into positive I took my negative and place it on top of a new piece of photographic paper, using the enlarger with a short exposure and high aputure I exposed the paper under my negative image, then after putting the new photo paper through all the chemicals (developer, stop and fix) I created a positive image.
Photograms
We started to create photograms which is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light, first we had to create a test strip to see how long we needed to expose our objects for, i found that the test strip worked best with an exposure of 4 seconds and a high aputure. one we had the right composition of objects and the right exposure we created negative photograms. in order to then turn our negatives into postive we had to take anothe rpiece of photo paper and put it on top of our negative, then usuing a piece of glass so no light would escape and over expose areas of my photograph i exposed using the englarger , then once put through all of the chemicals created a positive image of my photogram, there where then many tequniues we were able to use such as:
Moving the object solarizing dodge and burn painting on developer
In order to create the effect of an object in more places than one i would keep all the objects still expect for one, in this case a pair of sissors. i would expose my image for 1 second at a time 4 times in order to reach the correct exposure. In between each exposure I would move the sissors this created the effect of a moving object. |
Painting on the developer means you have the power to control which parts of the imgae are more developed than others and can create effects that replicate shading, normally when you put your picture in the developer you want it all to develop evenlly at the same time but with painting it on you can create.....
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Toner scratching and drawing weaving layering
Capturing movement
Controversial image
Gerry Winogrand was very interested in zoos and mixed race couples which were very uncommon in the 1960s. This photograph is very well composed and quite disturbing nothing is as it seems, we hav a very attractive mixed race couple proudly walking through new york carrying a pair of chimpanzees as though they were their own babies. when first exhibited this photograph caused a sensation because n one understood what was going on and if any point was trying to be made. It remains to this day one of the most enigmatic images even taken.
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