Photograms:

When I was first introduced to photograms I didn’t have the knowledge and understanding so I was unsure on what to create and what was the idea behind them. At the time I was grabbing random objects and placing them anywhere on the light sensitive paper and letting the enlarger and light do its job.

Once my photograms where produced all I could see where various objects randomly placed I didn’t see the point, it wasn’t till later on looking at my designs questioning what are they, that It came to me that each photogram I produced told a different story just by the objects I used. I found that they were graphic and abstract this helped with the story telling and because of this each individual person would have a different take on the photograms.

35mm Camera Black and White Film:

What I learnt about 35mm cameras are that they are not so easy to use like digital cameras were you can take as many photos as you want then delete, film cameras are more technical all the setting need to be right for it to take a perfect picture for example the shutter speed needs to line up with the aperture size and the focus needs to be pin sharp. Also using this type of camera is very restricting as I have a total of 36 shots to take in one film so planning and thinking about each shot is important. 

Analogue practise is very time consuming and that processing film is a skill and not so easy unless you know what to do. I first thought printing in the dark room would be fairly straight forward but there is more to it such as getting the right amount of light time to expose the light sensitive paper with, getting this wrong means either the print will be too dark or too light.

To get the right amount of time I had to create test strips increasing or decreasing the light time judging whether the image needs more or less light exposed, by practising with trail an error I started to get an understanding on the process. Every negative I use on the enlarger will need a different amount of time, again by using test strips I will be able to find out. 

To print my images in black and white I used light sensitive paper on this is a paste which contains animal gelatin and silver nitrates it’s this that when exposed to light reacts and changes its appearance to produce the image from the negative. To stop the paper from developing further once in light I had to place it in chemicals, each one played a different part for example- The Developer reacts with the paper developing  the positive print used from the negative film, it is important to agitate the chemical for one minute to keep the process working without agitating the chemical it basically dies and stops working. 

The Stop Bath- works instantly to halt the development on the paper 

The Fixer- works by washing away any left over silver nitrates that may be sensitive to the light, if this step wasn’t done the image would over time darken and fog so it is vital to leave the image submerged in the fixer for approximately five minutes.

Finally washing the image in water removes any remaining fixer which would over time corrode the image, leading to discolouration, staining and fading.

My first final print was of a sculpture and the big wheel in Liverpool I believe It has a strong composition and that is why I chose to experiment with it. I started by using test strips and increasing the exposure time by two seconds to a total of six. I felt that it was too light so I repeated the same process up to a total of eight seconds I believed this was the correct amount of time to use but I couldn’t be too sure because I could not compare it to a more exposed time so I tried another test strip to ten seconds an then found out that eight seconds was the right exposure time to use.

Using the same process again three more times meant I was able to create my other final prints again I used test strips to find out which would be the correct exposure time to use

Direct Positive Paper:

This type of paper is very clever it produces positive prints straight from the 5”x4” camera without the need for a negative,  this paper still requires the same chemical process as my final prints that I developed in the dark room.