Final evaluation

Throughout this project I aimed capture the essence of experimental techniques which are featured within photography. Within this project I experimented with a lot of different techniques both within the darkroom and digitally within photoshop. In order to generate the image to work with within the dark room I shot two rolls of film, one black and white and one colour. With the black and white film, I took this to the darkroom and carried out various experimental techniques such as sandwiching negatives, photograms, solarisation and painting with developer. Creating these images was a lot of fun as it meant I was able to get hands on with the editing of these images. Through experimenting with different techniques within the dark room I found that creating photograms was my favourite to do as this was the simplest yet I feel that this technique is able to create some of the most interesting prints as you can use almost anything to aid the creation of photograms and if you use some of your negatives to create the photograms like I did, the detail from the negatives shows up on the photograms and this gives the print a lot of detail which you might not think would be easily created by simply placing items on a piece of photographic paper then lighting up the enlarger for a few seconds. In addition to this, another of the darkroom techniques I liked was painting with developer. I enjoyed this technique as it was very hands on and allowed a lot of creative freedom as you can paint the developer onto any part of the paper and only the pieces of paper with the developer on will be revealed with the image you have printed onto the paper. This technique allows you to be very creative as you could even paint a small picture with the developer and have the photograph show through this. My least favourite technique to carry out within the darkroom was solarisation. This is because although the effect of this technique was very unique and different, I found it very tricky to get this technique right as you have to work very fast and as there was quite a lot of people within the dark room at the time and the area where I was trying to work was a little crowded, I feel that my solarised images were not as good as they could have been as they feel a little rushed and this technique is one which you cannot take a lot of time with. I enjoyed experimenting with techniques, however solarisation was my least favourite. As well as experimental techniques within the darkroom, I also experimented digitally with techniques within photoshop. The techniques I used to digitally edit my images include colour popping, overlaying textures, adding borders, panoramic images and creating pinhole effect images. My favourite digital experimental technique to create was definitely colour popping as I love how much freedom was involved in the process of this as you get to choose exactly which parts of the image you want In colour and which parts you want to be in black and white and you can have as much or as little colour as you like. There is a lot of creative freedom within this process and this is the main reason I enjoy this. Another reason I love this technique so much is because when you are creating the colour popped image, it feels as though you are colouring in the photograph and it makes me feel as though I am a child again with a colouring book or something. My least favourite experimental technique which I created within photoshop was the adding of borders. This was my least favourite as I feel that when I added the borders to the image, it did not really add much to the image and the images looked a little boring to say quite a bit of effort went into making them. I have physical prints from my roll of black and white film but unfortunately I was not able to get into the colour darkroom so I do not have any prints from this shoot however the negatives from this shoot are included with my darkroom folder even though they never got made into actual prints as I was not able to get into the colour darkroom. By doing this project I have learnt about a lot of different techniques both digital and within the darkroom which I did not previously know how to do so I feel that this meant that my project was a success. Overall I enjoyed this project a lot as I love changing the way my photographs look and that is what this whole project was about. This project was a lot of fun as there was a lot of creative freedom throughout the entire project which I like a lot. I really enjoy being able to put my own spin onto my photographs.  This means that overall I am happy with the way this project turned out.

Exhibition planning

Leeds film photoshoot evaluation

Leeds colour film photoshoot planning

exhibition planning

pin hole effect images

Pinhole images are images which are created with the use of a pinhole camera. Pinhole cameras work without the use of a lens and instead a small hole in the front of the camera which lets light pass through to project an image of what is in front of the camera onto whatever is on the other side of the hole made in the front. This phenomenon is known as camera obscura and was first referenced between 470 and 390 BC (years 284 to 364). When the image is projected, the image will be inverted as light only travels in straight lines resulting in the projected image being upside down. Pinhole image have a few distinct characteristics which make them stand out from other photographs. One of these characteristics is long exposure times. This is because the pin hole in the front of the camera is so small that it only lets a very small amount of light through it this means that a longer exposure time is required in order to get a good and visible photograph. other characteristics of pinhole photography include wide angle views, soft focus, lack of focus towards the edges of the photograph and vignetting on the corners of the photograph (darkened corners). As pinhole photography has these characteristics, it means they have their own look which can be replicated digitally within Photoshop. Below, I have done just that and taken some architecture images and edited them within Photoshop to make them look as though they were taken with a pinhole camera.

This is one of the images which i created. this is a photograph of Seville cathedral which I took whilst on a trip there around 2 years ago. in order to create this image i first edited the colour slightly by adding grain to the image in order to make it look as though the photograph was taken using film taking some of the colour out by lowering the saturation slightly then upping the contrast as this is the effect that pinhole images usually have. After this i added a radial blur to the image to make the edges of the photograph blurred and making the focus drop more and more towards the edges of the photograph, the last thing i did was darkening the corners. i did this by creating a small border then changest the lightness to the darkest possible setting. this made the edges and corners of this photograph slghtly darker, once i had done this, the pinhole effect was created within this photograph and i am very happy with the way this pinhole effect image looks.

This is another image i edited within photoshop to create the pinhole effect. This was edited in the exact same way as the previous one however i dont feel that this one worked as well as the last as the bright white sky makes the darkened corners a lot more prominent and i feel that the edges and corners may be a little too dark for this effect to properly work and look fully effective. had the edges and corners been a little softer i feel that this would be a lot better.

this is another image which i edited in the pinhole style within photoshop. this was edited in the exact same way as the others and i think this is my favourite out if the photographs i edited in this style as i feel that this one looks the most natural and it looks as though it has not been overly edited and looks as though it could have been taken using a pinhole camera. i am very happy with the way this photograph was edited and they way it turned out.

this is another photograph i edited in the pinhole style within photoshop, again, this photograph was edited in the exact same way as the others but again, the corners and edges are too dark for this photograph and this has resulted in the image looking overly edited and less like a photograph which was actually taken using a pin hole camera. The corners and edges of this photograph are so dark as i added 2 layers of the border as when i added the first border i felt that it was not dark enough and did not make much of a difference to the image so i chose to add another. looking back at this photograph now that it had been fully edited i realise that with this effect and the vignette at the corners, less is more and the vignette is supposed to be subtle rather than too obvious like this is. I feel that had the vignette on this image not been as strong and slightly more subtle this image would look a lot better and work a lot better as a pin hole effect image

abstract architecture

Abstract photography is photography in which the subject is somewhat distorted so that you can not tell from the first look what it is. Abstract photography is done by taking photographs in unique ways and often only capturing sections of the subject. This can be done by taking the photographs from a different angle or from close up. this means that the subject matter of the photograph can be the same as a regular photograph however it has a completely different look. when experimenting with abstract photography, i chose a subject to photograph then took one photograph in an abstract style then another in a conventional manor so a comparison can be made between the two photographs. in order to make this this comparison easier, I edited the two photographs together to make a diptych so the two photographs can be viewed side by side. here are the diptychs i created.

this is the first diptych i created with an abstract image and a regular image of the same subject matter. these photographs are of a pillar which i came across whilst i was on a trip to the photography show in Birmingham. I chose to photograph this pillar as  i liked its shiny appearance. the first photograph shown here is the abstract image. In order to take this abstract photograph, i got up close to the pillar and shot from the bottom looking up. I am quite happy with the way this image turned out however, it is not as abstract as it could have been as you can still kind of tell that this is a photograph of a pillar. the second photograph shown here is a standard photograph of the same pillar. i took this in a normal fashion meaning that the entirety of the pillar is shown. this photograph is solely so show what the abstract image is of and how it usually looks if you were to see it whilst walking past. the second image in this diptych was rotated as i realised that when i was taking this photograph, i shot the first image in landscape and the second was taken in portrait so in order for these images to fit together in a diptych one of them needed to be rotated so i chose to rotate the second one.  

this is another diptych i created using an abstract image and a normal image of the same subject matter. these photographs are of a stairway which i found when i was on a trip to the photography show in Birmingham. I chose to photograph this stairway as i felt i would be able to easily create an abstract type image from this. the first image shown here is the normal image of the stairs. this image was taken to show what the stairway usually looks like when you are stood at the bottom of them. the second photograph is the abstract image taken of the same stairway. this photograph was taken while standing on the stairs looking down. each of the stripes is a step so this photograph is just a birds eye view of the stairs. i think that this works well as an abstract image as when you are looking at this photograph you cannot tell what this photograph was told without being told.

This is another diptych i created within photoshop to show an abstract image and a normal image which were taken including thr same subject matter. These photographs were taken of a bench which, again, i found whilst on a trip to the photography show in Birmingham. I chose to photograph this bench at first because i liked the colour but then realised that the pattern within the bench would create a good image for the abstract photograph. the first photograph shown within this diptych is the abstract style image. this photograph was taken from close up so the holes in the bence and the rain droplets are visible however, not much else is visible within this photograph. this means that you cannot properly tell what this photograph is of meaning that this photograph works well as an example of abstract photography. The second photograph shown here is a normal photograph of the same bench. in order to take this photograph i stood a few steps back from this bench and took a photograph which showed off the entire bench so it was obvious what the photograph was of. 

overall i feel that abstract photography is very interesting as i like how you can take a photograph of something in such a way that it is distorted so that you can no longer tell what the subject of the photograph is at first glance.