D&AD New Blood Awards

The Decisive Moment is where the photographer captures a certain moment in a split second not a half a second more or after because the moment will have past, once it has past you can never recreate the moment again in terms of location and people.

For D&ad brief The Decisive Moment I was to use my own intuition to produce an image that is not disposable but represents a particular moment in time.

I struggled to spark up any ideas because I would always end up with an idea, which involved street photography but this area of photography is very common for the decisive moment so I wanted to stay away from this. I used prezi as a kind of mind map to spread out my ideas and see if any ideas had any potential that I could branch off on, the other ideas I come up with where slow motion and portraiture.

My slow motion idea was to capture water balloons popping and paint splattering but I didn’t have the right equipment, In the future I would like to experiment with slow motion photography, as it looks fun and interesting.

My portraiture idea stemmed from taken selfies and my passion for portraiture, this seemed to be the best option, as I wanted to make it personal, none disposable and interestingly funny. I made a throw away comment to classmates to do funny faces that I had done in the past but I couldn’t visualise them done professionally. It wasn’t until I was told do them because of how good the idea was that I become certain I will do them.

 

I am very happy with my funny face outcomes and I believe it speaks of the decisive moment because I have captured the movement and character within the models faces. I produced a set of six images in a grid because with the type of images I produced a set works well, but I am aware that the D&ad states one image, which is a shame.  

From the set of photos the image of Ben I believe is the strongest because it represented the decisive moment the most this is from the movement and character in his face. 

Experimental Practise - The Historic Process Part Two

Part Two – The Histroic Process

Now I have my digital negatives printed off I am ready to take them into the dark room but before that I had to apply liquid emulsion to water colour paper, this light sensitive emulsion can be applied to a multitude of surfaces, it is important to make sure I have applied an even coat to the paper and sometimes two coats as I found out with some of my prints the detail and colour lacked because of the uneven amount of emulsion.

Using my digital negatives to print is fairly straight forward once the paper is painted, firstly I have to find an average time to expose the light to the negatives so the image can transfer onto the light sensitive paper however this will only work if emulsion to emulsion is making contact.

From my six negatives I wanted to achieve four successful prints but looking threw them I can only find three, I believe if I experimented longer in the dark room I could of achieved a fourth. The image below is my favourite the effect the liquid emulsion has given works well with the subject I have photographed, it is very subtle and soft the colours are not too harsh.

Keeping with the same subject of Poland this image also worked well with the emulsion again it is very subtle and even complimenting the subject it is. I like the minimal detail and strong depth of field.

The third image that worked well is of a building outside Paris Photo I chose to turn it into a negative because of the detail and lighting, strong symmetry and the moon shining over the building made the image eye catching making me wants to experiment with the image.

One print that turned out not as good as the others was of Notre Dame, the reason for this is the liquid emulsion is uneven and the brush strokes are visible making the overall print flat and ruining the print because its destructive.

I have enjoyed working with liquid emulsion and experimenting with the technique and would like to use it again in the future especially with different materials such as wood etc.

Alternative Digital Image

Digital Imaging Part 2

For the Experimental Practice  I have explored with new techniques such as the digital pinhole and digital negatives, I started by creating my pinhole where I used a lens cap using a lens cap means images will be only be pure colour because I have no lens and glass to interfere. Taking a small square piece of aluminum I gentle tapped a tiny hole in the center this is where the light will enter hitting the censer, I then taped it to the lens cap which had a hole where it had been drilled directly in the middle.

I was now ready to go out an shoot I decided to go the beach as the weather was nice but not only that I had to think of a theme that would compliment the colours and outcomes of the images as pinhole produces a more softy outcome that is suitable for landscapes. The project is all about experimenting and that is what I did I took my tripod and shot at different heights and different long exposure times, some shots varied from 30 seconds to only 1.

The outcomes where hard to guess because of the type of technique I was using, without focus and knowledge experimenting is all I could do but I liked the idea of not knowing what I was going to produce.

Out of my final 6 images I have chosen this image is my favourite because the high exposure and no focus washes out parts of the landscape especially the iron man in the centre giving quite an extraterrestrial feel about the photo. I really like the unusual subtle purple colours the pinhole has created as on the day I shot these images the sky was blue and clear. I could say digital pinhole is unpredictable and that’s why experimenting with it was vital because it was unclear what the final outcomes would be.

This is my least favourite image from the set compared to the other five because it has less character and interest, I believe it just looks like a normal but bad portrait the colours are not as vibrant and unusual. I chose to use it in my set of six because it worked and it was coherent but looking at it as a single photo I dislike it. Overall I enjoyed experimenting with pinhole and would like to use it again in the future because depending on the theme and lighting the outcomes are very nice, I would like to use pinhole with a 35mm film camera I believe this would produce a whole different visual aspect and mood to the images.

To create my six digital negatives I started by picking out the best images from recent projects that would work well for being turned into a negative, which will be printing onto transparent film, but firstly I needed to take them into Photoshop to edit.

To change my images I started by going to the curve tool and adjusting the control points, after that I went to adjustments then mode and applied greyscale. The next steps where to invert and flip the canvas horizontal, once applying these settings to all of my images I was ready to print my negatives off and take them into the darkroom to experiment with liquid emulsion.